Transcriber: Ellen Maloney Reviewer: Denise RQ
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
This famous quote by Dostoyevsky reminds us
that to truly understand the progression of humanity,
we should open our eyes to see how we treat
some of the most unsympathetic characters in our world.
How we choose to control, house, supervise, and treat inmates
says a tremendous amount about us as a society.
While I sincerely agree with this idea,
I personally think it doesn't go far enough.
Some inmates are more vulnerable than others, and more marginalized.
And because we live in a world
that implicitly favors some groups over others;
majorities over minorities masculinities over femininities,
abilities over disabilities,
in order to know the progression of humanity,
we shouldn't enter just any prison;
we should enter a women's prison.
Although women make up only about 7%
of the total incarcerated population in the United States,
it's precisely for this reason
that we should focus on how they are treated,
because all too often, they are considered an after-thought,
if thought of at all, among correctional systems.
But here's why we need to start thinking about them:
when we start with women in mind, we begin to see that, on the whole,
they are not nearly as dangerous and violent as men.
Their crimes are primarily driven by economic and addiction factors,
and usually do not include physical violence against others.
This, of course, doesn't mean that women aren't capable of violence,
but what it does mean is that it takes more provocation, more instigation,
for women to become violent.
When they do,
it's oftentimes in the context of a relationship,
characterized by intimate partner abuse and victimization,
and done in acts of self-defense.
Yet, when women come to us in prison settings,
we oftentimes consider them just as dangerous as men.
In some instances,
we think correctional staff, honestly and understandably,
are trained to see every inmate the same way.
They are trained to see every inmate exactly the same way.
An inmate is an inmate is an inmate, no matter what they did or who they are.
On the surface, this kind of custody approach seems to make sense;
if we treat every inmate the same way,
then we will never literally be caught off-guard.
But one of the things I want to share with you today
is that when we have
the same policies and procedures for women as we do for men,
oftentimes there are problems that come up that are associated with this.
What I'm going to share with you in the next couple of slides
are a little bit more data,
but don't freak out.
I mean, I am a professor, there's going to be some data in this presentation,
but the rest of the talk isn't all data, I promise,
we'll get through it together.
One of the things that I wanted to share with you
is this idea and this notion of custody classification.
This graph shows us - shows correctional scholars -
what it looks like when a custody classification tool
is doing what it's supposed to be doing,
if it's working for the intended population
that it's supposed to be working with.
In this case, it's with inmates.
This graph are basically ideal data;
they're hypothetical data, they're made up data.
what we'd want to see happen along the way
if a custody classification tool is actually working.
If we take a look at this,
we see that there's a smaller proportion of minimum custody inmates
who are acting out behaviorally over time.
A custody classification tool, essentially, is a behavioral prediction.
Every inmate has to be given a custody classification tool,
or a custody classification before they enter that institution,
because we have to make really tough decisions
about who might be a problem inside institutions.
Again, these are the ideal data that you'd want to see.
The fact that you see a nice stair-step effect,
and that it's working equally well for women as it is for men.
The reality in most states, and most jurisdictions
looks something more like this;
what we call "over-classification".
So let's take a minute to look and see what's happening here,
in this slide, and in these data.
If you just look at the men, it looks like it's working, right?
You see a nice stair-step effect,
where there's a smaller proportion of minimum custody inmates
who are acting out over a period of time, meaning after about a year,
they have fewer misconducts over time,
in comparison to the medium and maximum custody inmates.
If you look at the women,
it also looks like it's kind of working.
You see that kind of nice stair-step effect,
but the problem, and it's a big problem, and one that you wouldn't otherwise know
if you didn't separate out the data by gender,
is that the maximum custody women, behaviorally,
look more like the medium custody men.
And the medium custody women, look more like the minimum custody men.
For the attorneys, judges, lawyers in the room;
you know this is a massive legal problem.
These are not hypothetical data;
these data do come from a state which will remain unnamed,
because it's a massive lawsuit waiting to happen.
When we have results like this, we start to realise
that we are no longer keeping women
in the least restrictive conditions, in the least restrictive environments.
We have a mandate, a legal mandate,
governed by associations
like the United Nations, and the American Bar Association
that mandate we have
the least restrictive environments for inmates
based on their behaviour.
This is a problem when we have the same custody classification tool
used for women, assuming they're just as dangerous as men.
When we start with women in mind,
we also begin to see that they are the ones
who will be returning to children upon their release.
They are the ones who will be taking care of the kids
when they return to communities.
The reality is that when we send a man to prison for his crimes,
it's usually the mother who's taking care of any kids who are left behind.
When we send a woman to prison for her crimes,
the unfortunate reality is that it's not usually the father
who's taking care of any kids.
Usually, more often than not, her children will end up in the foster care system,
or with a family member if she's lucky,
and if she has that kind of self-support and social support.
Many women do not have that kind of social support.
Fortunately, there are evidence-based programs
that we can put in place inside institutions
that can help teach women how to adequately parent their kids
when they come back to them,
and how to adequately handle the parental stress
that everybody experiences, no matter who you are,
if you're raising children.
When we start with women in mind,
we also begin to face the uncomfortable realities
of trauma and victimization in their lives.
We can almost take universal precautions with women inside institutions,
and assume that every single woman inside that institution
has experienced some form of trauma;
be it physical, emotional, or sexual trauma.
This is especially true for women of color and trans-gendered women.
The good news is
we know how to create peaceful environments
in institutions for women.
But it's important to remember that women who have been traumatized
experience the prison environment differently.
There are things that we can do to help create trauma-informed care,
even inside prisons.
It means eliminating cross-gender pat-downs,
and cross-gender strip-searches.
It means training correctional staff on adequate ways of knowing
that their physical presence and the tone of their voice affects people differently
who have experienced and suffered from trauma.
And it means that we, honestly,
in the words of a new friend of mine, Dr Stephanie Evans,
that there are blueprints for dealing with the drama in trauma.
You know, I recently sat in on a panel of women inmates,
- I'm actually from the state of Oregon -
I wanted to share some of the words they told me and they told our group,
when they were asked to give us their stories, their narratives,
of how they ended up in the system.
So these are their words.
You can see that there's a lot of pain and anguish in these words.
It's important to note
that when they were talking about their stories,
they weren't blaming the system
for being part of the criminal justice system.
They weren't blaming the cards
that they were dealt in life for them being in prison.
They weren't blaming the zip-code that they were born into.
Do you know who they were blaming?
Themselves.
This is not something you typically hear as often
with male inmates and with male offenders.
They have lots of self-defeating attitudes.
The good news is women know how to get to places
where they can start thinking
about more positive attitudes, and more positive things,
including the strengths that they bring
to illicit the courage to move forward
from trauma and victimization in their lives.
But they can only get to these kind of strengths
if their correctional staff [is] willing,
and who are daring themselves to really care in such a way
where they can actually help women work through this;
because women don't work through it on their own.
I want to end with this notion and this idea that equality doesn't mean
having the same policies and procedures for women as we do for men.
It means understanding the different sociological, psychological
and cultural differences that exist across gender.
It also means understanding
that not every woman's experience in this world is the same.
A black woman's experience is not nearly the same as a white woman's experience,
or a Latina's experience, or a native American woman's experience,
or even a trans-gendered woman's experience.
But as soon as we start recognizing
that the differences are not weaknesses but strengths,
the safer we all will be.
Thank you.
(Applause)