In Search of Safety

Based on extensive mixed-methods data, this book examines gendered violence and conflict in women’s prisons. Conflict and violence in the prison are located in intersectional inequalities and cumulative disadvantage, reflecting their pathways to prison. Women in prison share common characteristics, many mediated by structural, historical, and cumulative disadvantage. T pathways approach is expanded to include women’s experience within these structural clusters of intersectional inequalities. In their search for safety, women must negotiate these inequities through developing forms of prison capital. The history and philosophies underpinning women’s imprisonment, the gendered impact of prison and drug policy, and the variations in rates of imprisonment for differentially-situated women are also used to contextualizes the imprisonment of women. Prison conditions, aggravated by crowding, inadequate medical and mental health care and the lack of gender-informed operational practice, contribute to the gendered harm of imprisonment. A women’s search for safety is described through the lens of prison capital, forms of human, social and cultural capital women leverage to combat the gendered harm of imprisonment. Forms of capital combine with the intersectional inequality of imprisonment to condition the context for trouble and harm among women and with staff. The harm of women’s imprisonment can be located in human rights violations inside. The way forward is found in implementing international human rights standards in U. S. prisons, focusing on the promise of the Bangkok Rules.