Mothers, Daughters, Sisters: Exploring the Intersections between Mass Incarceration and Reproductive in/Justice

Background and Purpose: The U.S. has the world’s largest prison population, and among this population, women are the fastest growing group. Between 2009 and 2018, the number of incarcerated men decreased by 7.5%, while the number of incarcerated women increased by 23% (Prison Policy Initiative, 2020). Over 3.2 million women interact with the criminal legal system each year (Geana et al., 2021), and about 75% are of reproductive age, falling between the ages of 15 and 49 years old (Peart & Knittel, 2020). In the U.S., most incarcerated women are mothers with minor children, and approximately 6-10% are pregnant when taken into custody (Clarke et al., 2006). Our current political climate, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and increasing threats to women’s rights and reproductive freedom inspired this secondary analysis exploring system-impacted women’s experiences in the context of mass incarceration and reproductive in/justice. The analysis was guided by the following research question: How have interactions with the legal system intersected with, and/or contributed to, reproductive in/justice? The primary goal of this project is to highlight the various intersecting roles and experiences of system-impacted women, a population often overlooked in research.

Methods: This secondary analysis, based on qualitative data collected in 2023 with two co-researchers, is an evolution and expansion of previous and ongoing research related to the topics of reproductive justice and women’s experiences in the criminal legal system. A total of fourteen participants’ transcripts from the original study exploring system-impacted women’s perspectives on their interactions with law enforcement were considered for the purpose of this analysis, all of whom completed a three-round in-depth interview process. All de-identified interview transcripts were uploaded to NVivo (v.10) for qualitative analysis, including open and focused coding.

Results: Through several rounds of coding, themes were identified and defined related to system-impacted women’s experiences and perspectives around reproductive injustice at different levels of interaction with the system: prior to, during, and following incarceration. Based on intersectional qualitative analysis, these findings expand the literature related to the topics of mass incarceration and reproductive justice by highlighting the voices of those with direct lived experience and providing insight into their intersecting roles and experiences. By amplifying their often-overlooked voices, findings offer social workers in community and criminal legal settings a fuller understanding of implications for individual and community level progress.

Conclusions and Implications: As a framework, reproductive justice acknowledges that choice is not a capacity equitably allocated among all and addresses reproductive oppression and the ways in which women’s bodies are controlled, regulated, restricted, and exploited as a method of social control. As evidenced by the findings from this analysis, incarceration is a prime example of the disruption and undermining of the basic tenets of the reproductive justice movement: the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent children with safety and dignity. Social workers must consider the ways in which mass incarceration and reproductive injustice are closely connected and tied to systems of oppression and the ongoing violation of human rights.