Female Inmate Psychological Adjustment
to County Jail and Future Implications
William A. L. Clay, III
Texas Southern University
The zeitgeist of the early colonial settlers reflected many of the values, customs, and standard practices found in old English Society. One such practice involved how women were to be viewed in general and specifically her expected role, task, and function within the newly formed settlements. The revered woman manifested the “Cult of True Womanhood”, which identified piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity as the prized values and ideals of a true woman (Welter, 1966). Conversely, those women who were perceived as delinquent with respect to the norms were seen as a clear threat to the social order. Consequently, female offenders had to be removed, punished, and in some cases executed because they were seen as defective misfits beyond repair. As such, many of these White female transgressors were relegated to tertiary status (and/or beyond) normally reserved for nonconforming Black immigrants that were already viewed as less than human (Young & Reviere, 2006). In fact, many of these females in the early days of colonial jailing instituted by the male political and religious power structures were indeed housed with White male criminals and nonconforming Black immigrants without regard for age, sex, or seriousness of offense (Monahan and Stewart, 1980). Both jailed White women and nonconforming Black immigrants were looked upon as socially unredeemable, whereas, the jailed White male was regarded as rehabilitatable. Since that time, the ideals of womanhood in this society have changed in general, but, the perception of these females coming in conflict with the laws of modern day society, albeit the Criminal Justice System has changed, but, salient major themes continue to persist.
During the past five decades, the Criminal Justice System and the Penal System in particular has seen a rather steady, expansive, and escalating growth pattern. This trend is generally true for both genders but especially with regards to the female inmate/prisoner whose growth can be characterized as explosive. Since the early 1960’s when the total female inmate population was 7,688 (U. S. Department of Justice, 1991), there has been a steady trajectory of growth per this group of offenders. Moreover, the real spiraling growth began in the decade of the 80”s when the female jail population was 15,759 and by year-end 1989 reached 37,383. This increase of close to 22,000 female inmates represented a 130.0% growth rate within the decade (U. S. Department of Justice, 1992). By midyear 1995, the number of jailed women reached a milestone of 51,300 (U. S. Department of Justice, 2004). This unprecedented growth rate of female offenders continued through midyears 2005 and 2006 with the U. S. Department of Justice reporting a total female jail population of 93,963 and 99,025 for those respective years (U. S. Department of Justice, 2006 and 2007). This trend suggests that the female jail population could be well approaching 150,000 by midyear 2015 given an annual growth rate of 4.9 with the vast majority of women falling within the 30-39 age range (U. S. Department of Justice, 2007).
This unparallel growth in the United States regarding the number of females arrested and jailed can be attributed to the preponderance of women’s criminal activity involving drugs (possession to trafficking) and/or other offenses (welfare fraud, prostitution, theft, bad checks, larceny, and etc.) to obtain money to pay for drugs. This pattern of criminality is reflected in the 1980’s, 1990’s and in the current decade. Whereas, the male pattern mirrors a drug/violence (murder, assault, rape, and etc.) trend throughout the same time period (U. S. Department of Justice, 2004; 1998; 1991). Yet, upon closer examination of these criminal drug patterns for both females and males, a number of researchers have reported that the female’s affinity for the abuse drugs can be attributed to her need for coping with emotional pain by “self-medicating” herself via illicit drug means. As such, these investigators have concluded that the women’s’ pathway to the jail system vastly differs from her male counterpart. Specifically, they cite that many of these women have been the targets of victimization to include backgrounds of childhood and sexual abuse and often these women make use of drugs/alcohol as a means to cope with their victimization histories (Hussey and Singer, 1993; Taskforce on Women, 1989; Singer, et al., 1989). During adulthood, these women are many times the targeted victims of rape, robbery, assault, and murder due to being among the most vulnerable of groups in this society (Perkins, 1991; Sterk and Elifson, 1990). In one study conducted by Browne et al. (1999), these researchers interviewed 150 female inmates incarcerated in a maximum security facility and reported that 75% of the women had sexual abuse histories. Another investigation by Siegel (1996) found similar findings that abused women were more than five (5) times likely to be arrested for a drug offense in contrast to non-abused women.
Moreover, given the unique gender characteristics brought by women to the Criminal Justice System and the Correctional System in particular, policies, models, programs, and services have reflected an overall barrenness of female gender specifics. This reluctance and recalcitrance to include this major component can be attributed to Thigpin’s (1997) belief that jails have been designed and operated for the detention of male inmates. Additionally, he states that because female inmates have constituted such a small minority of the jail population in the past that they have been overlooked in terms of facility design, programs, and services. Hence, the Thigpin statement strongly implies and suggests that the female jail population can no longer be communitively overlooked given the projected number of women bound for jail in the United States.
A review of the literature also reveals that incarcerated women have been a neglected subject matter of research and research dollars. The reasons for this void range from the simple to the more complex. Young and Reviere (2006) suggests that due to the relatively small number of women incarcerated in the Criminal Justice System, there is no obvious imperative to develop separate policies, programs, services for women vis-à-vis men coupled with the fact that women don’t riot or become violent when their demands are not met, thus making them easier to disregard. French (1978) contends that men suffer from a self-deception concerning women – consisting of an attitude which is internalized during their socialization process and employed to rationalize the subordinate roles females are assigned in our social order; hence males are hesitant to credit females with such masculine actions such as crime. Others suggest that female criminality reflects Black criminality and thus not worthy of study (Sarri, 1996). Another explanation holds that because women have had unequal economic and political status they have therefore had unequal access to both service and research. The most compelling reason asserts that the preponderance of male criminologists fail to consider women’s criminality as worth serious study. Consequently, this group of offenders and their problems are relegated to secondary and tertiary status within the Criminal Justice System.
Although the number of studies reported on female inmates is few, it is clear that they do not come close in rivaling the volumes of systemic and comprehensive data reported on male inmates. This imbalance has and is creating problems for the female correctional system; namely that few, if any, female inmate models exist today. Consequently, the female correctional systems continue to adopt and use male inmate models that lack female concerns, input, and understanding, but equally as important, have highly questionable validity for use with women in the correctional environment (Schram et al., 2004; White, 2002; Langan and Pelissier, 2001; Chesney-Lind, 1991; Denmark and Jaffee, 1979; Rasche. 1975). This lack of comprehensive understanding does not bode well for the female correctional system, given the projected number of females being arrested, jailed, and adjudicated now and in the future.
The focus of the limited amount of research of female inmate adjustment has been restricted in scope, type, and settings. Although the literature reports on various phases of female prisoner adjustment (Jiang et al., 2006; Thompson and Loper, 2005; Islam-Zwart and Vik, 2004; Walters, 2003; Loper, 2002; Casey-Acevedo-Bakken, 2001), hardly any have focused primarily on the initial adjustment to the jail environment coupled with implication for correctional and mental health management (Clay, 1998). Thus far, studies centering on women’s adjustment to prison have been utilized, however, extrapolating from these studies is highly questionable with regards to matters of validity because it is not clear or known how these populations differ in terms of characteristics, programming needs and coping strategies (Fenwick, 1998).
This lack of urgent and serious concern for female inmate study and research regarding adjustment in particular is indeed reprehensible and is symbolic of the long history pertaining to the devaluation of women in general and specifically the female offender. As such, future research endeavors need to examine women inmates and specifically their gender specific pathway leading to her arrest and jailing. In particular, this information would further enhance overall understanding of female initial adjustment to jail in general, but, also contribute to a more comprehensive pool of knowledge to assist management, medical and mental health professionals, and enhance facility safety for all concerned. Additionally, because there is so little information and research being conducted on the transitory role of female inmates incarcerated in the county jail awaiting transfer to a state prison facility. It is imperative that future research pay close attention to relationship development, communication styles, stressors, family separation and contact, and other county jail specific variables that contribute to initial adjustment to the state penal system. This information would be of great value to both the jail and prisons systems to assist with early identification of maladjustment. Otherwise the lessons derived from Attica will be in vain.
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