Like the Problem Kids in High School: The Medicalization, Infantilization, and Demonization of Women Inmates in a Therapeutic Jail

• In Event: Gender and Incarceration Experiences: Social Constructions and in Their Own Words

Abstract

In this study, I examine the contradictory constructions of incarcerated women at Northeast Jail, a county jail in the U.S. Staff and administrators promoted the facility as more humane, more rehabilitative, and more effective than its counterparts in the rest of Northeast state. In order to manage the contradictions between providing therapy and traditional punishment, the rehabilitative philosophy constructed women in a variety of ways. Northeast Jail treated all incarcerated women as addicts in need of treatment, regardless of their drug use or history. At the same time, the rhetoric of choice constructed inmates as rational decision makers who chose drugs, crime, and incarceration over their children. When the conditions of incarceration made women powerless, staff interpreted women’s powerlessness, and even politeness, as evidence of developmental delays and immaturity. Finally, though the rehabilitative rhetoric at Northeast asserted (correctly) that most women were non-violent offenders, staff also argued that women were increasingly or potentially violent. These contradictions worked to justify incarceration, even when women returned again and again to Northeast on the same charges related to drug use. Whether sick, delayed, or depraved, inmates belonged at Northeast Jail.

Author

• Brittnie Aiello, Merrimack College