Gender conflict is an issue that still exists within our society, long after the days of the Women’s Rights Movements and the division of career opportunities amongst men and women. While many times women are the ones facing obstacles, there are several instances in which the U.S. Prison System has made it harder for men to deal with their convictions. In Joanne Mariner’s article, “Deliberate Indifference,” she thoroughly describes the horrendous acts of rape and assault that occur within prison cells across the country. As male inmates are raped and violated, their suffering is setting the standards for different types of “masculinity” within our society. Nell Bernstein also discusses how the use of video-chat software is affecting the outlooks of convicted fathers and their struggle to keep contact with their families in his article, “Relocation Blues.” Both articles reveal the unrecognized struggle of male prisoners as they fight to survive in some of the harshest facilities within the country.
Gender related issues within U.S. Prisons initially involve consideration of the family. Family bonds are often broken whenever a convicted parent is sentenced to jail, according to Nell Bernstein’s article “Relocation Blues.” However, as stated by Carol Fennelly, “There was an outcry about mothers being separated from their children, but nobody bothered to ask what would happen to the dads and their relationship with their kids,” (109). Due to overcrowding, Fennelly explains how convicted fathers are constantly being moved into prisons far from their families, mainly because they do not seem to share that special bond a mother shares with her children; however, this is not always the case. Fennelly’s contribution of using Microsoft Ne...
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...Blues” discusses the challenges fathers face in keeping in touch with their children while in jail, Joanne Mariner’s “Deliberate Indifference” highlights the horrors of prison-rape conducted by male inmates. Despite whether one is a victim or a potential threat, or a good father or a bad father, each article shows the strength and courage a male must face in these harsh environments, and how his “masculinity” is ultimately determined by his will to survive.
Works Cited
Bernstein, Nell. "Relocation Blues." Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor. Ed.
Tara Herivel and Paul Wright. New York: Routledge, 2003. 106-110. Print.
Mariner, Joanne. "Deliberate Indifference: State Authorities’ Response to Prisoner-on-Prisoner
Sexual Abuse." Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor. Ed. Tara Herivel and Paul Wright. New York: Routledge, 2003. 73-84. Print.
" With violence affecting so many lives, one can understand the desire driven by fear to lock away young male offenders. But considering their impoverished, danger-filled lives, I wonder whether the threat of being locked up for decades can really deter them from crime" (305). Hopkins is definitely not our stereotypical prisoner. Most generally, our view of prisoners is not that of someone who has this profound use of wording and this broad sense of knowledge.
Across the country the ratio of male inmates to women is huge. According to “Criminal Justice a brief introduction” by Frank Schmalleger It states that the ratio that for every 15 male inmates there is only one female. But that doesn’t mean that the number of female inmates aren’t rapidly increasing. Even though there are similarities within both men and women’s prisons they are still in ways different.
In prisons, being masculine is highly essential and anyone who shows signs of weakness or softness, such as being feminine, is either mistreated or falls at the lowest level of being respected. Prisons are filled of activities for pure masculine to flourish such as: weight lifting, both playing and watching sports. Sports and fitness activities work to help men express themselves while also allowing their time due in prison to be bearable. In everything men do, the primary objective is to be bad, show toughness and establish an entitlement of sheer bruteness. It has deeply evoked practices of manhood such as being a bad ass, raping or beating others up, that it contradicts itself. The men placed there were arrested for doing such crimes and inside the prisons, they are forced to practice these social expressions. The culture of being hard and tough prevails and stays with them after their time has been payed
Anderson, E. A. (1976). The "Chivalrous" Treatment of the Female Offender in the Arms of the Criminal Justice System: A Review of the Literature. Social Problems, 23(3), 350-357
“Although nearly 90% of children remain with their mothers when fathers go to prison, grandparents usually care for children when mothers are incarcerated” (Johnson & Waldfogel, 2002; Snell, 1994 as cited in; Poehlmann). This shows that the family structure is more drastically upset when the mother is imprisoned versus the father. This also shows that just losing one parent while staying in the same environment is easier to self-adjust back into equilibrium than it is to fully change and integrate into another household. While the mother is in prison, the child is now in the care of someone else and where that child is, is crucial to their development. This explains that a disrupt in family structure can impact a child’s skills that are necessary to a positive development, such as reading and math skills and the ability to focus in class to learn. Emily Durkheim’s structural functionalism theory can be used to further explain this topic. A child’s family is an organism, no matter that typicality of it’s makeup. Every person has a role in the structure and when a mother is incarcerated that disrupts the system and the children are moved into a new structure, the process towards equilibrium can be tough and in some cases detrimental to their development as they are exposed to more intellectual
The supplementary reading that I decided to write a response paper on was the chapter “Prisoners Once Removed: The Children and Families of Prisoners”. This reading was a very eye opening reading for a few reasons. The first reason is because the perspective a criminal’s family is almost never put into perspective. The second reason I enjoyed the chapter is because in a way this article additionally informs its readers on the more subtle negative consequences that incarcerated people face even after serving their punishment. There are many statistics that come into play that help us understand the life of both the incarcerated individual and their family. This can be seen on the graphs that show the demographic on both inmate and their children.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001. In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc...
About one child in 50 in the United States currently has an incarcerated parent, but ensuing attachment disruptions for children depend substantially on the parent’s gender (Bretherton, 2011, p. 18). When fathers are imprisoned (by far the most common occurrence), 88% of the children continue to be cared for by their mothers (Bretherton, 2011, p. 18). Only 37% of fathers care for at least one of their children under these circumstances (Bretherton, 2011, p. 18).When mothers are incarcerated, children are most likely to live with a grandmother or aunt with whom they may or may not have a close relationship (Bretherton, 2011, p. 18). The majority of children whose mothers serve prison sentences not only face separation from the person most likely to be their principal attachment figure (Bretherton, 2011, p...
Women in Prison. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics Varnam, Steve. Our prisons are a crime (reforming the prison system). Editorial. Christianity Today 21 June 1993
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, it is projected that one in every three African Americans born are expected to go to prison. The consequences for black men have radiated out to their families. By 2000, more than 1 million black children had a father in jail or prison"(Coates pg.2). Men going to prison at such high rates has left many women to fend for themselves.
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
A vast majority of women who is incarcerated in U.S. prison systems are mothers of young children. Women inmates, who are in their late stages of pregnancy, will more than likely give birth while incarcerated behind bars (Hanser & Gomila, 2015). Not all penal institutions in the U.S. are equipped with adequate facilities, or prison nursery programs to accommodate incarcerated mothers and their infant. An infant’s bonding time with his or her mother is very critical during the first few months; however, not all prison facilities will allow incarcerated mothers the opportunity to bond with their child due to prison policies (Hanser & Gomila, 2015). Mothers in prison are incarcerated in remote areas where it is very difficult for their children to visit them. This case study will explore the issue of motherhood in prison, which is also
Many of the results that show conjugal visits reduce sexual assault in prisons are insignificant. The number of inmates in prison is huge, yet only a minimal number of inmates are eligible to participate in conjugal visits. Rachel Wyatt mentions that 46% of inmates report being married at some point, but only half of those inmates remained legally married (pg.21, 2006). Results from these research studies and surveys cannot be generalized to the entire prison population. There exists a large disparity between the number of prison inmates who cannot participate in conjugal visit and the ones who can. Therefore, it is preposterous to assume that conjugal visits will deter sexual assaults within prisons. Several research studies have found that sexual assault in prisons is a result of power, control, and humiliation. Feminist theory argues that “the sexual aspect of a rape or other sexual offense is not motivationally relevant because a sexual offense is viewed as ‘sexual
Upon incarceration, a person loses a host of things. First, a person loses their freedom. Second, a person loses their dignity. Third, a person loses their basic human rights. Although America remains at the epicenter of democracy, its prison system begs to differ. Furthermore, inmates incarcerated around the country all experience an unmatched level of dehumanization. This remains attributed to the greed of several businesses combined with the passing of insensitive laws. In particular, inmate communication companies seem to do the most damage to the spirit of inmates. Although they advertise how they intend on saving inmates money, their actions remain otherwise.
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.