Offending Women and Interrupted Life

Two new books take a hard look at women in prison: one by those on the outside studying them, and the other by those locked within, longing to get out. It's hardly happenstance that a thread in both books is the Californication of prisons, by a state that boasts the largest prison system for women in the world.

Complaints about prison costs, corruption, and overcrowding have become commonplace--especially in California. A fact that's seldom bandied about: The population of women in prison nationwide has increased nearly 800 percent since 1977--and nearly 70 percent of all female inmates are mothers.

Offending Women focuses on two northern California institutions in which women served out their sentences along with their children. While the practice of essentially incarcerating kids along with their mothers is controversial, most of those involved preferred it to the uncertain prospects of foster care and homelessness. Seeds for alternative facilities were planted in the 1980s when staffers at San Francisco's Legal Services for Prisoners with Children unearthed a statutory provision (Cal. Penal Code §3411) allowing female inmates to serve sentences with their children in community-based facilities. In 1985, only three women were doing so.

Alliance, a state-sponsored group home for "familyless teen mothers with felony convictions," opened in 1989. The confines are described in the book as almost "homey," but the atmosphere discomforting. (Author Lynne Haney used pseudonyms for the facilities because of confidentiality agreements.)

Alliance staff members fixated on their charges' dependency--especially on state assistance, which they claimed led to criminal activity and kept the woman from becoming self-sufficient and free. Tacit encouragement came in tough-love bromides, with inmates frequently admonished to "Take the bull by the horns." But the rules and policies, though well intentioned, come across as confused, confusing--and contradictory.

The contradictions went to the core. Alliance staff, while quick to condemn state correctional authorities, also depended on them to supply both residents and funding. And while all inmates were enrolled to receive AFDC benefits, Alliance confiscated and spent the payments on food and supplies.

Ironically, Alliance died a victim of its own dichotomous teachings. One of the inmates, taking the bull by the horns as directed, anonymously got in touch with state authorities to complain about operations there. The men in suits who came to investigate ultimately shut down the facility in 1993, just a few years after it opened.

By that time, social justice theory had shifted from the belief that criminals could be cured by self-esteem training to the belief that the offenders' symptoms invaded not only the mind, but the body and soul as well.

Out of that theory came Visions, a residential facility for incarcerated adult mothers that was also based in northern California. Those doing time at Visions were offered yoga, meditation, manicures, and facials to nourish the body and soul--but the best and highest offering was the therapy of recovery. The vision of Visions was that low esteem led to addictions--to tobacco, to money, to men, to drugs, and eventually to crime-that were treatable with reflection and introspection.

The book was written after 15 years of study that began while Haney, now a professor of sociology at New York University, was a UC Berkeley grad student. Readers seeking a conclusion will be frustrated, as it's carefully crafted from the view of a detached ethnographer, focusing on organizational theory. But the details that sneak in accidentally seem most poignant, such as the girls at Alliance who spent the week before Valentine's Day decorating elaborate cards for "their men," none of whom sent anything in return.

While different in form and philosophy, both Alliance and Visions prided themselves on empowering rather than overpowering their charges while nurturing family bonds. Ultimately, both failed at that mission, perversely using the children as both carrots and sticks. Inmates who obeyed house rules were given more access to their children, more freedom in how and when to feed, clothe, and care for them; the recalcitrant were separated from their kids. According to the author, Visions is "still operating with a steady stream of clients."

But these failures set the stage for future reforms, such as California's Proposition 36, passed in 2000 and still much debated, allowing treatment rather than incarceration for repeat drug-possession offenders.

Prop. 36 is among the initiatives considered in Interrupted Life, a loose collection of narratives, essays, poetry, and reports that broadly examines the ins and outs of life behind bars. But there are recurring themes in the special challenges women face: sexual abuse by correctional staff, health problems ignored and untreated, and losing custody of children.

Amid the bleakness, though, are some causes for hope. One is "Get on the Bus," a California program offering children and their caregivers free transportation to visit their incarcerated parents. Another is The Incarcerated Young Mothers Bill of Rights--spanning from the general right to be treated with respect, to the specific right not to be handcuffed and shackled during childbirth--now in place at San Francisco's Juvenile Hall and serving as a model for women's facilities around the nation.

Except for some unnecessary filler--such as outdated reports to the United Nations on violence and on female prisoners on death row--it's a real mind-opener, especially for readers who don't get out of the confines of their lawyerly minds to contemplate what goes on behind locked cell doors.

Defending Women by Lynn a. Haney; Interrupted Life edited by Rickie Solinger, Paula C. Johnson, Martha L. Raimon, Tina Reynolds, and Ruby C. Tapia

Barbara Kate Repa is a lawyer, writer, and editor living in San Francisco. She frequently writes about women's issues.

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