Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating the Meaning and Experience of Motherhood in Correctional Facilities

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Primary Investigators: Naomi Gerstel and Brittnie L. Aiello Investigating the Meaning and Experience of Motherhood in Correctional Facilities 0718018 Abstract This research examines the implication of motherhood in the punishment and control of incarcerated women. Previous research has documented that motherhood is an important resource for meaning and self-worth for women, but also limits and constrains the lives of women. For incarcerated women, the joy and sadness associated with motherhood are exaggerated by the conditions of punishment and confinement. Building on existing research, this research uses multiple methods to investigate the social construction of motherhood in jail. Through ethnography, interviews, and examination of case records, this research studies the ways that constructions of motherhood are used to punish, control, and reward women inmates, both formally, through institutionalized systems of punishment and informally, through interaction, stereotypical assumptions about women based on their race and class status, and the manipulation of women's guilt associated with motherhood. To further explore the complexities of motherhood, this research also delves into women's resistance through motherhood. To what extent does motherhood give women the strength to survive their incarceration and define themselves in positive ways in spite of institutional and societal messages to the contrary? This research centralizes motherhood in the study of gendered punishment and gives a voice to a population largely hidden from the American consciousness. Policies governing concerns that are specific to incarcerated women are often ambiguous and non-uniform. The primacy of motherhood in women's lives, the use of motherhood as social control in society at-large, and existing practices of gendered punishment strongly suggest that motherhood is at work in the criminal punishment of women. Yet, we know little about the social processes that govern relationships between incarcerated women and their children. This work will attempt to establish testable hypotheses about incarcerated motherhood that speak to a wide social science audience and a policy-driven legislature and criminal justice system.