The criminalization of women is by no means a recent phenomenon, but the study of women who are incarcerated as distinct from that of male counterparts is a relatively new development. The prison experience for women is compounded by gender discrimination and expectations. Women in prison have for all practical purposes failed at ‘being a woman’ as they are unable, due to incarceration, to fulfil their expected roles of wife and mother. Furthermore, they have failed at being a productive member of society; ergo, they are incarcerated and segregated from the morally upstanding members of society. Traditional research on incarceration has effectively devalued the smaller population of women even more, not only by failing to readily appreciate their uniqueness but also by needlessly and routinely comparing them to male counterparts, a group that shares few of the same overall experiences of incarceration. Even now, the literature largely focuses on the negative effects of incarceration, namely the separation of the mother from her children, and remains male-centred as women are still frequently compared to males within the incarcerated population rather than studied on their own merit.

Early research on the prison experience: prisonization and pains of imprisonment

Research has established certain knowledge concerning the experience of incarceration. The dominant theoretical framework for understanding the prison experience stresses prison deprivations and comes primarily from Clemmer and Sykes. Clemmer (1940) defined prisonization as ‘the process of assimilation of the prison culture by inmates as they become acquainted with the prison world’ (p 299). The effect of the process of prisonization on the person who is incarcerated is to make him or her conform to the norms and expectations of the prison culture. When someone first enters the prison, he or she is stripped of all bases for identity and becomes faceless and anonymous in the new prison environment. The process of prisonization is quicker for some people than for others, and some people may never fully ‘assimilate’ to prison culture.

When we hear the words ‘inmate’ or ‘prisoner’ we often think of men – rightly so, as the vast majority of people in prison are men. Early prison research focused almost exclusively on males and simply ignored the small, but nonetheless important, population of incarcerated women.