The women's honor unit : case study of a women's prison

Three ideas about women's criminality directed this analysis. Women prisoners have consistently been described as either immoral, incompetent, or sick. The goal of this research was to examine the social realities of these three ideas in the personal lives of women prisoners. The research utilized participant-observation techniques in developing an intimate familiarity with eleven prisoners as research sources, as well as an understanding of the realities of prison in the lives of the twenty four felons incarcerated at the Women's Honor Unit (W.H.U.) of the New Mexico State Department of Corrections in Albuquerque. A women's prison may be viewed as a subculture of women within the dominant patriarchal society where women develop life styles in relation to other women. Many of the particularly masculine aspects of social life were seldom found in this prison for women,and others were adapted to fit the particular needs of females. In the morality of the women at the W.H.U., talk played an important role. Talk was used to order groups, to sanction deviants and to reward conformity. Talk aroused strong emotions: it was remembered and controlled behavior long after it was in the past. The potential for talk in ordering human relations was an important aspect of social life in a subculture of women. On a conservative estimate, eighty percent of incarcerated women are mothers. This research studied threats to that identity among women prisoners. Analysis showed that loss of the major identity of mother was destructive to the self esteem of female prisoners and was likely to interfere with any positive outcomes expected for them. Adaptations to life inside the prison did not prepare women for competence in social life. Instruction of the major identity of mother leaves women prisoners personally unfulfilled, causes family conflict and disruption and brings untold hardships to thousands of children every year. In prison, time is the punishment. Doing time has a strong negative impact on behavior and expectations. It concretizes temporality and gives it an overwhelming character which is distorted and alienating. Doing time in a total institution interferes with personal control and creativity and detracts from prisoners' potentials for beginning anew. A women's prison is but one form of asylum, but it is an exceptional form because of the extremes of control found there and the lack of permeability to the society outside. Life in such a total institution is neither rehabilitative nor retributive. The goal of correction was lost. Instead, the goal of management had become paramount. The director of the prison was an administrator. His supervision was aimed at efficient management; other personal concerns were ignored. In each of the three areas; morality, incompetence, and sickness, this research has shown that explanations of behavior must take the structure of the setting into account as well as the personal meaning systems of the prisoner. From such a perspective honor became a matter of survival, incompetence was imposed by the situation and sickness was related to alienation. The W.H.U. was a microcosm of the destitution of the system of corrections in the United States. It was a source of dishonor to the society which supports it.