Legacy: Women's Lived Experience of Incarceration in a Southern U.S. State

Background-Purpose:

Theory and scholarship about criminal legal systems articulate links between slavery and mass incarceration (Alexander, 2010; Gross, 2015; Oshinsky, 1996). This theory argues that criminal legal policies have fueled systems of racial oppression and white supremacy throughout U.S. history (Khan-Cullors & Bandele, 2018; EJI, 2020). Evidence in support of this theory centers data about justice-involved men, rendering women’s experiences with racism and the carceral state less visible (Gross, 2015; Heimer, et al., 2023; Roberts, 2012). In addition, this scholarship tends to focus on disparities in policing, judicial processes, and sentencing to illustrate the myriad ways in which people of color are simultaneously under protected and overly prosecuted by criminal-legal systems (Alexander, 2010; Gross, 2015). Less explored are the ways in which this theory may also build understanding of the correctional policies that shape prison life. For example, policy requiring pregnant women to be shackled during childbirth has been interrogated through this lens (Ocen, 2012), suggesting that the practice is inhumane and detrimental to maternal and child health, and “a sedimentation of slavery and a symptom of the unfinished project of American abolition” (Heiner, 2022, p. 6). This project seeks to expand understanding about correctional policy and women’s lived experiences of incarceration by using this theory of incarceration as a legacy of slavery to analyze women’s narratives about their lived experiences of incarceration in a Southern U.S. state.

Methods

Nine semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with formerly incarcerated women living in a southeastern U.S. state. The sample included 4 white and 5 Black cisgender women; average age was 42. Half of the participants identified as gay or lesbian. Most (n=6) had been incarcerated once, and sentences ranged from 1 to 20 years. Interviews, which lasted one hour, were audio-recorded, transcribed and uploaded to Dedoose for analysis. Thematic analysis was used to organize and code the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Findings

Women’s narratives describe their quotidian activities in a state’s correctional facilities. Participants described routines related to food, sleep, work, and personal hygiene. Stories about being separated from children and transferred between correctional facilities reflect strategies that were used in slavery to destroy family and social ties. The paucity of food and hygiene supplies provided by the institution forced women to purchase over-priced items from the prison store with the meager wages they earned from the prison. Institutional violence (e.g., poor living conditions and physical and mental abuse from staff) dehumanized and humiliated the women. Mutual aid and peer support were key to their survival.

Conclusion-Implications

Findings from these interviews with formerly incarcerated women amplify and extend existing research and theory about the connections between slavery and contemporary incarceration. The circumstances and conditions of the participants' lives in prison reflect practices that were used to create and sustain slavery, inviting greater interrogation of carceral administrative systems and policies. Data inform social work practice by expanding knowledge about women’s lived experiences of incarceration and bringing attention to the structural and institutional priorities that sustain criminal-legal systems, especially corrections.