Svensson

What Goes on inside Women’s Prisons

Growing up I always wanted to be a lawyer and would watch shows like How to Get

Away with Murder and Criminal Minds whenever they were on because it was fascinating to see

lawyers who had the power to prove people innocent even when it seemed impossible. I

remember one character in particular on How to Get Away with Murder that took criminal justice

to another level, and that was Analise Keating. Analise runs her own law firm and is a professor

at her local college, and she teaches a law class called How to Get Away with Murder. Together

with her team of students and assistants they represent criminals and innocent people being

framed for murder and other high level crimes. I remember watching this show for the first time

and being inspired by her confidence and ability to win her cases every time even when everyone

was against her, which is what inspired this topic. For this project I decided on criminal justice,

more specifically violence against women who are incarcerated. Initially, I wanted to research

people in prisons who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced for crimes they did not commit,

but since it is such an eclectic topic it was not something that would make a valid research

question or meet the guidelines of the project. Then I thought about researching mass

incarceration and investigating why the numbers of incarceration have surged so much over the

years, but it was not enough to research and write an 8-10 page paper on. Then I got to thinking

and doing some research on the issues that are most common in prisons throughout the United

States. I found that one of the leading issues is violence against women which was a perfect topic

because it also

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 entailed researching mass incarceration, but there was more to it. Once the topic was

decided it was much easier to create a research question around which is: why is violence in

prisons such a widespread issue for women across the U.S?

To understand this topic in better detail, here is some insight on these prisons to gain a

better understanding of why so many women are incarcerated and what prisons are doing to help

them cope. Not all, but a lot of women end up in jails and prisons because they were in a

situation where they had to defend themselves against violent partners and had to pay the

consequences. Bad Girls, a podcast that looks at the future and history of a Louisiana

correctional institute for women, talks about some of the challenges the women faced at the

facility as a result of limited education and overcrowding. It is mentioned in the podcast that “A

majority of incarcerated women are a direct result of domestic violence,” (Overton). In another

podcast called Life in Prison the host interviews two women who were incarcerated at Dayton

Correctional Institution in Ohio. The women shared their own stories about what it was like

being incarcerated and one of them reported, “Many women were incarcerated at Dayton

because of actions taken in self defense against abusive partners,” (Beck). This is important

because it is a recurring pattern in multiple prisons throughout the U.S, not just one or two, so it

is an issue that affects a lot of women and contributes to much of the trauma and violence they

experience. To help women in these prisons there are programs in place to teach inmates trades

and get them back into the workforce as well as provide training for fields like cosmetology,

welding or heavy equipment operations. They also have educational programs such as basic adult

reading and writing, a high school GED class, culinary classes and reintegration classes in order

to be productive when they re-enter society. These programs are designed to help women build

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healthy relationships, not rely on drugs and alcohol to cope with the violence they have

experienced and provide many opportunities for personal growth.

These are some of the possible reasons why violence is one of the leading issues in

prisons. The first is that jails in America are a mess, which influences violence among inmates.

According to Keri Blakinger’s journal “Why so Many Jails are in a State of Complete

Meltdown” David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison

Project stated, “It’s hard to believe, but it seems jails are even more wretched than usual these

last few months.” Although jails and prisons are not quite the same, they serve the same purpose,

and that is to hold people who have been charged with crimes. Jails are where people go after

they have been arrested and are awaiting a trial, where they serve a sentence up to one year after

being convicted of low level crimes. Prisons are for people sentenced to one year or more for

higher level crimes. Fathi also said, “Having worked in this field for 30 years, I don’t remember

any other time when there seem to be so many large jails in a state of complete meltdown.” This

is a direct result of overcrowding and understaffing in prisons which is causing many issues,

including violence and sexual abuse throughout the jails. In Summer of 2022, numerous prisons

and jails held more people than they had in years, and with what little staff these jails did have, it

is still not enough to watch every inmate's actions, which means they are able to get away with

more. Another source, Davis Cuevas, president of Harris County Sheriff's Office deputies union

in Houston stated, “Our jail facilities are at capacity. It is truly not safe.” This means there is an

increased risk of not just guards and people who work there getting hurt, but inmates as well.

One guard at Houston’s overcrowded Harris County Jail reported that she and her coworkers

started carrying knives to work because they were afraid they would not have backup if violence

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broke out. That says a lot about what the inmates experience everyday being incarcerated in such

an environment, which is why it is so important to have resources in place to help them.

Disproportionate representation influences the relationship between African American

womanhood, mass incarceration and contributes to the violence they experience in prisons. In

Kali Nicole Gross’s journal “African American Women, Mass Incarceration, and the Politics of

Protection” she explains that, “By 2011, when upward of 1 million women were either

incarcerated or otherwise under the control of the justice system, between 85 percent and 90

percent of those women reported a history of domestic and sexual violence as opposed to 22.3

percent of women nationally.” This means that a majority of these women either experienced

domestic violence, sexual violence or both prior to being incarcerated, or experienced this while

they were under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system. That is at least 850,000-900,000

women who have experienced some form of violence against them. Close to 1,000,000 and that

number is only increasing now that the amount of incarcerated women has also been increasing

over the years. According to Gross, “On November 28, 2013, Marissa Alexander was freed from

a Florida prison after serving three years of her twenty-year sentence. Her crime: firing a

warning shot during a confrontation with her estranged abusive husband a man against whom she

had a restraining order.” Wrongful conviction and or over sentencing of minor crimes in cases of

self defense puts not all, but a lot of women in a position where they are convicted and sentenced

to jail and or prison time and therefore have an increased chance of becoming exposed to

violence, in which case there is nothing they can do about it.

The population of women in jails is surging as well as the need for addressing the

traumatic past experiences that contribute to their convictions and the violence they experience

while incarcerated. There is research and evidence that shows women in prisons are more likely

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to experience some form of violence while they are incarcerated. In Yunsoo Park’s article

“Addressing Trauma in Women’s Prisons” he highlights women's past traumatic experiences

including childhood trauma, often leads to incarceration where they continue to live those

traumatic violent situations. He states, “Incarcerated women are more likely to experience a

range of violence and other victimizations, as well as other traumatic experiences, prior to being

incarcerated. All play a major role in their pathways to involvement with the criminal justice

system. Furthermore, incarcerated women are more likely to experience victimization while

incarcerated.” Studies have shown that women who have experienced intimate partner violence

are thirteen times more likely to engage in violence towards their partner than non victimized

women. This puts them in a cycle where they experience violence, lash out, and end up in a

position where they are more prone to experience the same type of trauma. The article also

mentions that, “The number of incarcerated women increased by more than 750% from 1980

through 2017, with women of color being disproportionately incarcerated at 1.3 (for Hispanic

women) to 2 (for Black women) times the rate of white women in 2017,” (Park). According to

Park, “Given the sharp increase in the population of incarcerated women, as well as the range of

trauma and victimization that incarcerated women experience both prior to and during

incarceration, development of policies, practices and programs that address these women’s needs

and experiences in trauma-informed ways is crucial.” It is vital that the violence these women

have experienced prior to or while incarcerated is addressed and they are able to get the help they

need, especially since incarceration rates have risen as it is the only way to prevent this cycle

from continuing.

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 Violence in women's prisons is an issue directly related to power and gender inequality.

In Jenny Brooke Condon’s article “#METOO IN PRISON” she states, “In 1833, a New York

prison Chaplin opined that imprisonment for men was difficult, but "to be a female convict, for

any protracted period, would be worse than death. Incarcerated women at that time faced the

constant threat of sexual abuse, which, in part, later fueled the push for separate women's

facilities.” Imagine if things were that bad in the early 1800’s how horrible it must be now,

almost 200 years later. She also said, “At the country's largest women's prison in Florida and the

largest federal prison for women in Dublin, California, the story is the same. In 2021, the warden

at Dublin was fired and arrested for sexual abuse including forcing women held there to strip and

be photographed naked on his government-issued cellphone. According to the reporters who

helped uncover the abuse, the prison's "toxic culture" led the facility to be dubbed the 'rape club’

by many who know it,” (Condon). Abuse of power from people in higher positions at these

prisons, such as guards and wardens, contribute to the violence and trauma these women

experience. Anyone who is convicted and sentenced to time in prison or jail deserves at the very

least to serve their sentence, no matter how long and have the chance to grow and learn so that

they do not go down the same road that got them there in the first place. They should be able to

do so without having to worry about people in positions of higher power taking advantage of a

situation and doing more harm to them.

Experiences with childhood victimization, substance abuse and ongoing involvement in

the criminal justice system significantly increase chances of violence as an adult. According to

the article “Trajectories of victimization to violence among incarcerated women, “Childhood

victimization has been previously linked to a pathway of criminal involvement. These studies

have shown that younger starting age of antisocial behaviors is significantly related to a

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trajectory of conduct problems, criminal justice involvement for girls, and adult-perpetrated

violence,” (Messina, Saxina). Experiences and trauma during childhood can impact the behavior

later on as an adult, which is why it is so important to intervene and help these girls and women

early on so that they do not end up on the wrong path. Here is part of an interview with Dennis

DeVito who was a captain at the Walnut Creek Police Department for 31 years and retired as a

chief. He spoke on some of his experiences and what these local prisons looked like from the

perspective of someone with the skills and knowledge over many years. When asked if he

believed that trauma and violence could lead to a criminal path he said, “Yeah, I mean it can sure

if somebody when their young is traumatized and victimized and that's what their learning, their

learning that violence is the road and the path to go there so I think yeah it does, it can lead to

that sure.” In most cases, childhood victimization and trauma can in fact lead to a significant

increase in the chances of being incarcerated. When asked if he could put anything in place to

help women who have experienced violence while they have been incarcerated DeVito stated,

Early intervention, getting into their lives early and helping them understand the rules of

society. But I think you need to get early intervention cause I mean it comes a point in my

opinion where it's just too late. I mean it’s a learned behavior that's the only thing you've known

all your life, not that people can't get out of there but you know a woman who’s been using drugs

and you know a prostitute because she needs the drugs and has a pimp that beats her up. It's

really hard to get out of that thing, it becomes a spiral that they can’t get out of and so you know

you gotta get the early intervention to prevent them from getting into that spiral.

As DeVito pointed out, substance abuse in some cases leads to a cycle of committing crimes and

this ongoing involvement with the criminal justice system which becomes a very difficult pattern

to break, and that is what is putting these women in a more vulnerable position to experience acts

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violence while they are incarcerated. Whether in a prison or jail, it is no secret that this is an

ongoing issue, and not just in a few states but many across the United States and it has been for

many years.

After extensive and challenging research over many months, the most reasonable answer

to the question about violence in prisons for women is that childhood victimization and trauma

related to ongoing involvement in the criminal justice system significantly increases the chances

of incarceration, and therefore continuous violence as an adult. The reason why this is the best

answer is because after conducting research, it kept coming back to trauma and violence during

childhood. Studies have shown that a large percent of incarcerated women had reported

significant psychological trauma in the years preceding their convictions. This is important

because it is still an ongoing issue today. One article stated, “Nearly two hundred years later,

however, and with separate women's facilities now housing more people than ever before, the

threat of sexual abuse has not dissipated,” (Condon). This is a major issue. If these women are

not getting the help they need and act out in a violent way toward their partner or someone else,

they pay the consequences when they are convicted, then there are more people in prisons

creating overcrowding. It becomes a cycle where they are more prone and become more

vulnerable to experiencing those same traumatic experiences or worse. It is important to become

more educated about some of the issues that are going on in these prisons. If there is more

awareness surrounding the issue and what some of these women have gone through, it is much

easier to support them and find ways to integrate more resources to help them cope, and

hopefully keep a majority of women out of these prisons.

Works Cited

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Beck, Melissa, host. "Life in Prison." Call Declined, narrated by Aimee Wissman

and Kamisha Thomas, season 2, episode 2, Sozosei Foundation, 4 Dec. 2023.

Apple podcasts, omny.fm/shows/call-for-help/call-declined-life-in-prison.

Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

Blakinger, Keri. "Why so Many Jails are in a ‘State of Complete Meltdown’: Overcrowding,

Violence and Abuse Proliferate at Jails Across the Country, as Staffing Problems make Long-

Simmering Problems Worse." The Marshall ProjectThe Marshall Project, 2022. ProQuest,

https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/why-so-many-jails-are-state-complete-

meltdown/docview/2731855202/se-2.

Condon, Jenny-Brooke. "#METOO IN PRISON." Washington Law Review, vol. 98, no. 2, 2023,

pp. 363-425. ProQuest,

https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/metoo-prison/docview/2852769504/se-2.

DeVito, Dennis. Personal interview, March 3, 2024

Gross, Kali Nicole. “African American Women, Mass Incarceration, and the Politics of

Protection.” The Journal of American History, vol. 102, no. 1, 2015, pp. 25–33. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/44286133. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.

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Messina, Nena, and Preeta Saxina. "Trajectories of victimization to violence

among incarcerated women." Health and Justice, BMC, 27 July 2021,

healthandjusticejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40352-021-00144-8.

Accessed 7 Mar. 2024.

Overton, Woody, and Jim Chapman, hosts. "Bad Girls." Bloody Angola, 14 Feb.

2024. Apple podcast.

Park Ph.D., Yunsoo. "Addressing Trauma in Women's Prisons." National Institute

of Justice, 11 May 2022, nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/

addressing-trauma-womens-prisons. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

VanNatta, Michelle. "Conceptualizing and Stopping State Sexual Violence Against Incarcerated

Women." Social Justice, vol. 37, no. 1, 2010, pp. 27-52. ProQuest,

https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/conceptualizing-stopping-state-sexual-violence/

docview/906020943/se-2.

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