Assessing the Racial Climate in Women's Institutions in the Context of Penal Reform

Abstract

At the end of the twentieth century women's imprisonment in the United States changed dramatically. Increases in the female inmate population and a move toward gender equity in corrections created a new generation of women's prisons. Women's incarceration today more closely resembles men's in terms of regime and physical structure. In this study, we explore whether these institutional changes are changing women's perceptions of the racial climate of prisons. Using data from two large-scale surveys administered in women's prisons in California and qualitative information from interviews with 70 female inmates, we examine women's perceptions of racial hostility and attitudes about racial conflict in light of their current carceral setting. Our data uncover no evidence of serious racial conflict among female inmates and relatively little variation in racial attitudes across institutional contexts. We discuss the significance of these findings in terms of the current discourse on penal change and women's imprisonment.