Introduction
Correctional education is as challenging and as interesting as any other form of study dedicated to developing and improving systems. This paper shall try to find the essence of the study conducted by university professors Lora Bex Lempert, Suzanne Bergeron, and Maureen Linker on “Understanding Women”, inside prison walls and in the university.
Discussion
The study was conducted by the three authors at a local correctional facility for women from 2003 to 2004 as supported by the American Friends Service Committee and the University of Michigan-Dearborn using 33 participants and offering “Understanding Women” that mirrored the same courses taught at the university using the same texts, assignments and in-class exercises.
The study reflected on prison security procedures and other experiences involved in teaching incarcerated women. It also examined the successes and difficulties of translating theory applications from a conventional university to a prison site. It went on to discuss the intersections of material conditions, privilege, and agency in a “layered account” format (Ronai, 1992) which is a narrative designed to represent an ongoing dialectic of an experience.
The study used a series of records of the researchers’ own conversations about their prison classes which provided the basis for commentaries and analyses in the interplay between the unnamed speakers. The study began with the researchers tracing out the broader institutional contours of Michigan’s growing prison industrial complex from tax dollars competing with universities to popular perceptions of prisons, discuss the conflicts over the meanings of authority and safe space that form the researchers’ and students’ experiences with the correctional officers when entering the prison classroom as well as reflected on the paradox of the prison as a safe place for the students’ thinking and learning.
One of the more apparent observations as being “forgotten women” and “invisible to the outside” sentiment of the prisoners was earlier confirmed by Shaw and Lee’s (2004) class textbook Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions.
Another issue pointed out by the study was the “rules in prison” exerted by the guards who in turn have challenged the researchers’ legitimacy and authority, if not expertise as classroom space was being imparted. The researchers were treated as “nice ladies” that need protection at all times within the confines of their own classrooms.
The notable yet unnecessary butting in and the reaction of the correctional male officers, likewise, reflect a continuing as well as free-world experiences on Women’s Studies as Kaplan and Grewal (2002) commented to be “embattled, ridiculed, dismissed and marginalized,” (p 67).
As a safe place, or otherwise, some of the women prisoners actually admitted to having found independence within the prison walls as compared to a more brutal free world. The researchers found the reflective opportunity brought by the prison as a factor for positive teaching. However, the bigger complex such as the cases of mostly non-violent prisoners “compelled to crime” by their intimate relationships also provided a view on “gender entrapment” (Richie, 1996, p 3), that is, women are, “left with no good, safe way to avoid the problematic social circumstances that they find themselves in, unable to change their social position, and ultimately blamed for both.”
The same comparison was viewed by the researchers as “this forced separation has also meant they are no longer faced with the burdensome daily responsibilities many women contend with at home and at work. […] on the outside, many of our students were simultaneously battling the relentless pressures of poverty, racism, and violence reflected in their imprisonments for drug possession,” (p 204). The study hoped that the safety zone of the prison somehow provided the women prisoners a time to think about their past, their identity, who they really are, and when freed, who they want to be.
The study concluded that “Women in prison transgress many of the traditional boundaries that define women in a liberal society,” as outlaws, forcibly disconnected from children, family, and community. While it was previously understood that some of the women used violence to resist the violence they were subjected to, committed homicidal self-rescue (Leonard, 2002), some of the subjects of the research used the lessons and opportunities of the classes for reflection, self-understanding as well as analysis. However, for the researchers, the experience of educating in a prison environment reminded them of the limits and constraints on poor, uneducated, underskilled women and the burdens of women of color.
It is understood with the given information that when it comes to constructs, the research was framed to give a clear understanding of the research goals. Its sample size was not intentional or limited as to the researchers’ choice but as afforded by the supporting institutions. The method of conducting the study, likewise, was very appropriate as there is a natural flow of interaction between the women prisoners and their professor-researchers who had to exchange information, ideas, and opinions in a free-flowing manner. The exchange of dialogue between the researchers, likewise, provided an insight to what was observed, experience as well as personal opinion and perception of what transpired within the prison walls among themselves.
As for generalizability, while the situation may be indicative of a viewpoint that was not grounded on extensive findings, a qualitative representation of actual experiences made up to the study’s lack of depth. The limitations are obvious as the study only found what could be experienced by the teachers while teaching in prison. Clearly, the events that transpired were discussed, with a backdrop of how women prisoners were treated or perceived by the only “community” they have, who were the guards and the prison officials. The quality of the literature review likewise provided background on prison life, among women, their feelings, and how they came into the area.
The study was not grounded in theory as it is the actual experience of the educators/researchers which were being conveyed. In order to improve the study, it is necessary that detailed and repetitive occurrences translated in quantitative format be presented in order to nail down more solid evidence on the need to improve treatment of people, visitors or otherwise, from the prison community. Nevertheless, the study provided new information, if not previously known but never discussed extensively as it happened.
The conclusions are quite vague as it opened with the goal to reflect on prison security procedures and other experiences involved in teaching incarcerated women as well as examine the successes and difficulties of translating theory applications from a conventional university to a prison site, it was not able to deliver clear results and findings of the stated objectives.
Conclusion
The study has some noble goals and provided insights that were known generally. While the backdrop of women prisoners proved to be interesting subjects of the study, the paper seemed to have only provided a preview of the experiences the professors had with the correctional guards and officers, with extensive background information about the subjects, about the prison community, and the community as a whole.
However, the use of the backdrop seemed to have drowned the goals of the paper as to providing a reflection on prison security procedures and other experiences involved in teaching incarcerated women as well as examining the successes and difficulties of translating theory applications from a conventional university to a prison site. The women prisoners became the focus of the paper instead, providing secondary importance on the paper’s objectives.
References
Lora Bex Lempert, Suzanne Bergeron, and Maureen Linker. “Negotiating the Politics of Space: Teaching Women’s Studies in a Women’s Prison.”
NWSA Journal – Volume 17, Number 2, 2005, pp. 199-207.
Kaplan, Caren and Inderpal Grewal (2002). “Translating Practices and Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholarship: Refiguring Women’s and Gender Studies.” In Women’s Studies on Its Own: A Newxt Wave Reader on Institutional Change (ed Robin Wiegman). 66-81. Duke University Press.
Richie, Beth (1996). Compelled to Crime. New York: Routledge.
Ronai, Carol Rambo (1995). “Multiple Reflections of Child Sex Abuse: An Argument for a Layered Account.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 23 (4). Pp 395-426.