Susan Catherine Dewey

The number of women incarcerated in U.S. prisons is over six times higher than it was in 1980, and most women in prison are survivors of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse which directly informs their pathways to prison. Women often face revictimization in prison through institutional practices and approaches designed for men, and many state prison administrations have accordingly adopted gender-responsive, trauma-informed approaches which comprehensively address intersecting harms (i.e., trauma, victimization, substance abuse, and sexism, classism, racism in the criminal legal system) through institutional culture, treatment modalities, and daily practices designed to meet incarcerated women’s unique needs. With these complex realities in mind, the proposed research will answer three inter-related questions through a year-long ethnography of a Southern U.S. women’s prison: [1] How do regional cultural histories and forces of capital, racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia combine with prison institutional culture to shape women’s pathways to prison and their expectations for post-release life? [2] How do incarcerated women’s intersectional gender, race, class, and sexual identities shape their experiences of gender-responsive, trauma-informed approaches to prison administration? [3] How do prison staff members’ intersectional identities impact the ways in which they reconcile gender-informed, trauma-responsive approaches’ therapeutic orientation with prison’s inherently traumatizing environment?