The Prison Experience and Women’s Narrative Identity

• In Event: Intersectional Approaches to Reentry and Reintegration Research

Abstract

This research focuses on how women who spent time in prison incorporate their experiences into their identities. Drawing from narrative identity theory, this paper determines aspects of the prison experience that lead to women’s current identities, which are marked by contamination or by redemption scripts. The research also provides examples of both negative and positive future scripts engendered by experiences in prison. Interestingly, for some women prison does not play an important chapter in their lives; rather, other influences take precedence in influencing their identity. The relevance of prison to identity varies both for women who are interviewed while they are incarcerated or after they have left prison to return to community settings.

Authors

• Merry Morash, Michigan State University

• Marva V Goodson, Michigan State University

• Elizabeth Adams, Michigan State University

• Jennifer E Cobbina, Michigan State University

• Sandi W. Smith, Michigan State University