From Angela Davis to the Long Island Lolita: An Analysis of Contemporary Women's Prison Narratives

Abstract

Although women have been writing about their prison experiences throughout history and around the world, their published narratives are rarely acknowledged as a legitimate source of data about prison life deserving of analysis in its own right. What can scholars learn about women's prisons by reading the unsolicited words of incarcerated women? Based on a content analysis of 22 prison narratives penned by U.S. women and published from 1960 to 2010, this article presents a typology for describing the women who have written about their prison experience and identifies the prominent theme of the narratives. Every single writer focused on her relationships—with other prisoners, with prison guards, and with those in the outside world—and the nature of those relationships varied according to whether the author's crime was political and whether the author obtained celebrity status.