Prison from a gender perspective: a systematic review

Sabrina Daiana Cúnico ,Helena Salgueiro Lermen

doi:10.26864/pcs.v10.n1.10

Abstract

In this study, we developed a systemic literature review (2006-2016) on the prison system considering gender issues, aiming to get to know the themes under study about the incarceration of women and men around the world. The databases used were Scopus, Psycinfo and Virtual Health Library. After the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 32 studies from 13 countries were selected. In the results, it was observed that the theme of mental health, particularly drug addiction, was recurrent. Overall, the studies about women discuss relationships beyond prison and the life trajectories marked by violence. Research on the male prison population, on the other hand, mostly addresses the dynamics established inside the prisons. In addition, the men are given the role of perpetrators of the aggressions, being rarely positioned as victims. Finally, many of the articles analyzed considered gender as dichotomous in gender/sex. That was particularly clear in the studies about mixed penal populations. Beyond critically discussing the different impact and experience of incarceration for both, various studies in the review merely used the concept as a way to descriptively distinguish the collected data.

Highlights

In this study, we developed a systemic literature review (2006-2016) on the prison system considering gender issues, aiming to get to know the themes under study about the incarceration of women and men around the world
It is well known that the incorporation of the gender theme in the scientific terminology of the 1980s played a key role in the political acceptability and academic legitimacy of research that was based on women's issues
The links with the children and the suffering resulting from the absence of the offspring is a recurring theme among the female prison population, whereas only three studies deal with fatherhood among men

Summary

Introduction

We developed a systemic literature review (2006-2016) on the prison system considering gender issues, aiming to get to know the themes under study about the incarceration of women and men around the world. The growth of the male prison population amounted to 20% (Walmsley, 2017) These data are a consequence of the hardening of laws and actions to combat drug trafficking, the crime that most imprisons women in the world (Anderson & Kavanaugh 2017; Reynolds, 2008). It is noted that countries that have relaxed the legislation on drug trade and consumption, such as Portugal and Uruguay, have reduced female arrests while, in most of the nations in Latin America and Southeast Asia, incarceration of women continues to rise throughout the 21st century (Walmsley, 2017) Based on this reality, it can be affirmed that the rapid growth of the jail population is not necessarily a result of an actual increase in crime, but rather an increase in punishment (Cunha, 2014). Asymmetries in the access or control of material and symbolic resources reveal the way gender is "implicated in the conception and construction of power itself" (Scott 1995a, p. 88)

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