Friday, September 18, 2009

Mothers in despair - the female prison

Photo documentary on women in Brazilian prisons, by Luiz Santos here.

Posted by Jeremy at 12:33 am

6 comments:

Anonymous,  1:10 am  

i never understood why women prisoners are viewed as victims or people to be pitied, yet the men don't get the same treated. they are framed as mothers, and shown with their kids, but the men are framed according to their crimes. i'd like to know what these women did in other to know if they are in despair, or just where they are supposed to be. perhaps their victims are the ones in despair

Anonymous,  3:58 pm  

In North America, women are generally incarcerated for 'economic' crimes - petty theft, benefit fraud, shoplifting etc.

Men , on the other hand, are generally incarcerated for violent crimes and receive proportionally shorter or less severe prison terms than women.

In North America, a crime against property is still judged and sentenced more harshly than crimes against the person - particularly when that person is a woman..........so stealing copper pipes will get you a longer prison term than beating your spouse senseless with said pipes.

we should all be in despair at these facts.

Anonymous,  4:34 pm  

anon 3.58, you have to provide something to back that assertion up. its completely wrong. women are incarcerated for the same crimes as men, not merely petty crimes. but they are incarcerated are lower rates and for shorter terms, even for rape and murder. in part because people frame them as mothers, or their crimes as "merely" petty crime.

its subtly sexist to assert that women are somehow nicer criminals than men, or only commit crimes because of men.

in North America, specifically, crimes against the individual are dealt with much harsher than crimes against property. a cursory glance at the criminal code of any state will tell you that

Anonymous,  6:59 pm  

Larceny-theft is not only the most common crime in America, but it is the offense category in which female offenders predominate. Larceny-theft entails a variety of crimes characterized by the taking away of someone else's property. Examples of larceny-theft include shoplifting, credit card fraud, bad check writing (naive check forgery), price tag switching, welfare fraud, telemarketing fraud, con games, improper title transfers of property, real estate fraud, motor vehicle registration fraud, intellectual property theft, theft or false complaining about food, lodging, or services. In all these offense categories, female offenders are heavily involved, and qualitative research suggests that they typically see their behavior as an entitlement, habit, or way of life. In fact, almost all female crime is concentrated in just two offense categories: larceny-theft and drugs.

INTERNET RESOURCES
Feminist Majority Foundation (Feminist.net)
A Feminist Perspective on Women & Crime
Feminista!
IGC Women'sNet
Ken Mentor's Feminist Criminology Page
Meda Chesney-Lind's Home Page
National Organization for Women
Paul's Justice Page on Integrating Criminologies by Gregg Barak
Rutger's Center for American Women & Politics
Sociological Theories of Deviance
Third WWWave
Tulane's Feminist Theory Page
U.S. Dept. of Justice study on Female Offenders (pdf)

Anonymous,  7:47 pm  

to anon 4:34: By the way, thank you, I've never been accused of 'subtlety' before ..... I forgot to add this easy-to-read book to my list of sources - it's available to read free of charge online (as i don't know where you are writing from)........
The crimes women commit: the punishments they receive
By Rita James Simon, Heather Ahn-Redding

Anonymous,  2:51 pm  

Of course narrow and self serving feminist sources will claim that women only commit these lesser crimes. The only remotely objective site you produced is the doj which I haven't been able to locate.

The point is that these feminist ideas promote this nonsense about these criminals being decent people even when they are drug dealers or killers. There are just as many fathers in prison as there are mothers

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