Traditionally understood ideas about health and criminal behaviors are integrally linked within an individual's health, as well as a community's health. In a time when women are increasingly jailed, it is important to examine the life ways of women who are newly released. This study, using participatory action research and critical hermeneutic data analysis techniques, examined women's health and social experiences following their release from jail. Findings suggest that women experienced an onward and downward momentum of health indices, or devolution, with regard to economic status, physical and mental health status, intimate and family relationships, and general social functioning. It is argued that basic public health and community nursing interventions would provide a more seamless transition from jail back into community and would positively impact the individual and community health issues that are embedded within the criminal activity.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alemagno, S.
(2001). Women in jail: Is substance abuse treatment enough?American Journal of Public Health, 91(5), 798-800.
2.
Allen, D.
(1995). Hermeneutics: Philosophical traditions and nursing practice research. Nursing Science Quarterly, 8(4), 174-182.
3.
Anglin, M.
, & Hser, Y. (1987). Addicted women and crime. Criminology, 25, 359-397.
4.
Baskin, D.
, & Sommers, I. (1998). Casualties of community disorder. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
5.
Belknap, J.
(1996). Access to programs and health care for incarcerated women. Federal Probation, 60(4), 34-39.
6.
Bloom, B.
(1995). Imprisoned mothers. In K. Gabel & D. Johnston (Eds.), Children of incarcerated parents (pp. 21-30). New York: Lexington Press.
7.
Bonta, J.
, & Gendreau, P. (1990). Reexamining the cruel and unusual punishment of prison life. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 347-372.
8.
Brewer, V.
, Marquart, J., & Mullins, J. (1998). Female drug offenders: HIV-related risk behavior, self-perception, and public health interpretations. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 9(2), 185-208.
9.
Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS]
. (1999). Women offenders (NCJ 175688). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
10.
Butterfield, P.
(1990). Thinking upstream: Nurturing a conceptual understanding of the societal context of health behavior. Advances in Nursing Science, 12(2), 1-8.
11.
Caputo, J.
(1987). Radical hermeneutics: Repetition deconstruction, and the hermeneutic project. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
12.
Comack, E.
(1996). Women in trouble: Connecting women's law violations to their histories of abuse. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
13.
Conklin, T.
, Lincoln, R., & Flanigan, T. (1998). A public health model to connect correctional health care with communities. American Journal of Public Health, 88(8),1249-1250.
14.
Daly, K.
(1994). Gender, crime, and punishment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
15.
Dodge, M.
, & Pogrebin, M. (2001). Collateral costs of imprisonment for women: Complications of reintegration. Prison Journal, 81, 42-54.
16.
Drevdahl, D.
(1995). Coming to voice: The power of emancipatory community interventions. Advances in Nursing Science, 18(2), 13-24.
17.
Eaton, M.
(1993). Women after prison. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
18.
Eddy, B.
, Powell, M., Szubka, M., McCool, M., & Kuntz, S. (2001). Challenges in research with incarcerated parents and importance in violence prevention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 20, 56-62.
19.
Ehrenreich, B.
, & Piven, F. (1984). The feminization of poverty. Dissent, 31(2), 162-170.
20.
Faith, K.
(1993). Unruly women: The politics of confinement and resistance. Vancouver, Canada: Press Gang Publishers.
21.
Fleisher, M. S.
, & Rison, R. H. (1997). Health care in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In J. W. Marquart & J. R. Sorensen (Eds.), Correctional contexts: Contemporary and classical readings (pp. 327-334). Los Angeles: Roxbury.
22.
Freire, P.
(1992). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Publishing. (Original work published 1970)
23.
Geuss, R.
(1981). The idea of critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School. New York: Cambridge University Press.
24.
Gilligan, J.
(1996). Violence: Our deadly epidemic and its causes. New York: Putnam's Sons.
25.
Greene, S.
, Haney, C., & Hurtado, A. (2000). Cycles of pain: Risk factors in the lives of incarcerated mothers and their children. Prison Journal, 80, 2-23.
26.
Guitierrez, K.
(1999). Pharmacotherapeutics: Clinical decision making in nursing. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.
27.
Habermas, I.
(1971). Knowledge and human interests (J. Shapiro, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. (Original work published 1968)
28.
Habermas, J.
(1995). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
29.
Hammett, T.
, Roberts, C., & Kennedy, S. (2001). Health-related issues in prisoner reentry. Crime and Delinquency, 47, 390-409.
30.
Henderson, D.
(1998). Drug abuse and incarcerated women. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 15, 579-587.
31.
Henderson, D.
, Schaeffer, J., & Brown, L. (1998). Gender appropriate mental health services for incarcerated women: Issues and challenges. Family and Community Health, 21(3), 42-53.
32.
Heney, J.
, & Kristiansen, C. (1998). An analysis of the impact of prison on women survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In J. Hardxen & M. Hill (Eds.), Breaking the rules: Women inpris on and feminist therapy (pp. 29-44). New York: Haworth Press.
33.
Inciardi, J.
, Lockwood, D., & Pottieger, A. (1993). Women and crack cocaine. New York: Macmillan.
34.
Jordan, K.
, Schlenger, W., Fairbank, J., & Caddell, J. (1996). Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among incarcerated women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 513-519.
35.
Kitzman, H.
, Olds, D., Sidora, K., Henderson, C., Hanks, C., Cole, R., Luckey, D., Bondy, J., Cole, K., & Glazner, J. (2000). Enduring effects of nurse home visitation on maternal life course: A 3-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 283(15), 1983-1989.
36.
Kneipp, S.
(2000). The consequences of welfare reform for women's health. Journal of Community Health Nursing, 17(2), 65-73.
37.
Korfinacher, J.
, O'Brien, R., Hiat, S., & Olds, D. (1999). Differences in program implementation between nurses and paraprofessionals providing home visits during pregnancy and infancy: A randomized trial. American Journal of Public Health, 89(12), 1847-1851.
38.
Lamb, H. R.
, & Weinberger, L. E. (1998). Persons with severe mental illness in jails and prisons: A review. Psychiatric Services, 49, 483-492.
39.
Lather, P.
(1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. New York: Routledge.
40.
Lupton, D.
(1995). The imperative of health: Public health and the regulated body. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
41.
Lynch, J.
, & Sabol, W. (2001, September). Prisoner reentry in perspective: Crime policy report, 3. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center.
42.
Maeve, M. K.
(1997). Nursing practice with incarcerated women: Caring within mandated (sic) alienation. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 18, 495-510.
43.
Maeve, M. K.
(1998). Foreword to special issue: Health issues with incarcerated populations. Family and Community Health, 21(3), vii.
44.
Maeve, M. K.
(1999a). Adjudicated health: Incarcerated women and the social construction of health. Crime, Law, and Social Change, 31, 49-71.
45.
Maeve, M. K.
(1999b). The social construction of love and sexuality in a women's prison. Advances in Nursing Science, 21(3), 46-65.
46.
Maeve, M. K.
(2000). Speaking unavoidable truths: Understanding early childhood sexual and physical violence among women in prison. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 21, 473-498.
47.
Maher, L.
, Dunlap, E., Johnson, B., & Hamid, A. (1996). Gender, power, and alternative living arrangements in the inner-city crack culture. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 33, 181-205.
48.
Marquart, J.
, Brewer, V., & Mullings, J. (1999). Health risk as an emerging field within the new penology. Journal of Criminal Justice, 27, 143-154.
49.
Marquart, J.
, Merianos, D., Cuvelier, S., & Carroll, L. (1996). Thinking about the relationship between health dynamics in the free community and the prison. Crime and Delinquency, 42, 331-360.
50.
Martin, M.
(1997). Connected mothers: A follow-up study of incarcerated women and their children. Women and Criminal Justice, 8(4), 1-23.
51.
Mullins, J.
, Marquart, J., & Brewer, V. (2000). Assessing the relationship between child sexual abuse and marginal living conditions on HIV/AIDS-related risk behavior among women prisoners. Child Abuse and Neglect, 24, 677-688.
52.
National Academy of Sciences
. (1990). Healthy people 2000: Citizens chart the course. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
53.
National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC]
. (1994). Women's health care in correctional settings: Position statement. Chicago: National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
54.
Olds, D.
(1999, November). Long-term effects of prenatal and early childhood nurse home visitation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, Canada.
55.
Olds, D.
, Eckenrode, J., Henderson, C., Kitzman, H., Powers, J., Cole, R., Sidora, K., Morris, P., Pettitt, L., & Luckey, D. (1997). Long-term effects of home visitation on maternal life course and child abuse and neglect: 15-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(8), 637-643.
56.
Olds, D.
, Henderson, C., Cole, R., Eckenrode, J., Kitzman, H., Luckey, D., Pettitt, L., Sidora, K., Morris, P., & Powers, J. (1998). Long-term effects of nurse home visitation on children's criminal and antisocial behavior: 15-year follow-up of a randomized control trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 280(14), 1238-1244.
57.
Petersilia, J.
(2001). Prisoner reentry: Public safety and reintegration challenges. Prison Journal, 81, 360-375.
58.
Pollock, J.
(1999). Criminal women. Cincinnati: Anderson.
59.
Richie, B.
(1996). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered black women. New York: Routledge.
60.
Richie, B.
(2001). Challenges incarcerated women face as they return to their communities: Findings from life history interviews. Crime and Delinquency, 47, 368-389.
61.
Richie, B.
, Freudenberg, N., & Page, J. (2001). Reintegrating women leaving jail into urban communities: A description of a model program. Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 78(2), 290-303.
62.
Solomon, P.
, & Draine, J. (1999). Explaining lifetime criminal activities among clients of a psychiatric probation and parole service. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 27, 239-251.
63.
Stevens, P.
(2000). A nursing critique of U.S. welfare system reform. Advances in Nursing Science, 23(2), 1-11.
64.
Stoller, N.
(1997). Responses to stigma and marginality: The health of lesbians, imprisoned women, and women with HIV. In S. Ruzek, V. Olesen, & A. Clarke (Eds.) Women's health: Complexities and differences (pp. 451-472). Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
65.
Taylor, S.
(1996). Women offenders and reentry issues. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 28, 85-93.
66.
Travis, J.
, Solomon, A., & Waul, M. (2001). From prison to home: The dimensions and consequences of prisoner reentry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center.
67.
Vaughn, M. S.
, & Carroll, L. (1998). Separate and unequal: Prison versus free-world medical care. Justice Quarterly, 15, 3-40.
68.
Vaughn, M. S.
, & Smith, L. (1999). Practicing penal harm medicine in the United States: Prisoners' voices from jail. Justice Quarterly, 16, 175-231.
69.
Wallace, R.
(1993). Social disintegration and the spread of AIDS-II: Meltdown of socio geographic structure in urban minority neighborhoods. Social Science and Medicine, 37(7), 887-896.
70.
Watterson, K.
(1996). Women In prison: Inside the concrete womb (Rev. ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press.
71.
World Health Organization [WHO]
. (1978, September). Report of the international conference on primary health care. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
