The wisdom of the formerly incarcerated: the experience of women in correctional programming
| Author(s) | Niness, Mackenzie | |
| Date Accessioned | 2025-04-14T16:54:40Z | |
| Date Available | 2025-04-14T16:54:40Z | |
| Publication Date | 2024 | |
| SWORD Update | 2025-04-11T21:50:46Z | |
| Abstract | Formerly incarcerated women (FIW) possess a valuable perspective on prison programming, which can help researchers and practitioners identify the strengths and limitations of such programs. While studies of prison program effectiveness often prioritize recidivism as the measure of a successful reentry, feminist and lived-experience criminologists challenge this binary, legal-system-centered perspective, arguing instead for an understanding of success grounded in the narratives of currently and formerly incarcerated people. This study utilizes semi-structured in-depth interviews (n = 14) with 13 formerly incarcerated women to answer three questions: (1) What are FIW’s experiences of prison programming, if any? (2) What barriers do FIW face to accessing, participating in, and/or completing the programming? (3) How do FIW define success? ☐ Interviews were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to capture how participants made sense of their prison programming experiences, navigated barriers, and conceptualized success according to their own definitions and values. Findings indicate that the popularized gender-responsive principles, strategies, and programming are presently unable to fully address the intersectional and structural challenges—related to gender, class, age, education, and ability—that shape the lives of FIW. Furthermore, FIW perceive that the programming, once available to them, often falls short of what is made available in the male-designated facilities, revealing a gendered scarcity of resources that makes the women’s incarceration and reentry more difficult. ☐ This research advances the concept of gendered neorehabilitation, highlighting how this contemporary form of rehabilitation is applied specifically to criminalized women under the framework of Gender-Responsive Justice (GRJ). Gendered neorehabilitation reinterprets traditional rehabilitation by using gender-specific policies and programming to justify carceral expansion, control, and efficiency. Additionally, the study reveals that recidivism is not a central concern for FIW as they define success on their own terms. However, their conceptualizations are often aligned with other aspects of GRJ, such as individual transformation and market participation. This research contributes to the academic literature by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between women’s prison program experiences and their reentry goals and success narratives, while also remaining critical of the broader socio-structural factors that influence the goals, operations, and outcomes of American carceral institutions under the expanding GRJ philosophy. | |
| Advisor | Leon, Chrysanthi S. | |
| Degree | M.A. | |
| Department | University of Delaware, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice | |
| Unique Identifier | 1514955844 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/36037 | |
| Language | en | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | |
| URI | https://www.proquest.com/pqdtlocal1006271/dissertations-theses/wisdom-formerly-incarcerated-experience-women/docview/3188204240/sem-2?accountid=10457 | |
| Keywords | Anti-carceral feminism | |
| Keywords | Gender-responsive justice | |
| Keywords | Neorehabilitation | |
| Keywords | Prison programming | |
| Keywords | Reentry | |
| Keywords | Success | |
| Title | The wisdom of the formerly incarcerated: the experience of women in correctional programming | |
| Type | Thesis |