Designing ‘Healthy’ Prisons for Women: Incorporating Trauma-Informed Care and Practice (TICP) into Prison Planning and Design

Abstract

There has been growing acknowledgment among scholars, prison staff and policy-makers that gender-informed thinking should feed into penal policy but must be implemented holistically if gains are to be made in reducing trauma, saving lives, ensuring emotional wellbeing and promoting desistance from crime. This means that not only healthcare services and psychology programmes must be sensitive to individuals’ trauma histories but that the architecture and design of prisons should also be sympathetic, facilitating and encouraging trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive practices within. This article problematises the Trauma-Informed Care and Practice (TICP) initiatives recently rolled out across the female prison estate, arguing that attempts to introduce trauma-sensitive services in establishments that are replete with hostile architecture, overt security paraphernalia, and dilapidated fixtures and fittings is futile. Using examples from healthcare and custodial settings, the article puts forward suggestions for prison commissioners, planners and architects which we believe will have novel implications for prison planning and penal practice in the UK and beyond.

Liminality revisited: Mapping the emotional adaptations of women in carceral space

“…2. Women in UK prisons report an acutely more painful experience than their male counterparts, with many suffering complex emotional biographies and histories of community-based trauma and abuse pre-imprisonment, including often having been victims of much more serious offences, e.g., rape and/or grievous bodily harm, than those for which they are convicted; predominantly non-violent drugs and property offences (see Jewkes et al, 2019 for an overview). 3.…”

‘We've all got a big story’: Experiences of a Trauma‐Informed Intervention in Prison

“…The ethical validity of implementing trauma‐informed approaches in custody has come under particular scrutiny (Jewkes et al . 2019; Miller and Najavits 2012). Scholars of women's imprisonment and resettlement have drawn attention to the ways in which prison and the wider justice system inflict gendered physical, emotional and psychological pain on women (Crewe, Hulley and Wright 2017).…”

Equitable Care for Pregnant Incarcerated Women: Infant Contact After Birth—A Human Right

“…Historically, prisons have been designed for men and do not account for the parental responsibilities and health care needs of women. Recommendations from scholars and activists call for prisons, which are inherently trauma‐inducing institutions, to be more trauma‐informed and gender‐responsive 18,19 . Forcibly removing a newborn from their mother's presence directly counters efforts for such reform.…”

“…Recommendations from scholars and activists call for prisons, which are inherently traumainducing institutions, to be more trauma-informed and gender-responsive. 18,19 Forcibly removing a newborn from their mother' s presence directly counters eff orts for such reform. Currently, there are no national standards of care regarding contact between incarcerated women and their newly born infants.…”