“I Came to Prison to Do My Time — Not to Get Raped”: Coping Within the Institutional Setting

Abstract

The War on Drugs has yielded a significant growth in the United States prison population, particularly for women. A substantial percentage of women involved in the criminal justice system have a substance use disorder, have committed their crimes for drug money, or were convicted of a drug-related felony. Many druginvolved women enter prison with histories of sexual=physical assault and may be subjected to further victimization within the institution. Although staff sexual misconduct within women's prisons has been established, there has been little attention to its effects on the mental health of incarcerated women or the ways in which women cope with such abuse within the confines of prison. We constructed case narratives from secondary data collected as part of an investigation and later used in a class action lawsuit, thus allowing the women to portray their experiences and choice of coping strategies in their own 'voices.' We found that women often made active and calculated decisions to comply with the officers' demands for sex, usually without engaging in a grievance process. Although this 'compliant' behavior may be interpreted as passive, and perhaps consensual to the officers seeking sex, it reflects careful planning toward the greatest degree of safety-discharge from prison.Rarely is trauma discussed in relation to incarceration À either prison as a site of new trauma, the effect of incarceration on those with trauma histories, or the effect of trauma-related disorders on recidivism. This is particularly troublesome given the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder

Changes in mental state associated with prison environments: a systematic review

“…Second, many of the studies had methodological limitations. There were several single‐case studies and case series, which were suggestive of negative effects on mental health, for example Ganser syndrome , PTSD and monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis . These were excluded from data extraction because they are seen as weak evidence, and it is difficult to draw conclusions from them that can be reliably generalised.…”

Reporting Sexual Victimization During Incarceration: Using Ecological Theory as a Framework to Inform and Guide Future Research

“…Individuals living within this type of mesosystem are also often stigmatized and may have little chance of being believed if they report mistreatment. More specifically, prisoners often adapt or cope within this mesosystem with a de facto ''code of silence'' regarding abuse during incarceration in order to protect themselves from further stigmatization or longer confinement (Kubiak et al, 2005;Smith, 2001Smith, , 2005. This code of silence extends to reporting of abusive behavior by other inmates, which would be tantamount to snitching (Garland & Wilson, 2012).…”

Assessing Short-Term Outcomes of an Intervention for Women Convicted of Violent Crimes

“…However, the significant changes observed in the alleviation of mental health symptoms and indirect aggression for this subsample of women are crucial, given these women's intensified risk factors, such as higher rates of suicide attempts and more extensive trauma histories than women without life sentences (Leigey & Reed, 2010). Previous research has also shown that women with long-term sentences often experience multiple forms of trauma before and during incarceration (e.g., Kupers, 1999;Kubiak, Hanna, & Balton, 2005), resulting in high rates of PTSD and making a significant decrease in PTSD symptoms for women with life sentences all the more notable. On the other hand, because women with life sentences were usually restricted from participat-ing in other therapeutic interventions, the lifers in the current study might have been highly motivated to take advantage of treatment opportunities, and therefore, experienced larger gains.…”

“…Initial steps include a systematic process for problem identification, information gathering, and program design before moving toward pilot testing. We have reported extensively on these important developmental steps, including the underlying theoretical framework, curriculum development, and implementation feasibility, in an earlier paper (Kubiak, Fedock, Tillander, Kim, & Bybee, 2012). In brief, Beyond Violence (Covington, 2011), uses trauma theory (Herman, 1992(Herman, ,1997 as a foundation for the intervention with the basic tenant that early trauma influences both perceptions of and reactions to life events (Kendall-Tackett, 2000) and that exposure, particularly early or ongoing exposure, to traumatic events can result in not only repressed anger (Neumann, Houskamp, Pollock, & Briere, 1996;Newman & Peterson, 1996;Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007) but also the use of alcohol and other drugs (Hedtke et al, 2008;Najavitis, Weiss, & Shaw, 1997).…”