Abstract
The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs; it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism, and, increasingly, global capitalism.
Advocates, social workers, and progressive thinkers have been sending up the warning flag about the growing number of people held in custody for 30 years and the recent budget crises in many states have propelled reform measures such as early releases of some nonviolent adults and changes in mandatory sentencing laws. Such reforms have slowed down admissions to prison facilities. However, many of the policies that first built and filled these prisons continue unabated. Despite the slowing admissions in some states, in 2010, 14 states reported increases in their prison populations (Guerino, Harrison, & Sabol, 2011).
Paradoxically, despite the enormity and great significance for tens of millions of our citizens, America’s mass incarceration binge remains largely invisible to many of us due to both the distance of facilities and the unquestioned necessity for punishment. Most people in the United States believe that the legal system is fair and just and that the identity of law breaker or feared criminal supersedes their identity as human within a system of unequal justice. Consciously and unconsciously, we “buy-in” to the need for punishment by moving many of our most vulnerable citizens out of sight using a system of incarceration that is now highly influenced by profit. Compared to present day concerns such as the economy, health care, overseas wars, and the threat of terrorism, incarceration, even mass incarceration, is a marginal political concern. Although we see the profound effects incarceration has on the lives of so many families and destabilized communities, we are most often informed about prison by scores of TV shows about crime and punishment aired each week that enables us to evade any moral responsibility for this system’s existence in the name of public safety and the normality of criminal system processing dispositions that are expected to be fair and without prejudice. Simplistically, the common viewpoint is “you do the crime, you do the time.” But, scholars across the political landscape have pointed out the multiple and various ways that these dispositions are not in fact, fair and equitable, especially with attention to how race, class, sexuality, and gender matter for who is charged, who is convicted, and the sentences individuals receive, especially for federal drug crimes which often carry the most severe penalties (Alexander, 2010; The Sentencing Project—http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm).
Drucker (2013) draws from a public health perspective to describe mass incarceration as an “epidemic” that has features and effects far beyond the individuals who are celled. He suggests that a primary, secondary, and tertiary model of response would first drastically slow down admissions, second, ensure that released people are given every chance to succeed so that they don’t return to prison, and that third, the culture of punishment is shifted so that the reliance on punishment does not overshadow a treatment response.
The female prison population grew by 832% from 1977 to 2007 (the male prison population grew 416% during the same period; West & Sabol, 2010). A cursory examination of women in prison identifies three facts about who they are, namely, they are largely incarcerated for nonviolent, drug-related crimes; they are mothers of minor children; and they are disproportionately women of color. These characteristics also relate to the enduring impact of their short- or long-term sentence in a state or federal prison cell: They experience enduring trauma often comorbid with mental and physical disorders, they lose connection with their children and family members, and they experience multiple forms of stigma related to having a conviction that prevents them from rebuilding their lives after release from prison. This stigma and the lack of access to financial support impede their ability to support themselves and their children if they are reunited after the separation.
Prison Abolition?
As we have increasingly totaled the harms related to incarceration for both men and women, a parallel trend, particularly among some feminists, has been the building of a new “gender-specific” array of interventions and programs based on what are essentialist beliefs about women’s needs. These approaches claim to offer women greater empowerment inside the walls, while they are still increasingly locked up for nonviolent crimes or reportedly as INCITE describes on charges related to domestic violence when police make dual arrests in states where mandatory arrest laws require an arrest when there is probable cause (whether or not the woman was the primary aggressor; INCITE, 2001; Richie, 2012). Although there is some evidence that such carceral approaches may make prison sentences better for some, they prevent us from questioning the logic of continuing to incarcerate women, especially for nonviolent crimes. In addition, when women’s treatment needs are assessed (for addiction treatment and to address educational and/or vocational gaps), services are becoming less available, as the tsunami-like tide of women, particularly poor, racialized, and victimized women, continue to pour into state and federal prisons across the country. Kelly Hannah-Moffat criticized the Canada prison system for similar reasons, referring to a new prison facility as a “feminine fortress” where the correctional staff dehumanize and disempower women while giving lip service to their empowerment (Hannah-Moffat, 1995). Bernstein (2010) called such efforts encouraged by mainstream feminists that do not challenge incarceration itself as examples of “carceral feminism” a rightward movement toward a politics of incarceration (especially related to criminalized sex workers).
Transformative feminism takes a very different approach to responding to incarceration. It questions the assumptions of the traditional prison system by interrogating harm (who was harmed and who was harming) within a sociopolitical and cultural context that enables such harm to occur. Consequently, transformative feminism requires that we move beyond accepted practices of incarceration and begin to entertain the possibility that prison reform would include decarceration—the radical notion that we can build a secure world without prisons.
Decarceration and/or prison abolition requires an emphasis on building community accountability for responding to harm rather than reliance upon policing, surveillance, and the criminal processing system. The best-known organization supporting prison abolition, Critical Resistance, defines abolition as “a movement to create lasting alternatives to punishment–based institutions such as prisons, jails, juvenile, immigrant, and military detention centers” (CR10 Publications Collective, 2008, p. 11). Prison abolition exposes the racism and institutionalized oppression inherent to the prison system and challenges the ideological “need” for prisons. Advocates and activists within the prison abolition movement recognize that prison does not make us safer and calls for shifting resources to reinvestment in community-based empowerment, community-led education, and radical activism as alternatives to the prison system.
What’s a Feminist Social Worker to do?
First, it is time to open our eyes and question the assumptions that provide the foundation for the prison system. Mass incarceration should not be considered without also recognizing the inequity inherent in our legal system and assigning some responsibility to inequality, violence, and oppression. Second, offenses should be scrutinized using a critical eye that recognizes the difference between violent and nonviolent offenders. An alternative to incarcerating nonviolent offenders could include community-based interventions addressing treatment needs. Although some may dismiss this option as liberal rhetoric, there is some evidence that these approaches work in the United States. For example, Women in Recovery, a wraparound program, focuses on addressing issues of addiction and trauma. This Oklahoma program shows early signs of success as determined by rearrests. Illinois-funded Adult Redeploy builds upon research that charged individuals are more effectively treated in their own communities where they can stay employed and with their families. It has diverted 1,376 people from prison since its inception in January 2011.
As state’s costs to keep locking up people has outspent their other human support functions, we have increased our investment in learning what works for ending the cycle of reincarceration and lifelong destruction of families and communities. Susan Burton, the founder of A new way of life, a group of transition homes for women exiting prison in Los Angeles, indicates that an abolitionist perspective transforms the lives of former prisoners, as they work to mend the connections between women and their families and communities.
These alternatives to the prison industrial complex cannot take hold, despite their promise of success until we move this debate to confront a public sphere that passively accepts the myth of a just criminal penal system. We must believe that prisons are not an inevitable part of life. Ultimately, we must join with formerly incarcerated women activists who recognize that women who are mothers and community builders can find their way forward when they are supported and treated with respect for their human dignity.