Management Strategies When Working with Female Prisoners

Negotiating the Maximum-Security Offender Identity: Experiences From Incarcerated Women

“…Analogous to arguments by Fryer (2006) and Schram et al (2004), this study highlights the significance of providing agency for incarcerated women for better governance within the correctional centre as well as input that can be valuable to society at large. One of the women highlighted how being listened to by the previous minister of correctional services provided a forum for them to suggest ways in which their rehabilitation programmes could be improved.…”

“…Scholarly literature, the media, and the justice system often represent incarcerated women who have committed violent crimes as either pathological, with aggressive tendencies which render them inherently evil, or incapacitated victims of gender-based violence (Africa, 2010; Artz et al, 2012; Dastile, 2013; Jagmohan, 2018; Madriz, 1997). Their voices have been disqualified, minimised, muted, or deprioritised by social structures such as the media and the justice system (Barlow, 2015; Fili, 2013; Schram et al, 2004).…”

“…This account of women classified as maximum-security offenders is often characterised by incomplete stories with distortions and negative labelling. Very few studies (Bove & Tryon, 2018; Fili, 2013; Kruttschnitt & Carbone-Lopez, 2006; Schram et al, 2004; Silverman, 2001) have examined how women construct their incarceration identities. Dissel (1996) also indicated that maximum-security offenders are often not included in rehabilitation processes and tend to be treated in a routine and inflexible manner due to concerns about security risks.…”

Gender-responsive programming: a qualitative exploration of women's experiences of a gender-neutral cognitive skills programme

“…Both Jenny and Louise describe the pace of the programme as being too quick, indicating that the amount of material covered in each session meant that they did not feel they had a full understanding of it before they were moved on to the next exercise. In a study comparing views on the management of male and female prisoners, Schram, Koons-Witt, and Morash (2004) found that the majority of correctional administrators interviewed felt that female offenders have different communication and interpersonal needs to male offenders. One of the areas in which women in prison were thought to differ from incarcerated men was in their desire to have more space to talk and to be listened to, and in their tendency ask more questions.…”

“…One of the areas in which women in prison were thought to differ from incarcerated men was in their desire to have more space to talk and to be listened to, and in their tendency ask more questions. Some administrators felt that women were more likely to ask questions and to want to negotiate than men, who it was felt, were more accepting of orders or of information given to them (Schram et al, 2004). This could provide one possible explanation for why the women on the TSP pilot felt that the programme was, in its current form, insufficient to provide the depth of understanding that they felt they could gain from the material, as it may have been that they felt restricted in their ability to ask sufficient questions and to interrogate the material as fully as they would like.…”