Catrin Smith

Punishment and pleasure: women, food and the imprisoned body

Food assumes enormous importance in prison: for many prisoners it conditions their life in custody and, in many respects, is symbolic of the prison experience. This article explores the complex relationship between gender, food and imprisonment through an analysis of data obtained from in-depth interviews and group discussions conducted in three womens prisons in England. The findings indicate that, in prison, where control is taken away as the prisoner and her body become the objects of external forces, food is experienced not only as part of the disciplinary machinery, but also as a powerful source of pleasure, resistance and rebellion. The implications of such findings for health promotion in the prison context are discussed. Here, the pleasures and consolations of food may well constitute a redefinition of what it is to be healthy in this context, one that challenges the dominant meaning constructed in current health promotional discourse.

'Healthy Prisons': A Contradiction in Terms?

Recent developments in prison health care promise enhanced health benefits for prisoners and the promotion of health has become a central feature of prison health care policy. This article presents the background to these changes and considers what they are likely to mean in practice. It provides a description of the emergence of health promotion within the prison setting, locating prison-based initiatives within the context of the wider political drive towards health promotion in society at large. Finally, it raises questions about the fundamental philosophies underpinning current models of prison health care where the benevolent aims of health promotion may become extremely punitive.

Minor psychiatric disturbance in women serving a prison sentence: The use of the General Health Questionnaire in the estimation of the prevalence of non‐psychotic disturbance in women prisoners

Purpose. Minor psychiatric disturbance contributes considerably to the workload of health care staff in womens prisons, although the indefinite nature of the complaint makes epidemiological investigation problematic. This study tests the utility of a standard measure of psychological distress, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and considers the relationship between minor psychiatric disturbance in women prisoners and other criterion variables. Methods. A questionnaire survey, including the GHQ, was distributed to 377 women prisoners, the total population of three womens prison in England on a given day. Results. In all, 214 respondents returned questionnaires (a response rate of 57%). The GHQ was completed by 95% (204) of the respondents who returned their questionnaires. Of these women, 107 (52%) were identified as possible psychiatric ‘cases’. Psychiatric morbidity was significantly associated with self-reported ill-health, psychosocial concerns, negative evaluations of aspects of prison life and an expressed need for help and advice. Conclusions. The results are broadly supportive of the utility of the GHQ in this setting and point to differential influences upon the psychological well-being of women prisoners. The findings have implications for further research, requirements for service provision and for mental health promotion in womens prisons.

The monetary cost of offender trajectories: Findings from Queensland (Australia)

This study assessed the longitudinal costs of offender trajectories in Queensland (Australia) to provide policymakers with evidence that could be used to promote the use of crime prevention programs. Few studies have assessed these costs and minimal research has been conducted outside the United States. The study addressed three research questions: (1) What are the monetary costs of crime? (2) What is the optimal number of offender trajectories in an Australian offender cohort? and (3) What are the monetary costs of officially recorded offending for individuals on different offender trajectories? The Semi-Parametric Group-based Method (SPGM) was used to determine the number of offender trajectories in the Queensland Longitudinal Database. This database included 41,377 individuals who were born in 1983 and 1984 and guilty of offences in Queensland that were committed when aged 10–25 years old. The costs of crime were assessed using two approaches. First, criminal justice system costs were estimated based on the number and type of contacts that individuals had with the criminal justice system as well as the length of any supervision served. Second, wider social and economic costs were assessed based on offence type. Results indicated that there were five offender trajectories, including two chronic, one moderate and two low trajectories. When costs were applied to the offender trajectories, offenders in the two chronic groups were 4.8% of the cohort but accounted for 41.1% of the total costs. On average, each chronic offender cost between

Yarning and appreciative inquiry: The use of culturally appropriate and respectful research methods when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australian prisons

186,366 and

There is ‘hope for you yet’: The female drug offender in sentencing discourse

262,799 by the time they turned 26 years old, with 60% of the costs accounted for by the criminal justice system. On average, each chronic offender cost over 20 times more than offenders in the two low offending groups. These findings provide further evidence for the potential benefits of implementing interventions that target chronic offenders.

Women’s Health in Queensland Prisons An Analysis of Stakeholder Perspectives

With First Peoples and non–First Peoples scholars alike questioning the efficacy of research methods based solely upon accepted social science research paradigms with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, innovative and ontologically inclusive alternatives require consideration. Research conducted with incarcerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in the Northern Territory and Western Australia may provide such an opportunity, arguing for a method of ‘research at the interface’ that utilises appreciative inquiry with culturally appropriate conversations (yarning). Employed across four prisons, the interface research method was applied as an innovative solution to measuring prison performance. It highlighted the lived experience of incarceration while re-imagining the prison, as it exists when it functions at its best. The article begins with a snapshot of the research conducted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prisons across the Northern Territory and Western Australia; this provides a frame through which to consider the efficacy of interfacing First Peoples research paradigms with Western traditional modes of research. Furthermore, the innovative application of appreciative inquiry to the prison is discussed. Given that appreciative inquiry explores and privileges the narrative as a means of making sense of the prison experience, the authors suggest it complements the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tradition of ‘yarning’. A yarning style represents a way of ensuring cultural safety, respect and the utilisation of First Peoples ontology to research conducted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Overall, it is delineated how interfacing appreciative inquiry and yarning may provide a viable alternative to the deep colonising and perpetually oppressive use of Western modes of scholarship when engaging in research with First Peoples.

Governing drug use through partnerships: Towards a genealogy of government/non-government relations in drug policy.

Language and gender research has, in recent years, emphasised the importance of examining the context-specific ways in which people ‘do gender’ in different situations. In this paper, we explore how women involved in drug offences, specifically methamphetamine manufacture offences, are constructed within the language of the courts. Thirty-six sentencing transcripts from the New Zealand courts were examined to investigate how such offences, committed by women, are understood. In order to explore the representation of female offenders, a critical discourse analytic approach was adopted. Such an approach recognises that linguistic modes not only create and legitimise power inequalities but also embody a specific worldview. Three gendered discourses were identified in the sentencing texts: (i) the discourse of femininity, reinforcing the socially prescribed female role; (ii) the discourse of aberration, concerning women who breach traditional gender role expectations and, (iii) the discourse of salvation, presenting aberrant women with an opportunity to become ‘good’ women once again. The findings illustrate the ways in which processes of gendering take place within a specific community of practice: the courtroom.

Gender and Crime

Internationally, best practice for prison health care recommends transferring health service provision from corrections to health authorities. Although it is expected that this change will result in improved health care, there is little evidence of evaluation. This article used qualitative interviews with health service providers to gain insight into the health needs of women’s prisons in Queensland, Australia, both prior to and after the transition in health care service provision. We found that service providers identified that problems persisted regardless of service provider and that improvement required increased resources and more fundamental structural changes within prison environments.