JESUS ANDA SOBRE EL MAR (Mr.6:46-52).

Prison culture has been widely understood as a sub-culture formed by prisoners as a response to an oppressive institution (Sykes, 1958; Clemmer, 1940). Prison culture has been constructed as a form of covert resistance or ‘secondary adjustment’ (Goffman, 1961), highlighting prisoner’s agency and expressions of free will in a system designed to suppress individuality and regulate daily activities. It relates to structural imperatives of the institution and the importation of specific social and cultural values and characteristics of individual prisoners. As specifically US studies of female prison culture have highlighted, women adapt differently to prison life than men (Ward and Kassebaum, 1965; Heffernan, 1976; Owen, 1998; Pollock, 2002).

Ward and Kassebaum (1965) highlighted the significant impact of imprisonment on women through the loss of family relations and children, around which their social and cultural identities had previously been constructed (Goffman, 1961). However, severed social relations led to greater experiences of isolation and difficulties to adapt and adopt an institutional identity. Ward and Kassebaum, additionally, noted less evidence for inmate solidarity and loyalty in female prisons, arguing researchers investigating male prison culture had overemphasised on prisoners as a homogonous group. The variation of roles occupied by women also differed from typical male roles due to women’s specific gendered adaptation: ‘they react as women’ (1965, p.58). Pollock (2002) observed that women imitate intimate family relations in prisons, creating substitute prison families. This highlights the distinct social needs of women in prison.

Heffernan (1972) established that specific groups of prisoners adapted differently to prison life, such as the square, the cool and the life. Adaptation, she asserted, relates to importations of specific outside behaviour, including gendered scripts and

behaviour. The reasons leading to imprisonment, are also a factor in women’s pro- criminal or non-criminal identities inside and outside, but also her needs and subsequent individual perception of deprivation. The nature and number of offences became an important indicator for women’s inside adaptations and behaviour. ‘The life’ (prolific offender, drug-related offences) imported a criminal identity and continued committing criminal acts in prison – they resisted and rebelled. ‘The square’ and ‘the cool’ cooperated and colonised. She also asserted that different prison spaces create different interaction possibilities, such as work and education spaces, in which inmates are viewed through competencies (ibid, p.180) and which are less restrictive. Therefore, adaptations in those spaces differed. But as Heffernan (1972) demonstrated, adaptations are also dynamic and dependent on sentence time and time served in the institution.

Owen’s (1998) work demonstrated a more fluid, dynamic and often situational participation, particularly in resistance (p.167). She identified three critical areas that are important in understanding women’s participation in prison culture: ‘negotiating the prison world, which involves dimensions of juice4F

5_{, respect, and reputation; styles} of doing time which include a commitment to the prison code; and one’s involvement in trouble, hustles, conflicts and drugs’ (ibid, p.167). Owen asserted that time spent in prison, pre-prison experiences, previous incarcerations, and relationships formed in the prison, were important factors in women’s participation in forms of resistance. But also age, educational levels, commitment to a deviant identity, sentence status, time left to serve and maintenance of relationships outside such as with children determined some involvement.

5 _{Owen (1998) referred here to women’s ‘informal pull with staff or increased status or maneuverability’}

Additionally, women’s mental and physical health issues and drug dependencies need to be considered as contributing to adverse behaviour as outlined in the previous section. Sim (1990) and Liebling (1994) highlighted the practice of over- medicalisation to control ‘challenging’ female prisoners. The general profile of female prisoners already pointed to the distinct, imported needs of female prisoners. But frictions and resistance cannot just be linked to individually imported problems, but also the prison’s ability to provide safe and respectful environments that allow prisoners to engage in purposeful activities and prepare for resettlement (Howard League, 2016). It is, therefore, also prison staff and institutional structures that affect social practices or better create the conditions for specific forms of resistance to the overall regime. Prison-staff relations were identified as being important in managing suicide risks (MOJ, 2015c). Equally, assaults and violence are seen as a result of both personal and situational factors (MOJ, 2016a, p.40), with the planning and sequencing of activities but also lower staff-prisoner-ratios, amongst others, seen as important steps forward to support engagement with regime activities lowering security risk (ibid, p.42).

Imprisonment, itself, leads to the development of a variety of mental health problems due to, for instance, isolation, loss of control, dependence and family separation, specifically the separation from dependable children for many female prisoners (Liebling, 1994): the pains of imprisonment. Other important aspects in prison adaptation are, therefore, specific events outside of women’s control that happen whilst imprisoned, such as children being placed into care or loss of significant outside relations. Those trigger ‘reactive behaviours’ (Rubin 2014, p.24) rather than pre-planned and organised resistances.

Women’s prisons have traditionally higher rates of self-harm, indicating possibly greater problems in women’s adaptation to prison life (Voelm and Dolan, 2014), due

to the issues mentioned above but also their complex mental and physical health needs. Criminological research has also emphasised on ‘regimes of femininity’ that regulate and control appearances, work and behaviour of female prisoners (Carlen, 1983; Dobash, et al., 1986; Smith, 1962). MOJ statistics demonstrate a traditionally higher rate of disciplinary sanctions in female prisons for disobedience and disrespect (MOJ, 2014), which would indicate higher rates of resistance/frictions in female prisons. As Dobash et al (1986) asserted, ‘women in prison are more closely observed and controlled, more often punished, and punished for more trivial offences than are men in prison’ (p.207). The IEP system currently used to control prisoner behaviour, through coercion, has been criticised for leading to prisoner frustration, defiance and withdrawal (Liebling, 2008). The overestimation of a prisoner’s ability to always choose rationally in often-unfamiliar environments, but also the relationship between legitimacy and compliance, can lead to a prisoner’s inability to maintain agency, trust and normative mechanisms (ibid, p.39) important factors for female desistance. Frictions might therefore arise from women’s individual perception of respect and fair treatment (Hulley, et al., 2011).

Female prisoners have been continuously described as ‘needy and challenging’ (HMI, 2011), difficult to handle and irrational in their behaviour (Dobash, et al., 1986; Smith, 1962; Fry, 1858). But as women’s experiences differ prior to incarceration, their experiences in custody subsequently differ from male experiences (Carlen, 1993; 1998; Dobash, et al., 1986) requiring gender-specific regimes and procedures. This, as this thesis will demonstrate, should also include a thorough analysis of displaced social interactions through technological artefacts, a revision of staff responsibilities and educational targets.