They are Just Too Demanding: Gendered Control and Regulation of Young Women in Confinement

• In Event: Essential Contexts: Privilege and Oppression in Crime and Justice

Abstract

The paper explores the institutional practices related to young women’s placement in gender-integrated secure care institutions in Denmark. The paper draws on a qualitative study combining participant-observation and interviews to gain insight into young women’s experiences of being placed in secure care and professionals´ gendered regulatory practices and understandings of young women. Using a combination of Foucauldian power analytics and poststructuralist feminist theory, the study finds that young women are pathologized and disciplined through body-oriented practices aimed at regulating gender and sexuality. It is argued that secure care institutions operate on a masculine baseline, where gendered control and regulation contribute to the production of disordered selves. The study provides insights on the gendered logics that underpin interventions operating within the penal-social work nexus, providing unique insights into the treatment of young women in confinement and lending voice to young women’s experiences of confinement. More refined understandings of gender and sexuality are needed to promote effective and empowering interventions for confined young women.

Author

• Ann-Karina Henriksen, University of Aalborg