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Being a Woman in Mixed-Gender Prisons

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Scandinavian Penal History, Culture and Prison Practice

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

In this chapter, I will examine the penal and mixed-gender practices surrounding female prisoners in Denmark and attempt to unfold how these practices both support and constrain the well-being and welfare of incarcerated women. I will examine the ways of how the practice of mixed-gendered prisons enables and restricts imprisoned women. In doing so, I will refer to Judith Butler (2004a) and her question: ‘What, given the contemporary order of being, can I be?’ (2004a, p. 58), which, in the context of this chapter, can be re-phrased as: What kinds of lives are viable for female prisoners in Danish prisons? Gender equality, which refers to both men and women having the same possibilities and rights to participate in societal life (I discuss this further below), is said to be a core value in advanced welfare regimes like Denmark (Bekendtgørelse 2013, Borchorst and Dahlerup 2003).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I want to thank Bronwyn Davies, Sebastian Mohr and Dorte Marie Søndergaard for valuable comments on an earlier draft.

  2. 2.

    Butler (2004a) uses the concepts ‘viable lives’ and ‘liveable lives’ interchangeably. For the sake of clarity I primarily use ‘viable lives’.

  3. 3.

    https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=160578.

  4. 4.

    In Hong Kong, Lichtenstein, the Maldives and Monaca, the proportion of women is more than 20 %, whereas in Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, the proportion is less than 1 % (Fair 2009).

  5. 5.

    The citations from interviews are translated by me.

  6. 6.

    I do not claim that my search of electronic databases and Internet research uncovered all instances, but there is certainly little written about mixed-gender imprisonment.

  7. 7.

    In Amstrup in East Jutland.

  8. 8.

    Because there are so few women in prison, the women’s wing has been closed and very few women now serve time in Ringe prison.

  9. 9.

    My reception of Butler’s vocabulary and theorizing is partly inspired by Boesten (2010).

  10. 10.

    Fieldnotes (December 2015).

  11. 11.

    I visited a number of Norwegian prisons during my employment at KRUS between 2005 and 2006.

  12. 12.

    This necessitates an accept from the social authorities to secure the needs and interests of the child.

  13. 13.

    He has visited Anstalten ved Herstedvester regularly.

  14. 14.

    Currently (2015), the prison houses very few women and only mixes genders in a special treatment wing outside the ordinary prison.

  15. 15.

    December 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aarhus University,, Danish School of Education, Campus Emdrup, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Charlotte Mathiassen

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  1. Charlotte Mathiassen
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Correspondence to Charlotte Mathiassen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Peter Scharff Smith

  2. Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Thomas Ugelvik

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Mathiassen, C. (2017). Being a Woman in Mixed-Gender Prisons. In: Scharff Smith, P., Ugelvik, T. (eds) Scandinavian Penal History, Culture and Prison Practice. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58529-5_16

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