Abstract
What meaningful and efficacious teaching and learning are possible within the context of racialized and gendered mass incarceration? We explore the possibilities for interrupting the inequalities and injustices that thread through sexuality education available to those most affected by mass incarceration. Our discussion focuses on a broad experience of court-involvement that spans multiple settings and institutions—prisons, jails, parole, probation, and the streets. We explore examples that include peer HIV education, street-based outreach, participatory models of teaching and learning. While sexuality education gained through jails, prisons, and street outreach is an opportunity to learn and to support agentic claims to one’s own sexuality, such teaching and learning are always encumbered with the demands of the carceral institution.
The authors thank Sara McClelland, Michelle Fine, Megan Comfort, Kemi Role, and Jen Gilbert for comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Thanks are due also to Jessica’s writing group (Amy Gottlieb, Didi Khayatt, Jonathan Silin, and Anna Wilson) for their feedback. Finally, we thank our sexuality education colleagues in jails and prisons and on the streets for their ongoing work and resistance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Alexander, P. (1997). Feminism, sex workers, and human rights. In J. Nagle (Ed.), Whores and other feminists (pp. 83–97). New York: Routledge.
Arkles, G. (2009). Safety and solidarity across gender lines: Rethinking segregation of transgender people in detention. Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, 18(515), 515–560.
Beck, A. J., Berzofsky, M., Caspar, R., & Krebs, C. (2013). Sexual victimization in prisons and jails reported by inmates, 2011–12. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Bolton, R., & Singer, M. (1992). Rethinking AIDS prevention: Cultural approaches. London: Gordon and Breach Publishers.
Bonczar, T. (2003). Prevalence of imprisonment in the U.S. population, 1974–2001. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Boudin, K. (1993). Participatory literacy education behind bars AIDS opens the door. Harvard Educational Review, 63(2), 207–232.
Boudin, K., Carrero, I., Clark, J., Flournoy, V., Loftin, K., Martindale, S., & Richardson, S. (1999). ACE: Peer education and counseling program meets the needs of incarcerated women with HIV/AIDS issues. JANAC, 10(6), 90–98.
Boyd, S. (2007). The journey to compassionate care: One woman’s experience with early harm reduction programs in BC. Canadian Women’s Health Network, 10(1).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). 2010 sexually transmitted disease surveillance. Atlanta: Author.
Clark, J., & Boudin, K. (1990). Struggles for justice: Community for women organizing themselves to cope with the AIDS crisis: A case study from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Social Justice, 17(2), 90–108.
Cloud, D. H., Parsons, J., & Delaney-Brumsey, A. (2014). Addressing mass incarceration: A clarion call for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 104(3), 389–391.
Cohen, M., Deamant, C., Barkan, S., Richardson, J., Young, M., Holman, S., Anastos, K., Cohen, J., & Melnick, S. (2000). Domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse in HIV-infected women and women at risk for HIV. American Journal of Public Health, 90(4), 560–565.
Covington, S. S., & Bloom, B. E. (2007). Gender responsive treatment and services in correctional settings. Women & Therapy, 29, 9–33.
Daane, D. M. (2003). Pregnant prisoners: Health, security, and special needs issues. In S. F. Sharp & R. Muraskin (Eds.), The incarcerated woman: Rehabilitation programming in women’s prisons (pp. 61–72). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Devilly, G. J., Sorbello, L., Eccleston, L., & Ward, T. (2005). Prison-based peer-education schemes. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 10(2), 219–240.
Dolovich, S. (2012). Two models of the prison: Accidental humanity and hypermasculinity in the L.A. county jail. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 102(4), 965–1118.
Dubik-Unruh, S. (1999). Peer education programs in corrections: Curriculum, implementation, and nursing interventions. JANAC, 10(6), 53–62.
Ender, S. C., & Newton, F. B. (2000). Students helping students: A guide for peer educators on college campuses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Fazel, S., Bains, P., & Doll, H. (2006). Substance abuse and dependence in prisoners: A systematic review. Addiction, 101(2), 181–191.
Fields, J. (2008). Risky lessons: Sex education and social inequality. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Fields, J., González, I., Hentz, K., Rhee, M., & White, C. (2008). Learning from and with incarcerated women: Emerging lessons from a participatory action study of sexuality education. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 5(2), 71–84.
Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 29–53.
Fine, M., & McClelland, S. I. (2006). Sexuality education and desire: Still missing after all these years. Harvard Educational Review, 76, 297–337.
Fine, M., Torre, M. E., Boudin, K., Bowen, I., Clark, J., Hylton, D., Martinez, M., Rivera, M. M., Roberts, R. A., Smart, P., & Upegui, D. (2004). Participatory action research: From within and beyond prison bars. In L. Weis & M. Fine (Eds.), Working method: Research and social justice (pp. 95–120). New York: Routledge.
Freire, P. (2000 [1970]). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Freudenberg, N. (2002). Adverse effects of US jail and prison policies on the health and well-being of women of color. American Journal of Public Health, 92(12), 1895–1899.
García, L. (2012). Respect yourself, protect yourself: Latina girls and sexual identity. New York: New York University Press.
Gómez, C. A., & Marín, B. V. (1996). Gender, culture, and power: Barriers to HIV-prevention strategies for women. Journal of Sex Research, 33, 355–362.
Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J., Harrison, J., Herman, J. L., & Keisling, M. (2011). Injustice at every turn: A report on the national transgender discrimination survey. Washington, DC: The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Greene, M. (2000). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Please provide publisher location for Hall (2006).RESOLVED: Deleted reference in list and in main body of text.
Hammett, T. (2006). HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases among correctional inmates: Transmission, burden, and an appropriate response. American Journal of Public Health, 96(6), 974–978.
Hammett, T. M., Gaiter, J. L., & Crawford, C. (1998). Reaching seriously at-risk populations: Health interventions in criminal justice settings. Health Education and Behavior, 25(99), 99–120.
Harm Reduction Coalition. (2014). Principles of harm reduction. New York: Author.
Haywood, T. W., Kravitz, H. M., Goldman, L. B., & Freeman, A. (2000). Characteristics of women in jail and treatment orientations: A review. Behavior Modification, 24(3), 307–324.
Healey, K., Smith, C., & O’Sullivan, C. (1998). Batterer intervention: Program approaches and criminal justice strategies (National criminal justice, Vol. 168638). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Hines, A. M., Lemon, K., Wyatt, P., & Merdinger, J. (2004). Factors related to the disproportionate involvement of children of color in the child welfare system: A review and emerging themes. Children and Youth Services Review, 26, 507–527.
Human Rights Watch. (1996). All too familiar: Sexual abuse of women in U.S. State prisons. New York: Author.
Human Rights Watch. (2012). Sex workers at risk: Condoms as evidence of prostitution in four US cities. New York: Author.
Jarvis, J., Graham, S., Hamilton, P., & Tyler, D. (2004). The role of parenting classes for young fathers in prison: A case study. Probation Journal, 51(1), 21–23.
Jenness, V. (1993). Making it work: The prostitutes’ rights movement in perspective. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Johnson, C. G. (2013). Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval. The Center for Investigative Reporting. Sacramento, CA.
Just Detention International. (2013). Targets for abuse: Transgender inmates and prisoner rape. Los Angeles: Author.
Justice Now. (2012). Budget issues related to conditions of confinement and illegal sterilizations. Oakland: Author.
Kantor, E. (2006). HIV transmission and prevention in prisons. San Francisco: University of California.
Karberg, J. C., & James, D. J. (2005). Substance dependence, abuse, and treatment of jail inmates, 2002. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Kim, A., Page-Shafer, K., Ruiz, J., Reyes, L., Delgado, V., Klausner, J., Molitor, F., Katz, M., & McFarland, W. (2002). Vulnerability to HIV among women formerly incarcerated and women with incarcerated sexual partners. AIDS and Behavior, 6(4), 331–338.
Koyama, E. (2001). Toward a harm reduction approach in survivor advocacy. Survivor Project Newsletter. Portland, OR.
Lamble, S. (2013). Queer necropolitics and the expanding carceral state: Interrogating sexual investments in punishment. Law and Critique, 24(3), 229–253.
Loper, A. B., & Tuerk, E. H. (2011). Improving the emotional adjustment and communication patterns of incarcerated mothers: Effectiveness of a prison parenting intervention. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20(1), 89–101.
Lucas, K. D., Miller, J. L., Eckert, V., Horne, R. L., Samuel, M. C., & Mohle-Boetani, J. C. (2014). Risk, feasibility, and cost evaluation of a prisoner condom access pilot program in one California state prison. Journal of Correctional Health Care, 20(3), 184–194.
Luker, K. (2006). When sex goes to school: Warring views on sex—and sex education—since the sixties. New York: W.W. Norton.
Maheady, L. (1998). Advantages and disadvantages of peer-assisted learning strategies. In K. Topping & S. Ehly (Eds.), Peer-assisted learning (pp. 45–65). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Marsh, C. S., & Fields, J. (2014). Sexuality education in the United States. In H. Montgomery (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies in childhood studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maruschak, L. M. (2005). HIV in prisons, 2003. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Maruschak, L. M. (2012). HIV in prisons, 2003–2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Mason-Schrock, D., & Padavic, I. (2007). Negotiating hegemonic masculinity in a batterer intervention program. Gender & Society, 21(5), 625–649.
Mathias, C. (2014). New York’s largest jail to open housing unit for transgender women. New York Times.
McClelland, G. M., Teplin, L. A., Abram, K. M., & Jacobs, N. (2002). HIV and AIDS risk behaviors among female jail detainees: Implications for public health policy. American Journal of Public Health, 92, 818–824.
Melendez, R., Hoffman, S., Exner, T., Leu, C.-S., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (2003). Intimate partner violence and safer sex negotiation: Effects of a gender-specific intervention. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 499–511.
Moran, J. P. (2000). Teaching sex: The shaping of adolescence in the 20th century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nijhawan, A., Zaller, N., Cohen, D., & Rich, J. D. (2009). Interventions with incarcerated persons. HIV Prevention, 444–471.
Prins, S. J. (2014). Prevalence of mental illnesses in U.S. State prisons: A systematic review. Psychiatric Services, 67(7), 862–872.
Richie, B. E. (1996). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered Black women. New York: Routledge.
Richie, B. E. (2002). The social impact of mass incarceration on women. In M. Mauer & M. Chesney-Lind (Eds.), Invisible punishment: The collateral consequences of mass imprisonment (pp. 136–149). New York: The New Press.
Richie, B. E. (2005). Queering anti-prison work: African American lesbians in the juvenile justice system. In J. Sudbury (Ed.), Global lockdown: Race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex (pp. 73–86). New York: Routledge.
Roberts, D. (1999 [1997]). Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. New York: Vintage.
Schenwar, M. (2014). Locked down, locked out: Why prison doesn’t work and how we can do better. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Spaulding, A. C., Seals, R. M., Page, M. J., Brzozowski, A. K., Rhodes, W., et al. (2009). HIV/AIDS among inmates of and releases from US correctional facilities, 2006: Declining share of epidemic but persistent public health opportunity. PLoS One, 4(11), e7558.
St. James Infirmary. (2010). No condoms as evidence! SJI position paper. San Francisco: Author.
St. James Infirmary. (2014). Stride! Our basic guide to hormones for participants at St. James infirmary’s transgender care program. San Francisco: Author.
Tarzwell, S. (2006). The gender lines are marked with razor wire: Addressing state prison policies and practices for management of transgender prisoners. Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 38, 167–581.
The American Jail Association. (2015). PREA and LGBTI rights. Hagerstown: Author.
The Sentencing Project. (2012). Fact sheet: Incarcerated women. Washington, DC: Author.
The Sentencing Project. (2013). The changing racial dynamics of women’s incarceration. Washington, DC: Author.
The Sentencing Project. (2014). Fact sheet: Trends in U.S. corrections. Washington, DC: Author.
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project. (2007). It’s war in here: A report on the treatment of transgender and intersex people in New York state men’s prisons. New York: Author.
The Urban Justice Center. (2003). Revolving door: An analysis of street-based prostitution in New York City. New York: Author.
Thompson, P. J., & Harm, N. J. (2000). Parenting from prison: Helping children and mothers. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 23(2), 61–81.
Tierney, J. (2012). Mandatory prison sentences face growing skepticism. New York Times.
Toquinto, S. (forthcoming). Pregnancy obscured: Street-based sex work and the experience of pregnancy. In K. Hail-Jares, C. Shdaimah, & C. Leon (Eds.), Not just in the alleys: Challenging perspectives in street based sex work. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Valentine, J., & Wright-De Agüero, L. (1996). Defining the components for street-outreach for HIV prevention: The contact and the encounter. Public Health Reports, 111(1), 69–74.
Weiser, S. D., Neilands, T. B., Comfort, M. L., Dilworth, S. E., Cohen, J., Tulsky, J. P., & Riley, E. D. (2009). Gender-specific correlates of incarceration among marginally housed individuals in San Francisco. American Journal of Public Health, 99(8), 1459–1463.
Wenger, L. (2014). Staying within my lane: Harm reduction behind bars. Powerpoint presented at the biennial National Harm Reduction Conference, Baltimore.
Wingood, G. M., & DiClemente, R. J. (2000). Application of the theory of gender and power to examine HIV-related exposures, risk factors, and effective interventions for women. Health Education and Behavior, 27(5), 539–565.
Zierler, S., & Krieger, N. (1997). Reframing women’s risk: Social inequalities and HIV infection. Annual Review of Public Health, 18, 401–436.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fields, J., Toquinto, S. (2017). Sexuality Education in the Context of Mass Incarceration: Interruptions and Entanglements. In: Allen, L., Rasmussen, M.L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-40032-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40033-8
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)