Feminine Fortresses: Women Centered Prisons?

By Kelly Hannah-Moffat





The Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women stressed several principles as the basis for a new woman centered correctional model in its report “Creating Choices” such as: empowerment, meaningful choices, respect and dignity and a supportive environment (Hannah-Moffat). However, Corrections Canada was given exclusive discretionary power over implementing task force recommendations with limited outside input. Wardens were

placed in control of the implementation process, given discretion in deciding the plans for new prisons and the authorization to redefine recommendations of the community (pp.141- 146). The author also points out that a feminist vision of justice can reproduce inequalities by treating ‘women’ as a homogenous group that fails to recognize relations of power among women in different social sites (pg. 145). By constructing two distinct models of corrections, male and women centered, a coercive therapeutic approach will be justified in women penal institutions and perceived as less oppressive because women prisoners will be seen to experience security, control and discipline differently than men

(pp. 146).





Although the construction of new facilities is promoted on the platform of

‘incorporating environmental factors that promote wellness’, the architectural design of the prison conforms to standards that prioritize public, safety, surveillance and discipline through the use of a Panopticon design, solitary confinement, and repressive institutional rules designed to punish non-conformity by labeling prisoners through segregation (pp.146-157). Empowerment is used in the responsibilization of women through the

technology of self-government that requires women to take responsibility for their actions, make meaningful choices to meet the objectives of authority (pp.158).



A Brief History of Doing Time:



The California Institution for Women in the 1960s and 1990s by Candace Kruttschnitt Data was gathered through surveys that asked participants to respond to ten statements with interviews conducted afterwards. It was found that prisoners, regardless of time period related towards each other and to staff members with expressions of detachment and distrust (pp. 291). Women sought individual and private solutions to problems associated with imprisonment, such as institutional abuse or psychological pain

by distancing themselves from others. Many were convinced of their need of

rehabilitation but were skeptical of the institutions contradiction between goals and rhetoric. Although rhetorically committed to rehabilitation, the institution is governed by material goals, cultural sensibilities and the requirement to protect public safety through punishment, security and discipline (Hannah-Moffat, 2001:197). Despite the changes in discourse between maternal, therapeutic regimes in the 1960s and the neoliberal practices of responsibilization and choice in the 1990s, the author’s come to the conclusion that a

‘reconfigurement’ rather and a ‘transformation’ of old practices under new labels has occurred (pp. 300).





An Observational Study of Racializing Moves in California’s Segregated Prison

Reception Centers By Philip Goodman



The racial categorization in California’s prison system is an interactionist process

called a negotiated settlement that is built upon a layering of power between inmates, officers and administrators (Goodman). Inmates are the source of information on which officers base their interpretations, using their hierarchical power to interpret and police responses to interviews, while administrators create the institutional framework through which categorization through forms is possible (pp. 738-742). Both officers and inmates interact in shaping how decisions of categorization are made within the bureaucratic framework of the prison system. Race as a term is socially constructed changes over time

and is produced through interaction, action and engagement. Both inmates and officials must work together to establish order within the prison system to reduce violence, pains of imprisonment and manage groups. According to Smith, administrators play a role in managing categorization by creating a textually sanctioned organization that mobilizes and coordinate people’s activities (pp. 742).





The bulk of the data for the study was collected in two men’s facilities located in

southern and central California, with variation between the two in terms of reception management and assault rate, ‘South’s’ rate being much higher than ‘Central’ (pp.742). An interactionist approach, by examining relevant forms how they are used in practical interactions, and field jotting was used to obtain data and make observations. It was found that California’s prisons are highly racialized, with race structuring contemporary prison structure, polarizing relationships between inmates, structuring language and leading to a negotiated settlement of categorization at reception in which the inmate is

actively processed into a racial category by both inmates and officers. Inmates declare their own race within policed bounds, and only one that is recorded into their file otherwise risking being classified as ‘mentally incompetent’. Race is made and remade with the prison spaces, through interactions between power groups, and informal practices within an institutionalized setting under the purview of courts (pp. 762-767).



Analysis



In the article “Feminine Fortresses” the Task Force committee functioned as an

element of risk management on behalf of the neoliberal State in response to public pressure. This is because the report “Creating Choices” emphasized the goals of attending to women’s empowerment, respecting self-dignity and creating a supportive environment, but the management processes and discretion was assigned to authoritative figures, such as wardens and Corrections Canada with limited outside input. Thus, the Task Force was

a response to public sentiment, leading to broad rhetorical changes, appealing to media publicity but limited in terms of impact on existing practices emphasizing discipline, security and punishment through segregation. The prison continues to be governed through by material goals, risk management approaches, prisoner responsibilization and punitive therapeutic practices.





This can be related to the neoliberal veil of punishment, in

which the institution masks punitive practices under a therapeutic mask, through cognitive therapy, behavioral programming and assigns blame to inmates for their crimes, treating social inequalities as static factors (Moore & Hannah-Moffat, 2005).



In the article by Kruttschnitt, research is presented that further supports the view that imprisonment is reconstructed on a rhetorical level as rehabilitation and vica versa. The data shows that inmates are detached from and distrustful of the prison system and of others regardless of time period and that the institution is governed by material goals, cultural sensibilities and the mandate to manage risk groups. Although the inmates expressed the desire to be receptive to a program that would target their needs, they were skeptical of the resources that the institution would be willing to dedicate to this end.





This can be tied to the concept of a ‘secondary prisonization’ in which women are presented with limited resources or programs to meet their needs upon release, incarcerating them outside of the prison indirectly through limited opportunities for employment, housing options or resolution of abusive relationships (Richie, 2001). The implications of the Task Force further support the notion that the prison system undergoes a ‘reconfigurement’ rather than a ‘transformation’ in the bureaucratic framework that emphasizes State monopoly over force, punishment and freedom not only within the institution but in society in general. By creating the task force, a State reinforces its legitimacy by providing closure, appealing to the public desire for input, retaining

accountability through documentation and satisfying the public demand for change without altering the basic premises of segregation, racialization and physical punishment.





In the article about California’s racialized prison system, the layered power

structure and construction of race through interaction between actors on a hierarchical power scale within the prison context, there comes to light not just race as the basis of categorization, but also a fundamental desire for individuals to create order by establishing categories. Just as Adam Smith observed that there is an innate desire by the human imagination to give meaning to otherwise seemingly unrelated and disorganized events, so too does this occur based on the context in which the processes of socialization, power and discourse interact (Smith,). The contemporary prison system is founded based

on exclusion, categorization, risk management and punitive policies such as solitary confinement, racial segregation and incessant surveillance monitoring.





The interactionist perspective incorporates the view that all social categories, such as race or even authority are socially constructed through and shaped by interactions within a given space. However, since order in a prison setting is highly contingent on prisoner compliance, the interactionist setting can be considered a role-playing construction of reality. The collective is shaped not only through the administrative framework, but an internalization of expected roles. For example, the prisoner undergoes several social procedures before

being sent to prison, such as legal, court and bureaucratic processes, in each case being stamped as an offender. But, he is an offender on paper, embodied in written text symbolic of the State’s authority. The legitimacy of that offense is just as subject as is money’s value on paper: it is a subjective interpretation with no value in and of itself, but by the meaning assigned to it.









Beth Richie (2001). “Challenges Incarcerated Women Face as They Return to Their

Communities.” Crime & Delinquency 47(3): 368-389

Dawn Moore and Kelly Hannah-Moffat (2005). “The Liberal Veil: Revisiting Canadian

Penality.” In John Pratt et al, editors, The New Punitiveness. Cullompton, Devon: Willan. Pp.

85-100. Coursepack.

Mona Lynch (2000). “Rehabilitation as Rhetoric: The Ideal of Reformation in Contemporary

Parole Discourse and Practices.” Punishment & Society 2(1): 40-65.

Smith, Adam (1790, 1980). History of Astronomy.



