NCJ Number
126236
Journal
Social Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1990) Pages: 110-125
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article presents a comparison of the process of acceptance of long-term imprisonment of 70 women serving long sentences and offers some comparison with female, nonoffenders facing death. While in prison, these women experience a feeling of out of existence or existential death that parallels physical death.
Abstract
The similarities and differences of both groups in experiencing denial, anger, mourning, acceptance, and hope for the future are described. Both dying patients and women in prison grieve the termination with the world and experience other similar stages, although mourning is always present for women in prison, particularly when they hear from the outside world. However, contrary to the dying patient, women in prison do not experience the support from family and friends in coping with the anger, depression, and denial. These limitations of the prison environment regarding an appropriate expression of grief and anger will present psychological consequences for the inmates upon later release into the real world. Imprisonment is clearly a punishment rather than a rehabilitation. 4 notes and 10 references