Women’s perceptions of the prison experience and the punishing dimensions of their confinement are under-examined. To expand knowledge in this area, Sexton’s theory of penal consciousness is used to analyze formerly incarcerated women’s narratives about prison food. This analysis builds understanding about the lived experience of incarceration by explicating one dimension of prisoners’ understandings and perceptions of punishment. Women’s narratives describe both concrete and symbolic punishments associated with food. Participants spoke about poorly designed, sloppy food systems that left them feeling uncared for, ignored, frustrated, and humiliated. Women articulate experiences of hunger that reflect both a deprivation of adequate food and a rationing of humane attentions. These punishing perceptions may inhibit the efforts of social service and health providers to engage incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women in care. In contrast, exceptional participant narratives about positive, non-punishing food experiences suggest that ameliorated food systems could improve the lived experience of incarceration and promote the engagement in services that is needed to improve the outcomes of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.

Research in labeling theory has been revived recently, particularly in relation to the effect of labeling on critical noncriminal outcomes that potentially exacerbate involvement in crime. This study partakes in that revitalization by examining direct and indirect effects of police intervention in the lives of adolescents who were followed into their 30s. The authors find that early police intervention is indirectly related to drug use at the ages of 29 to 31, as well as unemployment and welfare receipt. Given that such effects were found some 15 years after the labeling event, on criminal and noncriminal Article Lopes et al. 457outcomes, and after controlling for intraindividual factors, the authors conclude that the labeling perspective is still relevant within a developmental framework.

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