The majority of women in English prisons are mothers and the primary carers of dependent children. Many of these mothers have had children removed from their care prior to entering prison but many more are drawn into care-proceedings because of their prison sentence. Inside prison, there is little, if any support or care for mothers who are left with an acute sense of loss and isolation. The majority of mothers will self-harm, self-medicate or attempt suicide as a response to the maternal rupture they have experienced. This paper draws on HMPPS funded research with incarcerated mothers who engaged in an innovative parental rights project delivered by a voluntary sector prison-based family support team in the north east of England (NEPACS). The research involved interviews with mothers, prison staff and family support workers, and a participatory theatre project. The mothers in our study were unaware of their rights as mothers. Some did not know where their children were residing or who was caring for them. Some didn’t know if they were able to write to their children, or if their children had been adopted. In the first part of the paper we reflect on mothers’ accounts of maternal rupture, drawing on both interview data and findings from the participatory theatre workshops (in collaboration with Open Clasp Theatre Company). In the second part of the paper, we explore some of the broader questions our research raises and connect with feminist debates concerned with the harms of maternal imprisonment.

This paper, based on a forthcoming book chapter (in Rutter and Waite Eds), will explore our experiences as female prisoner researchers predominately involved in the areas of gender and motherhood, and how our relationship with these subjects have changed as our own identities as women and mothers has evolved. We will be examining gendered experiences of practice through our professional relationships with criminalised women over the last decade. During the time that we have been exploring this area of research, both our identities have significantly changed as we ourselves have become mothers. As so many of the criminalised mothers have expressed in our own research, and in other published works, a maternal identity may become central in a woman’s life, and we think it is important to consider how these personal changes in our lives can shape our work and engagement with criminalised women as well as those women who are harmed by the criminalisation of their loved ones. In a previous publication we have begun to explore our professional relationships and how we view criminalised women’s experiences and how we analyse their narratives in the research in the academy (Masson and Booth, 2023). Building on this, our intention for this paper is to reflect upon these issues in more detail and hope to encourage others to similarly engage in reflective practices to ensure transparency in the field. We feel this reflection, and the greater connection to criminalised women’s experiences, not only enriches our research but motivates us to continuing fighting for social justice through different avenues.

References:
Masson, I., and Booth, N. (2023), ‘A Mother’s Work is Never Done: Mother’s Affected by Remand’, in L. Baldwin, eds., Gendered Justice. Hook: Waterside Press. pp. 117-136.

‘Motherhood in focus: An evolution of our researcher identities’ accepted for publication in N, Rutter and S, Waite. (Eds) Women, Relationships and Criminal Justice: Recognising the Personal, Public and Professional. Bristol University Press.

This presentation situates the Breddon Women's Centre within the history of gender-responsive interventions and considers the potential implications for expanding gender-responsive penal regimes into the community.

Gender-responsive frameworks highlight the inappropriate usage of prison for female offenders, drawing upon women's differential experiences and pathways to criminalisation as compared to men. Devising 'women-sensitive' programs, gender-responsive strategies seek to empower women by addressing their multiple, complex, and oftentimes intractable needs.

Based upon nine months of 'observant participation', 16 life history interviews with clients, and 10 semi-structured interviews with staff at the Centre, the presentation investigates the deployment of gendered justice within the Breddon Women's Centre in England.

Highlighting the deep sense of gratitude and appreciation that many of the clients had for their caseworkers and for the Breddon Centre more broadly, this presentation notes that the Breddon Centre played a unique and important role in the lives of the women that they worked with, many of whom had severe histories of trauma, substance misuse, and/or domestic abuse.

It has, however, been argued that gender-responsive reforms are a product of carceral feminism. Providing a solution that ameliorates the harshness of women’s circumstances—and essentializing the category of women in the process— these reforms do not address the structural dynamics of systems of oppression that have contributed to women’s marginalization and criminalization. Thus, they maintain the ideology that all social problems can be solved through intervention from the carceral state. And in this way, such reforms merge care with carcerality..

This produced a specific tension in the Breddon Centre. Operating as an ‘alternative to imprisonment’ did not necessarily negate the deep and personal care work that the Breddon Centre caseworkers performed for their clients. And yet, by working closely with the carceral state, it was inevitable that the Centre, at times, embodied what Maguire et al (2019) consider to be ‘penal drift’: the influence of carceral ideologies within non-carceral spaces.

Thus, this presentation explores the messy dynamics between care and the expansion of punitive logics, questioning the potentiality of gender-responsive frameworks to produce radical transformations for the women they serve in the community.

This paper is based on initial findings from doctoral research investigating the impact of the intersections between mental health, poverty and stigma among justice experienced women living in the community in Scotland, and the role ‘resilience’ may play in this. This project sought to assess how an intersectional approach can challenge the attitudes and policies towards the women, which tend to place individual blame and use mental health diagnoses as a form of control.

A mixed methods approach was employed which included diary keeping, walking interviews, photo elicitation and semi-structured interviews. The project recruited justice involved women and their allocated workers as participants in the research. This dyadic approach allowed for a unique insight into the relationship between worker and client and allowed the women’s views and opinions to be put to practitioners for comment and discussion, which elicited some unexpected and interesting results. The research also gathered practitioners’ subjectivities around their roles, the justice system in general as well as the challenges facing them in their daily working lives, set in the context of a rapidly changing environment for women’s justice in Scotland.

Findings indicate that women often feel ‘invisible’ and had little trust and faith in the justice system as a result of systematic failures during their lifetime. Moreover, findings suggest existing trauma is compounded by their relationship with the justice system and continuing contact with this and other services creates additional trauma and harm. The paper concludes by advocating a more realistic and human approach towards justice experienced women to ameliorate the harms engendered by the justice system and facilitate a more positive and supportive experience for women.