Double Binds: Latin American Women's Prison Memories

Treacy, Mary Jane

doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1996.tb01040.x

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The present study employed qualitative content analysis to examine published personal accounts of currently and formerly incarcerated women in order to deepen our understanding of their experiences in the criminal justice system. Content analysis has been used previously to examine issues related to women and criminal justice, including sexual assault during incarceration (Alarid, 2000), risk and resilience factors among incarcerated mothers (Schlager & Moore, 2014), gender differences in the experience of military imprisonment (Treacy, 1996), and civilian interest in criminal proceedings for entertainment purposes (Dirks, Heldman, & Zack, 2015). However, no empirical studies were found which examined women's experiences of incarceration while also emphasizing the implications for social work practice and criminal justice reform.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hard Time

Casey

2017

Affilia

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As the number of women incarcerated in the United States continues to rise and their complex needs become more apparent, social workers must fortify their historical commitment to criminal justice reform. However, crafting more effective and compassionate responses to the needs of justice-involved women may very well require a more nuanced understanding of the holistic impact of incarceration on women's well-being than the current literature offers. Utilizing the framework of feminist standpoint epistemology, the researcher engaged in qualitative content analysis to examine published personal accounts from 43 women to better understand their experiences in prisons and jails in the United States. Two overarching themes emerged from the analysis. First, the personal accounts illustrated that women experience prisons and jails as environments of denial insofar as these carceral environments deny women's basic needs, their sense of humanity, and their personal power. The second overarching theme pertains to the holistic impact of the carceral environment upon women's lives, meaning it has expansive effects on women's biopsychosocial-spiritual functioning. Social workers should dedicate efforts to dramatically reducing the number of women behind bars and engaging in holistic intervention approaches that might counteract the negative effects of incarceration across domains of well-being.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hard Time

Casey

2017

Affilia

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“…Especially in a Latin American prison context gender based violence should be taken into account as a risk factor for mental health deterioration (World Health Organization, 2000). Sexual violence and traumatization are a problem for most women that are imprisoned in a Latin American country (Treacy, 1996). In our sample one women shared her trauma of sexual violence, it is very likely that others preferred not to share their experience.…”

Section: Interpretation and Comparison With The Literaturementioning

confidence: 92%

‘Maybe It Is Only in Prison That I Could Change Like This’ The Course of Severe Mental Illnesses During Imprisonment – A Qualitative 3-Year Follow-Up Study From Chile

et al. 2020

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Background: Severe mental illness (SMI) among imprisoned individuals is a global health concern. Quantitative research indicates on average mental health symptom improvements during imprisonment, however, it cannot reflect multifaceted factors influencing the course of SMI. This study aimed to explore the subjective course of SMI during imprisonment and to identify influencing factors. Methods: The study has a 3-year-follow-up design of imprisoned individuals in Chile. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 men and 9 women at follow-up who had either major depression or psychosis (severe mental illnesses) at baseline. We included individuals who deteriorated, remained stable or improved their mental health according to quantitative assessments. We explored the subjective course of their mental health condition during the follow-up period. Qualitative data was transcribed and coded using NVivo Software for quantitative content analysis. Qualitative data was also manually coded and was subsequently analyzed using the thematic analysis method with an inductive approach. We developed the final themes using the results of this analysis in combination with the inclusion criteria. Results: The mental health of 10 individuals subjectively improved, 6 experienced deteriorations, and 3 did not perceive any change. Good infrastructure, structure/occupation, intrapersonal resources (will to change, spirituality) and supportive relationships were identified as factors improving mental health. Factors deteriorating mental health were identified as bad infrastructure (e.g., no running water and bad housing conditions) and crowding, lack of psychological treatment, exposure to violence, interpersonal stress (conflictive relationships and separation from family), perceived injustice through sentencing, intrapersonal stressors and previous medical conditions. Discussion: SMI in prison can improve in a supportive environment under certain

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“…In her research on the prison memoirs of ciswomen 10 incarcerated in the dungeons of various Latin American military dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s, Mary Jane Treacy comes to the conclusion that interrogations of prisoners were not primarily about gathering facts, because ‘many prisoners had little or no knowledge to give prison authorities’. Drawing on Frank Graziano, Treacy (1996: 132) argues that the questioning and accompanying physical assault formed the core of a ‘ritual enactment of power’ where ‘the prison interrogation room and its torture table became “stages” where the prisoner, having lost control over her body, now lost control over her voice’: It was then not what the victims being interrogated said that motivated the continuation of torture, but rather that they were being made to use their speech against themselves, that their voices were being appropriated and translated into the power that destroyed them…. Whatever was said, the regime was speaking.…”

Section: Erotics Of Racism and The Biopolitics Of Torturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The victim could only announce their absorption into a monologue that edified the State. (Graziano cited in Treacy, 1996: 132)…”

Section: Erotics Of Racism and The Biopolitics Of Torturementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the erotics of Orientalism: Lawfare, torture and the racial–sexual grammars of legitimate suffering

Richter-Montpetit

2014

Security Dialogue

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Contrary to commonsense understandings of torture as a form of information-gathering, confessions elicited through the use of torture produce notoriously unreliable data, and most interrogation experts oppose it as a result. With a focus on the US carceral regime in the War on Terror, this article explores the social relations and structures of feelings that make torture and other seemingly ineffective and absurd carceral practices possible and desirable as technologies of security. While much of international relations scholarship has focused on the ways in which affective and material economies of Orientalism are central to representations of the ‘terrorist’ threat, this article connects the carceral violences in the racialized lawfare against Muslimified people and spaces to the capture and enslavement of Africans and the concomitant production of the figure of the Black body as the site of enslaveability and openness to gratuitous violence. The article further explores how these carceral security practices are not simply rooted in racial–sexual logics of Blackness, but themselves constitute key sites and technologies of gendered and sexualized race-making in this era of ‘post-racial triumph’ (HoSang and LaBennett, 2012: 5).

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Double Binds: Latin American Women's Prison Memories

Cited by 11 publications

References 3 publications

Hard Time

Hard Time

‘Maybe It Is Only in Prison That I Could Change Like This’ The Course of Severe Mental Illnesses During Imprisonment – A Qualitative 3-Year Follow-Up Study From Chile

Beyond the erotics of Orientalism: Lawfare, torture and the racial–sexual grammars of legitimate suffering

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