Mothers in Prison

Regardless of which theory experts use to explain the increasing numbers of women serving time in U.S. correctional facilities, the consequences remain the same. Women represent the fastest growing segment of the rapidly expanding U.S prison population and approximately four out of five incarcerated women are mothers. Two-thirds of these women have children under the age of eighteen. In September of 2005, there were an estimated 513,000 children in foster care.



It is clear that children are greatly affected when their mothers are incarcerated and many suffer from feelings of guilt, anger, fear, grief, rejection, shame, and loneliness. Studies done on children with incarcerated parents have shown that these children often demonstrate poor school performance and increased aggressive behavior In addition to the loss and instability that the incarceration of their mother creates, numerous children may become more susceptible to things such as poverty, physical or sexual abuse, or witnessing violence. Even though women make up a smaller percentage of our inmate population, it is important to study this group because women play a crucial role as mothers in the lives of the next generation.

Women's Prison Culture

In their book Convict Criminology, authors Richards and Ross incorporate a chapter comprised of several sections to help those reading understand women in prison. There’s an interesting section that discusses women’s prison culture. When women are sent to prison, they are forced to learn to live in an institution that was developed in response to deviant male prison behavior. A woman’s prison experience is different than that of a man’s; hence their reaction to prison is different as well. Several studies done in the late 1960s and early 1970s found noticeable similarities between three women’s prisons in regards to prison subculture. First, they found that the world of women’s prison is substantially different from that of the male culture. Second, they discovered that prison culture among women was directly related to gender role expectations of sexuality and family. Furthermore, the women’s prison identities were somewhat based on their identities outside of prison.



Female inmates, particularly first-timers, must learn the rules and roles of prison culture in order to survive their incarceration. These inmates soon find out that prison is filled with uncertainty and begin to negotiate routines and strategies to help themselves deal with and adapt to this new world. The women learn to live in prison through interactions with other prisoners. As they adjust to life in prison, they form friendships and “prison families” or “play-families”. “Prison families” usually develop complex emotional relationships that can have a practical or sexual basis. These families have social and material responsibilities that include anything from providing friendship and support, celebrating birthdays and holidays to providing food, cigarettes, and clothing.



Richards and Ross conclude the chapter by stating the trying to understand women in prison has led many to ask why women are incarcerated in the first place. In order to find the answer, one must examine the demographic characteristics, pathways to imprisonment, public policy, and its specific impact on women.

Women in Prison

In 1991, the Bureau of Justice Statistics published a special report in which the U.S. Department of Justice included an inclusive survey of female State prison inmates. This survey collected information regarding the female offenders’ current offenses, criminal histories, family backgrounds, children, drug and alcohol use, prior physical and sexual abuse, and health issues.

A majority of the female inmates in State prisons at the time were over the age of 30, high school graduates or holders of a GED, and considered an ethnic minority. In addition, many of the female offenders were unmarried, mothers of children under the age of 18, and had grown up in homes without both parents present. Nearly 50 percent of these women reported that they had been physically or sexually abused before entering prison. More than half of the female inmates also reported that an immediate family member had also served time. Overall, female inmates largely resembled male inmates in terms of race, ethnic background, and age. In spite of this, women are far more likely than men to be serving time for a drug offense and are less likely to be sentenced for a violent crime. In March of 1994, Lawrence A. Greenfield, Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Justice, stated that this report provided results of the most comprehensive survey of women confined in State prisons ever undertaken.



Rape is a major concern for many state prison systems. In her book, author Cyndi Banks discusses the issue of rape in prison. Of course, female are not the only victims, male prisoners also fall victim to rape and sexual assault in prison. In 2001, the Human Rights Watch conducted a study on male rape in U.S. prisons and found that it far more persistent and widespread than prison authorities are willing to acknowledge. However, studies have shown that women are more likely to be raped by employees of the prison, while men are more likely to be raped by other inmates. Unfortunately, if a woman is raped in prison, she may not see her case reach a criminal trial. The Human Rights Watch, in its investigation into five state prisons, pointed out that criminal prosecution rarely occurred. For women who have been raped in prison, it is virtually impossible to obtain justice from the criminal justice system.






Link to Bureau of Justice Statistics "Women in Prison" survey:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/wopris.pdf

Most Common Crimes Women Commit

Throughout our nation's history, female offenders have been largely forgotten by a criminal justice system that was designed to control and rehabilitate men. Some experts argue that gender is the best predictor of criminal behavior. Overall, women have lower arrest rates for nearly all crime classifications except prostitution. Since the 1960s, the amount of female arrests has typically been less than 15% for homicide and aggravated assault and less than 10% for serious property crimes such as burglary and robbery.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, in which victims were asked about the gender of their perpetrator, if he or she was seen, found that women are more likely to commit minor property crimes that include larceny-theft, fraud, forgery, and embezzlement. Female arrests for this crime category have been as high as 40% since the mid-1970s. The thefts and fraud committed by women usually involve shoplifting (larceny-theft), "bad checks" (forgery or fraud), and welfare and credit fraud. Self-report studies also confirm the Uniform Crime Report patterns which show that there is relatively low female involvement in serious offenses and greater involvement in less serious criminal activity.

During my reading this week, I came across some interesting ideas and proposals. According to author Samuel Walker, conservatives believe that many dangerous criminals beat the system and elude punishment simply by pleading guilty to a lesser charge and if these dangerous criminals are ultimately convicted, they are not sent to prison. In order to solve this issue, Walker suggests that we should prosecute career criminals, abolish the insanity defense, get rid of plea bargaining, and put tighter restrictions on appeals.

No matter what method we choose to endorse, with the purpose of revamping the criminal justice system, two questions still remain:


Is the criminal justice system steadily closing the gap with regard to women who commit crimes or are more women are simply being charged with crimes?

A Contemporary Perspective on Female Crime

A social-biological approach has emerged in the most recent research on female criminality. This area of study attributes female crime to a number of factors including: parental deprivation and an inability to adjust to "feminine roles"; psychiatric and familial disorders; impaired physical health; sexual corruption; behavior disorders; and premenstrual and menstrual syndromes. Researchers who have utilized the social-biological approach obtained substantial results when comparing nonoffenders or minor offenders (drug use or prostitution) to violent or habitual female offenders. These researchers found a strong correlation between violent female offenders and numerous factors such as alcohol abuse, problems with impulse control, and neurological abnormalities. Evidence in this field also showed that a broken home is one of the strongest predictors of delinquency among females. Some assert that the consequences of family disorganization are far more detrimental for females due to the greater importance of the family for their supervision and attachment to conventional norms.

With some exceptions, the factors found to be the most prominent in crime among males are also influential in crime among females. Given that society places stricter cultural constraints on female behavior, females who become delinquent or violent appear to deviate more significantly from the norm – biologically, psychologically, or sociologically, – according to the social-biological perspective. Thus, females who make the conscious decision to engage in criminal activity must travel a "greater moral and psychological distance than males".

Making a Deal with the Devil

July 4, 2008 marked the 232rd annual celebration of our nation's independence from British rule, which gave way to the birth of Democracy. In 2005, July 4 became a day known to some as the day one in which one of Canada's most infamous female serial killers was released from prison after serving only 12 years. During my readings and research last week, while preparing to celebrate the July 4th holiday, I came across an extensive list of convicted female murderers. One in particular caught my attention.

Karla Homolka was born on May 4, 1970 in Port Credit, Canada. The oldest of three children, she was often described as attractive, well-adjusted, smart, and popular by family and friends. Karla developed a passion for animals and went to work at a veterinary clinic after she graduated from high school. In 1987, Homolka attended a pet convention where she met her future husband, Paul Bernardo. The two began dating and discovered that they had the same sado-masochistic desires and Karla became obsessed with fulfilling Paul's unusual fantasies. Soon, Karla began to drug young teenage girls - including her younger sister, Tammy - with medication stolen from the vet clinic and allowed Paul to rape the young girls. One teenager, named Jane, managed to survive the violent sexual attacks that were captured on videotape. Unfortunately, Leslie Mahaffy did not survive. Leslie was kidnapped, taken to the couple's home, and raped repeatedly over several days, were Homolka and Bernardo videotaped many of the assaults. They eventually killed Leslie, cut her body into pieces, encased the pieces in cement, and threw the cement into a lake. On June 29, 1991, a couple canoeing on the lake found Leslie's remains.

Kristen French, just 15-years-old, was kidnapped by the couple on April 16, 1992 from a church parking lot. For several days, the couple tortured, humiliated, and sexually abused the young girl capturing the horrible, inhumane events on camera. Her body was found on April 30.

(From left to right: Tammy Homolka, Leslie Mahaffy, and Kristen French)

Homolka was arrested and convicted in 1993 for her involvement in the drugging, raping, torturing, and murdering of the three teenagers, including her 15-year-old sister Tammy. Homolka's short 12 year sentence was the result of a plea bargain that was reached in exchange for her testimony. Some called it the worst plea bargain in Canadian history and the government was accused of 'making a deal with the Devil'. Homolka claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse at the hand's of her husband. Paul Bernardo on all counts of rape and murder and is currently serving a life sentence in a Canadian prison. This case serves as an important example that aids in substantiating the need for the study of female criminality, so that one day we can create prevention tools to stop similar tragic events from happening in the future.

Freud on Female Criminality

Unlike Lombroso, Sigmund Freud believed that female criminality was more of a psychological aberration rather than a biological phenomenon. However, both Lombroso and Freud considered females to be biologically inferior to males. In 1933, during his psychoanalytic research, Freud described female offenders as passive, narcissistic, and masochistic. He insisted that these defective characteristics were caused by a "masculinity complex" or by a perpetual state of mind that he called "penis envy". Freud theorized that this "physical deficiency" made women "morally inferior"and unable to control their impulses. This, in turn, affected areas of a female's brain such as the intellectual sphere.

Surprisingly, Freud did not directly attribute female criminality to superego weakness. The superego holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals. It is our sense of right and wrong and provides the guidelines for making judgements according to Freud. Nevertheless, he maintained that females were "inclined toward crime because of their 'anatomical' deficiency. Freud's ideas have been virtually dismissed in modern day psychology and psychiatry fields.

Many criminologists, psychologists, and other researchers have devised countless hypotheses to explain the actions of female offenders. During my reading this week, I came across a statement that I believe holds true in this context. David E. and Melissa Hickman Barlow, authors of Police in a Multicultural Society, stated that people perceived as a "problem population" are marginalized and ostracized and are viewed as a problem because of their potential to disrupt social order. In this instance, women who commit crime are the "problem population" and researchers marginalize them by referring to them as abnormal or insufficient in one way or another. In their minds, there must be some radical explanation as to why women commit crime. What if female offenders do, in fact, have the same reasons for committing criminal acts as male offenders? Does the criminology field really need to study female criminality and formulate an assortment of theories separate from those of male criminals?