Marking Time in the Golden State: Women's Imprisonment in California

by Candace Kruttschnitt , Rosemary Gartner

• ISBN13: 9780521825580
• ISBN10: 052182558X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-11-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In recent decades, the nature of criminal punishment has undergone change in the United States. This case study of women serving time in California in the 1960s and 1990s examines key points in this recent history. The authors begin with a look at imprisonment at the California Institution for Women in the early 1960s, when the rehabilitative model dominated official discourse. They compare women's experiences in the 1990s, at the California Institution for Women and the Valley State Prison, when the recent 'get tough' era was near its peak. Drawing on archival data, interviews, and surveys, their analysis considers the relationships among official philosophies and practices of imprisonment, women's responses to the prison regime, and relations between women prisoners. The experiences of women prisoners reflected the transformations Americans have witnessed in punishment over recent decades, but they also mirrored the deprivations and restrictions of imprisonment.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
1. Introduction	1	(7)
The Study Unfolds	4	(2)
Overview	6	(2)
2. Women, Crime, and Punishment in California	8	(31)
Crime, Criminal Justice, and Politics in California, 1960 to 1998	9	(12)
Women, Crime, and Criminal Justice in California, 1960 to 1998	21	(10)
An Overview of Women's Imprisonment in California, 1960 through 1998	31	(6)
Conclusion	37	(2)
3. Entering the Prisons: Methods	39	(26)
A Temporal Study of the California Institution for Women, Frontera	40	(7)
Expanding the Research into an Institutional Comparison	47	(17)
Conclusion	64	(1)
4. Women's Experiences of Imprisonment at the California Institution for Women in the 1960's and the 1990's	65	(30)
Relationships among Official Philosophies and Practices of Imprisonment and Prisoners' Experiences	67	(4)
Official Philosophies and Practices of Imprisonment at the California Institution for Women in the Early 1960's	71	(5)
Official Philosophies and Practices of Imprisonment at the California Institution for Women in the Mid-1990's	76	(5)
Prisoners' Views on and Responses to the Prison Regime and Staff at the California Institution for Women	81	(7)
Prisoners' Views on and Relations with Other Prisoners at the California Institution for Women	88	(4)
Conclusion	92	(3)
5. Variations across Time and Place in Women's Prison Experiences	95	(26)
Official Philosophies and Practices of Imprisonment at Valley State Prison for Women in the late 1990's	97	(4)
Prisoners' Views on and Responses to the Prison Regime and Staff at Valley State Prison for Women	101	(5)
Prisoners' Views on and Relations with Other Prisoners at Valley State Prison for Women	106	(2)
Survey Data on Prisoners' Experiences of Doing Time	108	(11)
Conclusion	119	(2)
6. Negotiating Prison Life: How Women "Did Time" in the Punitive Era of the 1990's	121	(36)
The Pioneers: Prisonization, the Inmate Code, and Argot Roles	123	(3)
Rule Breaking and Mental Health	126	(1)
Recasting Concepts of Women Inmates' Responses to Prison	127	(2)
Conceptualizing "Doing Time"	129	(7)
Exploring Institutional Differences	136	(2)
Understanding the Different Ways Women "Do Time"	138	(5)
A Different View of Women's Responses to Imprisonment	143	(11)
Evaluating Women's Responses to Prison	154	(3)
7. Conclusion: The Spectrum of Women Prisoners' Experiences	157	(6)
Appendix: Characteristics of Interviewees	163	(10)
References	173	(16)
Author Index	189	(3)
Subject Index	192