CONFINED​

Introduction

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     Although women make up the vast minority of jails, their numbers are increasing rapidly (Wright and Miller 2005). That is why this study is focusing on the effects of jail on women: because they are a forgotten minority in the criminal justice system; and the number of women in jail will continue to increase if nothing is done to help reform the women already in there (Williams and Rikard 2004).

     The reason I focused on women’s experiences in jail is because of information Williams and Rikard found when they conducted an exploratory study of aging female inmates. They found that holding women in a place designed for men does not work. They also discovered that women are virtually ignored by policy makers and researchers, mainly because they only make up a small percentage of the inmate population (Williams and Rikard 2004). Even though women are a vast minority in the jail system, the numbers of women in jail are rising. If nothing is being done to help them, the chances are very high that the women will become repeat offenders.

     Going into this research I hoped to learn from the interviews I conducted is whether the jail did what they felt was necessary to help them gain the skills and knowledge needed to live a crime free life.  My focus is primarily on the programs that the jail had available to the women at their time of incarceration, and if these programs were helpful to them in any way.

     Jail is one of the many forms of sanctions in the United States. Historically, jails were places where people awaiting punishment were held. As time progressed, jails have acquired more purposes. The first and foremost function has remained the same for over five hundred years: to house pre-trial suspects. The second function is to house people convicted of misdemeanors, and hold people convicted of felonies that are waiting to be transported to the state prison. Jails also house people who have violated probation or parole (Wright and Miller 2005).

     Many women are always in and out of jail because they lack the skills necessary to keep a job. Unemployment is one of the main contributors to criminal behavior, especially acts that result in monetary gain. If the programs implemented in jail focused on teaching the female inmates job skills, they would have more of a chance to obtain employment upon release. Peggy Tonkin and her colleagues conducted a study to find out if the female inmates at a county jail had skills necessary to obtain a job, and they found that many of the women did not have these skills. They recommended that the corrections facilities target the basic skills needed for employment in their programs. According to Tonkin and her colleagues’ article, when analyzing the programs available to the women I interview, I should make sure that they are targeted towards teaching the women basic skills necessary for employment. (Tonkin, et. al. 2004)

     An article that also supports and encourages correctional facilities to have rehabilitation and training programs is “Does Correctional Treatment Work? A Clinically Relevant and Psychologically Informed Meta-Analysis.” (Andrews, et. al. 1990) Andrews and his colleagues found, through reading literature on the psychology of criminal conduct and reviews of studies of treatment, that criminal sanctioning is only effective if it includes rehabilitative services. (Andrews, et. al. 1990) Based on this literature, I would expect to find that if the programs did not meet the psychological and rehabilitative needs of the women I interview, they will not feel that the overall incarceration experience was beneficial.

      The mental health of the female inmates should be something that is addressed in jail as well. According to the theory of Carl Rogers (Rogerian theory), a renowned personality psychologist, people with low self esteem are more likely to engage in dishonest behavior than people with high self esteem. Rogerian theory is based on the notion that people need congruence, so if people feel poorly about themselves, they will act poorly to maintain those feelings (Aronson and Metee 1968). Aronson and Mettee conducted a study testing the correlation between self esteem and cheating. They altered the participants self esteem by providing them with self-relevant information (either good or bad). They then had the participants play a game, and gave them all the opportunity to cheat. The participants whose self-esteem was lowered were more apt than the participants with raised self-esteem to cheat. This implies that self-esteem does indeed have an influence over ones’ actions (Aronson and Metee 1968). Based on this research, I made it a point to find out if counseling was available to the female inmates. If it was, and this type of counseling focused on self-esteem, I would assume that this would greatly reduce the chance of the women committing another crime when they were released, if they had high self esteem upon release.

     To get an insight on correctional facilities, as well as the programs implemented to help rehabilitate the inmates, I decided to focus on county jails in the north-eastern region of the United States. One way to find out if people are reformed by imprisonment is to find recidivism rates for women who spent time in jail. However, recidivism rates for jails are very difficult to obtain. Recidivism could mean one of many different things, such as a simple arrest, or it could mean reconviction.  Without a set definition and criteria of what recidivism means, there is no true validity in the numbers. (Lyman and LoBuglio 2006) So, instead of getting data in numbers and percentages, I am going right to the source: women who have ‘done time’. In order to validate their comparisons to the men’s unit of the jail, I have also included two men as participants.

     Although previous studies conducted on female inmates are incredibly enlightening, they do not provide the public with the inmates’ point of view. They do not interview the women who have been there, and they do not show what the women went through while they were incarcerated. For ethical reasons, I could not ask for specific incidents about their incarceration experience, but a good portion of the women willingly explained some key moments during their jail time that reflected their overall experience. This study gains information from the women themselves, and it gives these former inmates a voice.

     In this article, I will discuss the over-all experience of the jail on the men and women I interviewed: I argued that they endured utter confinement. What I mean by confinement is being cut off from anything that the average human being has access to; such as education, proper food, control, exercise, and equality. The idea of confinement has been divided into two different themes: “Dehumanization” and “Reclaiming of Dignity”.

       The “Dehumanization” section explores the data I found that stripped my participants of their dignity as a human being. Dehumanization explores the physical confinement they endured; the inability to educate themselves; degrading and humiliating incidents; and the inequality the female participants faced because their gender made up the minority of the jail. “Reclaiming of Dignity” is a theme I have found through my data that shows how the people I interviewed reclaimed their dignity, and self control. This reclaiming of dignity appears to be a prerequisite for the person to begin living a crime-free life.
 

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     After presenting my findings, I will explain how the detrimental effect of jail could affect not only the individuals involved, but society overall. For the Discussion section, I will refer to theories of sociologists Erving Goffman and Joan Acker.​