Designing the research and analyzing the data.

Abstract

Designing the Research and Analyzing the Data I n the summer and fall of 2005,1 became a daily visitor to the Monroe County Correctional Facility (MCF), a direct-supervision 1 local penitentiary located in a suburb of Rochester, New York. Housing inmates sentenced to 1 year and under only, 2 this facility, built in 1990, lies on a stretch of heavily traveled commercial highway and is bordered by the county medical examiner's office on one end and a community college on another. There is no fence around the jail and, unlike the county's maximum security detention facilities in downtown Rochester, it is classified as a medium security institution. Looking more like a school than a penitentiary, on both the outside and the inside, the facility consists of six large dormitory-like housing areas where inmates occupy separate cubicles at night and congregate in a communal living space, with tables and chairs and two televisions, during the day. I conducted my research with the women housed in this facility.In chapter 3 of this volume, I used the term quasi-ethnography to describe the design of my research, and I briefly discussed its commonalities with and differences from more traditional, field-based ethnography. I do not repeat that discussion here, but I do highlight the parameters of my data 1 Direct-supervision facilities have several distinguishing characteristics. First, they typically entail an open style of housing, consisting of dormitory-like arrangements or individual cubicles instead of cells. Second, they usually are marked by a style of supervision that places the deputy within the housing unit itself with nothing encumbering his or her line of vision. Finally, they are supposed to have a more open style of living, with inmates freely circulating and coming and going from his or her cubicle at will. 2 In New York State, local correctional facilities, known as penitentiaries, are county run, usually but not always under the supervision of the sheriff. They house inmates who have individual sentences of 1 year or less.