“Coming Back”? (Post)carceration Experience of Young Women

Abstract

The rehabilitation, reintegration and entry back into society of prisoners have been fertile grounds for sociologists, criminologists, psychologists and social workers, with particularly interesting questions arising from the growth in the numbers of women being imprisoned in various countries. For example, in Russia at the beginning of 2010, over 69,000 women were imprisoned in 47 different colonies. This article carries out an analysis of post-penitential experiences of young women whose intention is not to return to prison, looking specifically at their choices around how to reintegrate into social life, as well as the experience of ‘returning’ from penal colonies in the context of their life history. Whereas the male experience of prison can be romanticised, women suffer from more socially negative opinions due to Russian gender norms. Furthermore, after prison reintegration is multilevel: women face problems of having to find work, procure the necessary documents, reform family and peer relations, and adapt psychologically to their environment. The research is based on life history interviews with 33 women aged 20-35, carried out in four different cities – St Petersburg, Ul’ianovsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Saratov.

The article places an accent on spatial and temporal boundaries of ‘there’ and ‘here’, continuities and interruptions of the prison and the ‘return’ experiences, the skills women utilise in negotiating barriers to social reintegration; and strategies women employ to find ‘their own place’. In ‘returning’,  women often try to mask their inner differences or strive to present a normal appearance. State resources are found to be lacking in the amount of support they are able to provide, and existing programs of re-socialization do not take into account the varied personal circumstances and life experiences of formerly incarcerated women.  In agreement with a qualitative approach to these issues, the return from prison is considered first and foremost as a constituent part of a woman’s life experience. Such an approach is argued to help develop a wider understanding of the specific problems of formerly incarcerated women in society, and to reformulate the problems and challenges around women’s social reintegration.