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In just over a decade, as the American prison population has doubled, the number of female prisoners has nearly quadrupled. But because almost 93 percent of those behind bars are men, there has been little empirical research on women inmates. "They are the fastest-growing segment of incarcerated persons now, and the group we know the least about," says Angela Browne, a social psychologist and senior research scientist at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the School of Public Health.
Since 1988, with few breaks, Browne has spent one week a month at New York's Bedford Hills correctional facility, which houses about 840 inmates in the state's only maximum-security prison for women. One recent research study by Browne and two colleagues analyzed interview data from 150 women on their arrival at Bedford Hills, in an attempt to formulate a more complete description of the incarcerated female. Browne is now fleshing out those findings with six-hour personal interviews that have so far explored the lives of 30 prisoners, focusing on the nature, prevalence, and severity of traumatic experiences in the women's lives before they were locked up.
The 150 women in Browne's Bedford Hills study averaged 32 years of age; about half were African Americans, a quarter Hispanics, and one-eighth non-Hispanic whites. Although most had never married, nearly 80 percent were mothers, and their imprisonment had serious effects on their children.
In fact, their own childhood traumas seem to be at the root of most of the women's troubles. Eighty-two percent experienced some sort of severe assault during childhood. More than half of the girls had been sexually molested as children, and more than 70 percent had been severely attacked physically by an adult caretaker. "If, over a period of two years when you are small, you cannot go to sleep for five nights in a row in your own bed without an adult male coming in to molest you, the basic space you need to accomplish the complex maturational tasks of childhood is very disrupted," says Browne. "A child faced with survival issues at the hands of a caretaker lacks the safety as well as the adult examples necessary for these steps."
Typically, these girls begin seeking safety or solace by running away from home around the age of 12 to 14. Frequently they are sent to group homes to remove them from dangerous environments: a girl may show up at school, for example, with burn marks or bruises. "You see an onset of substance abuse, early depression, and post-traumatic stress responses," says Browne. The latter category can include nightmares and dissociation from one's environment as a way of dealing with pain and danger. Drug and alcohol abuse are another escape strategy.
The changes go as deep as blood chemistry, which may respond to molestation and violence with a characteristic elevation in the "stress hormone" cortisol. Cortisol affects memory, mood, and the ability to concentrate. "Such chemical changes," Browne explains, "affect learning and success in school, and consequently the ability to succeed in society."
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As the girls grow up, they often become involved with abusive or violent intimate partners. As teenagers, they often get into legal trouble as accessories to crimes--being present, for example, when a male friend or partner suddenly knifes or shoots someone. "A significant percentage of the women never touched the victim, and didn't know anything violent was going to happen," says Browne. "In other cases, an intimate partner kills the woman's child, and she, too, is charged with the death."
National data indicate some sharp contrasts in male and female prison populations. A large majority (74 percent) of incarcerated men have committed a violent felony, but only 24 percent of the women have done so. Drug convictions account for much of the recent jump in the female prison population: in 1986, 12 to 13 percent of incarcerated women were serving drug-related sentences; today the figure is more than 60 percent. The shift from the drug-abuse prevention and treatment approach of the 1970s to the "war on drugs" launched in the Reagan era is a major force driving up the female prison population, according to Browne, who says, "We're really using prison as our solution of choice for drug involvement."
Browne feels that her findings question the wisdom of this national emphasis on incarceration. One of 150 Americans is in prison or jail today. "No other democracy comes near that number," Browne says. "It's higher even than former police states like the Soviet Union and South Africa. At the rate we are imprisoning people, 1 of 20 Americans born this year will spend at least some time in prison or jail.
~ Craig Lambert