FEMALE PRISONERS NEED OPPORTUNITIES, SOLUTIONS, SAYS UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RESEARCHER

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - New research from the University of Arkansas reveals the boredom and humiliation female inmates endure in prison and makes a strong case for allocating more treatment and education resources to this growing population. The research goes on to state that the expectations society pins on female convicts often are undermined by the treatment it dishes out to them.

Women currently represent less than seven percent of the prison population, according to Denise Huggins, assistant professor of criminal justice, but their numbers are increasing. Over the past dozen years, the female inmate population has grown at a faster rate than males, and women are now incarcerated at a higher rate for drug-related crimes than are men.

Yet in spite of this increased population and increased need, the criminal justice system continues to neglect the special needs of female prisoners - delivering second-hand services and offering inadequate or inappropriate training, treatment and educational programs.

"These women have virtually nothing to keep them occupied during the day. Very few of them qualify for education or job training. They receive very little treatment for drug or alcohol addictions," Huggins said. "We expect a different person to come out of prison, a rehabilitated person, yet we do precious little to create motivation or opportunities for them to change."

In 2000, Huggins began collecting information from inmates and officers at two women’s prisons in Texas. Over the course of four months, she surveyed and interviewed nearly 250 female prisoners, gathering data on their family and personal histories, their record of drug use, their exposure to sexual or physical abuse, their daily activities, and their social and sexual habits in prison.

On Thursday, Nov. 14, Huggins presents a portion of this research to the American Society of Criminology at their annual meeting in Chicago. Titled "Life on the Edge of Insanity," her presentation focuses on the daily lives of female inmates and reports that, for most of these prisoners, the mind-numbing time they spend in prison is punctuated only by inadequate educational programs and the humiliating treatment they receive at the hands of prison officials.

"On the surveys, I asked these women how much time they spent watching television, how many letters they wrote each day, how many hours a day they read or slept, socialized or worked or went to classes or to treatment," Huggins explained. "In the interviews, I asked these women to describe their average day, and it would take about a minute and a half."

Although the Texas criminal justice system requires all inmates to work four to eight hours a day, the rest of the prisoners’ time is free and largely unstructured. Because of the low level of education among female inmates, Huggins found that less than half of the women entertained themselves through reading or studying. And because educational programs are reserved for inmates with five years or fewer left on their sentences or those under the age of 21, few women qualify for classes or job training programs.

Huggins’ study showed that female prisoners frequently attend religious services. But it also showed that the activity they engaged in more than any other - socializing - was also the activity most likely to get them in trouble. According to Huggins, female inmates often form pseudofamily groups or become engaged in social and/or sexual dyads with other prisoners.

These groups and dyads provide support, security and meaningful social interaction among the women. Yet they are highly discouraged by prison officials, who assert that such social groups cause conflict among the prison population and inevitably lead to inappropriate sexual behavior.

Past research conducted by Huggins shows that this is not always the case - indicating that social groups are often more about emotional intimacy than physical. And although women who participate in these social circles receive a higher number of disciplinary citations, those citations are often issued for behaviors as simple as touching one another or holding hands.

The rigid restrictions against socializing or touching are almost dehumanizing, Huggins said. But the poor treatment of female inmates goes even farther, according to her research. Despite the fact that violence is far less common or severe in women’s prisons, security regulations require guards to strip and search each prisoner sometimes as often as five times a day. In addition to the invasive physical treatment, prison officials often strip the women emotionally.

"These inmates are treated like children by the officers and are often told they are stupid and will never amount to anything. The attitude is extremely condescending, and it’s handed out 24 hours a day," Huggins said. "Self-esteem among these women is already so low that it’s hard to imagine it getting worse, but that kind of treatment just tears them down. If we expect these women to improve themselves, we need to be building them up."

One initiative intended to help improve women during their incarceration was the implementation of job training programs. But even in this case, the criminal justice system delivered a second-hand solution, Huggins stated. Most of the programs available to female inmates train them for jobs in male-dominated fields such as plumbing, construction or auto repair. Even the inmates realize that the odds of getting a job in these fields are not very good, Huggins said. And fewer than 20 percent of them even get the chance to take part in some of these programs.

Not only are women disadvantaged by their gender in such fields, but by the time many of these inmates get out of prison, they’ll likely be in their 40s or 50s - an age that makes it difficult to find work in any field. Huggins notes that the result of such inappropriate job training programs is false hope - the promise of a high-paying job and a future that never materializes.

"How many employers are going to hire a 45-year-old female ex-convict? Part of the poor service we’re delivering to these women is the fact that we’re not being realistic about what their lives will be like after prison, and we’re not teaching them to be realistic either," Huggins said. "It’s clear that we need to take a good, hard look at the way we treat female inmates and come up with solutions that are more appropriate and more realistic for their needs."