Locked up in Vermont

Depression, family separation characterize prison life for women; many home comforts are available to inmates

Editor's Note: This is the second of a three-part series exploring life in Vermont prisons.

By Hilary Jean McElroy
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Chanelle Swenson lives for those weekly visits.

"My greatest pain is being separated from my daughter," she says wistfully.

Swenson, a 25-year-old prisoner at the Adult Corrections Institute in Concord, NH, who has been incarcerated for just over one year for credit card fraud, is allowed to visit with her seven-year-old daughter once a week during visiting hours.

"It brings me so much joy each week when she comes, but it breaks my heart to watch her walk out," she said.

At the dawn of 2001, the number of prisoners in the United States has exceeded 1,500,000, with about six percent of them female felons.

"A female felon is no different than a male felon other than the obvious gender. Female felons have committed the same types of crimes, they kill, murder, mame, stalk, and abuse" said Sarah Donaldson, a California Correctional Peace Officer at the largest female prison in the world, the Central California Women's Facility. "They also do drugs, battery, robbery, drive by shootings, computer fraud, conspiracy and domestic violence."

"The number of women in prison has increased 138 percent in the past 10 years," said Linda Andrews, a writer for www.prisonactivist.org, an online cooperation that provides statistics and information for friends and families of prisoners.

Prisons can be designated as all-male, all-female, and even co-ed. According to the Encyclopedia of Women and Crimes, different prison environments cause different effects on prisoners, especially on female prisoners, who are more prone to emotional fatigue and psychological effects.

"Prisons serve the same purpose for women as they do for men; they are instruments of social control," said Nancy Kurshman, currently a Psychology Professor at the University of California, Berkley, and author of Women and Imprisonment in the US.

"Therefore, the imprisonment of women in the U.S. has always been a different phenomenon than that for men; the proportion of women in prison has always differed from that of men," Kurshman said. "Women have traditionally been sent to prison for different reasons; and, once in prison, they endure different conditions of incarceration."

There are over 90,000 women in prison in the United States today, Andrews explained. "The majority are in prison for economic crimes. The most typical convictions resulting in imprisonment for women are property crimes, such as check forgery and illegal credit card use."

Kurshman said there is a good deal of speculation about the causes of this rate increase of female felons. "Some say there has been a jump in violent crime perpetrated by women as a result of the women's movement and the associated empowerment of women," she said. "In other words, increased gender equality brings more violence by women.

"However, there is no evidence to support either the allegation that female violent crimes have increased, nor that equality leads to more violent crime by women," Kurshman said, adding that female felons fit any description given.

According to an article in the September 1998 issue of Time Magazine, female felons can look like your "next-door neighbor, sister, aunt, grandmother or even elementary school teacher."

Andrews explained that "54 percent of women in prison are women of color." This is not surprising, she said, because "although more white women are arrested and charged with a crime, a greater percent of colored women serve harsher sentences, for longer periods of time."

Being incarcerated can take a toll on a female prisoner, especially if that prisoner has a family with children. Andrews said "90 percent of women in prison are single mothers. They lose contact with their children, sometimes forever. There are 167,000 children in the U.S. whose mothers are incarcerated."

Dr. Merry Morash, Director of the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University said that "relationships with children, connection to others, are very important for women. When they are trying to determine whether their children are being cared for with the restrictions of prison, or just from being cut off from others, they can be very depressed. Some women (and men) suffer from mental illness. This often goes undetected and untreated in prison settings. Others become depressed or anxious."

Kurshman explained that the separation from their children is one of the greatest punishments of incarceration for women in prison. This separation "engenders despondency, feelings of guilt and anxiety about their children's welfare."

"Women are not allowed to have their children with them in prison, but today, several of the newly established federal institutions for women provide mother-child programs which allow women who meet specific criteria to live with their children in the institution," Morash said.

According to the Encyclopedia of Women and Crimes, if being separated from their family wasn't painful enough, female felons "are more susceptible to mental illness and psychological disorders" while incarcerated.

Morash concurs. "Depression is the most common, then anxiety disorders and small proportion bipolar disorder.

"In general, both in and outside of prison, women are more often diagnosed as depressed. More women than men in prison have been sexually and physically abused, and this has been linked to some types of mental illness," Morash said. "Women come to prison with more mental health problems, and these are intensified in the prison setting."

There is a correlation between age and education of women in prison.

"The average age of women in prison is 29, and 58 percent have not even finished high school," Andrews said. "This is an emotionally rough age to be incarcerated; many have families and feel they are 'too young' to be locked up like this."

Other stereotypical problems associated with imprisonment are rape, harassment and homosexuality.

"Rape and harassment have always been problems in prisons, but currently with increased security and more all-female prisons, these statistics have been reduced," said Dr. Kathleen Buell, a writer for the Prison Activist Organization.

"We have had a limited number of problems with these issues," said Donaldson. "We have 98 percent all-female guards and employees; it is very rare that a female prisoner would ever see a male employee."

Swenson hasn't had a problem with harassment. "I live with females, I sleep with females, I eat with females and I am protected by females."

Most female prisoners turn to homosexuality to reduce feeling heterosexual needs, according to the Encyclopedia of Women and Crimes.

"Homosexual relationships among female long-term inmates emphasize the satisfaction of emotional needs in addition to the desire for sexual release," Morash explained. "Most female inmates do not consider themselves lesbian, but turn to other women because men are unavailable to fulfill their emotional and physical needs. This can lead to confusion and anxiety when they return to the outside world where men are available to them."

Donaldson agreed that "deprivation of heterosexual relationships has a profound impact on both male and female inmates. Homosexual relations are the only means for participatory sex in prison, and many, female inmates in particular, undergo changes in identity and self perception."

Feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety, alienation and confusion "which are aggravated when they are arrested and sentenced by the justice system, combine to produce a group of women with extraordinarily low self esteem," Morash said, adding that female prisoners with low self-esteem have "a reduced ability to cope, (increasing) the self destructive behaviors."

Morash points out that "self injurious behavior" is common among female long term inmates, many of whom slash themselves with razors, knives or other sharp items.

"Female long-term prisoners tend to be poorly educated and unemployed. Many have been victims of sexual and physical abuse," Donaldson said.

"Men are more often incarcerated for violent crime and more often are violent in prison; women are more often incarcerated for drug offenses. Much of the difference in treatment is related to this," said Morash. "Some research has shown that women are treated more severely, or labeled as mentally ill, for minor rules infractions in comparison to men."

Andrews explained that prisons are not all like what people see in the movies. "Most people picture dark, cement cells with rusting iron bars and the sounds of chains. But it's not really like that anymore."

Female felons do their time in a state of the art designed prison, Donaldson said. "In much comfort, usually better then they would if they were left on the street. They live in housing units that have day rooms, game rooms, wash rooms, TV sets, and even 'movies of the week.'"

Women inmates can live up to eight in a cell. Within the cell they have a toilet area, a shower, and a sink area. Generally a table and chair are provided for writing. They are allowed to have personal property from home such as clothing, high heels, boots, hair blowers, curling irons, rollers, make-up, perfume, nail polish, radios, musical instruments, and typewriters, Donaldson said.

"They are allowed food for them to cook. We provide this thing called a 'canteen' where they can shop and buy food, candy, cigarettes, coffee and magazines. We provide them the electricity and washers and dryers at the cost of the state taxpayer," Donaldson said. "They have facility yards and main yards where they can go play, sun bathe, play basketball, racquetball, baseball and other sports and games."

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