Incarcerated Mothers: Identity Negotiation and Community Context

• In Event: Structural Inequalities, Incarceration, and Probation

Abstract

The increased representation of women in the modern prison industrial complex and its devastating consequences for women and their children has largely been defined as an urban, inner-city problem. Lost in this conversation, is the acknowledgement of how the limited socioeconomic opportunities, spatial isolation, and stigma which characterize rural America, lead to hardships and vulnerabilities that mark the lives of rural women. This study integrates the macro-level structural and economic factors, such as lack of access to formal education and employment opportunities, which constrain the agency of rural women regarding their employment, child care, and housing decisions. Through discourse analysis, narratives from 43 incarcerated mothers, who participated in family-centered programming at a Midwestern correctional facility will be explored. The primary purpose of the study is to examine the ways in which community context has shaped women’s experiences of mothering (before and during incarceration), perceptions of the effect of incarceration on their children, and plans for returning home to their families and communities. Results of the study contribute to the limited research dedicated to rural women, usually obscured by society’s dominant urban perspective.

Authors

• Cara Rabe-Hemp, Illinois State University

• Dawn Beichner, Illinois State University