“I'm Learning How to Live”: Coping Strategies for Incarcerated Women with Life Sentences

Background/Purpose: Incarcerated women with life sentences are a growing sub-population and face uncertain futures of either death in prison or potential, but rare, release from prison. Given the depression and suicide ideation reported by this sub-population, research is needed to understand how women cope with a life sentence and factors influencing their coping. Thus, this study incorporates a foundation of importation and deprivation theories that are used for studying psychological health in prisons, and seeks to expand the understanding of how women with life sentences cope with prison. Specifically, the research questions are: (1) How do women with life sentences cope in prison?  (2) What importation/individual-level and deprivation/institutional-level factors influence how they cope?

Methods: A purposeful sample of 23 women participated in this study. Women had served a range of 1 to 39 years in prison, with an average of 15 years. A majority had sentences of life with the possibility of parole. Half of the sample identified as white/Caucasian and half identified as black/African-American. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the women, lasting 30 to 90 minutes. Open and fixed coding were conducted to explore both how women cope and influences on coping related to importation theory and deprivation theory. Iterative coding and constant comparative analysis were followed by a checklist matrix of the patterns emerging from the data. This matrix guided reviewing the data, codes, and themes to confirm the main patterns.

Results: The main finding was that how women perceived their life sentence in terms of its duration shaped how women coped on a daily basis. This perception ranged from a view of never leaving prison (“Life means life”) to uncertainty (“If I get out”) to definitely being released from prison (“When I get out”). Distinct coping strategies were linked to each type of the perception of a life sentence: for “Life means life”, women focused on avoidance-related behaviors; with “If I get out”, women mainly focused on internal improvement such as mental freedom; and with “When I get out”, they engaged in internal and externally focused activities, such as legal advocacy and maintaining outside relationships. Suicide ideation was common for women viewing their life sentence as a truly life sentence and described as the norm for women early in their sentence.  Deprivation factors uniquely related to having a life sentence influenced women’s coping and contributed to their perceptions, especially a sense of worthlessness and hopelessness due to staff treatment. A life sentence was not only a deprivation of release, but also a deprivation of rehabilitative services as these services were reserved only for women leaving prison.

Conclusion/Implications: Incarcerated women with life sentences have distinct coping strategies based on their perceptions of their sentence. Both their perceptions and strategies are shaped by how the deprivations of a life sentence are enacted within the prison and as embodiment of the ramifications of state and national sentencing practices. Social work theory expansion, practice, policy advocacy, and future research are needed to guide ethical change for this under-served group of women.