Rethinking the Role of Rehabilitation in Women's Prisons

• In Event: Female Offenders

Abstract

Many feminist criminologists argue that the pursuit of rehabilitation for most women in custody is at best illusory. However, we contend there is a minority of women serving long terms of imprisonment for serious violent offences, for whom opposition to correctional programming requires a more nuanced approach. Our interest in rethinking the role of rehabilitation in women’s prisons stems from empirical research we have undertaken in a prison with a unit run as a democratic therapeutic community (DTC), principally, for women serving long sentences for serious violent offenses. Here we outline the structural organization and operating principles of this unique intervention, and detail the women’s experiences of the therapeutic regime. We argue that the DTC can be distinguished from other rehabilitative programmes in women’s prisons, and can be defended from many of the criticisms raised by feminist scholars. The women’s DTC we studied is the only one of its kind in the UK, but we suggest it might provide a model for the development of rehabilitative regimes for women serving long terms of imprisonment, both more widely in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

Authors

• Elaine Genders, University College London

• Elaine Player, King's College, London