UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Life inside a Women's Prison

Andi Rierden

A candid look at the culture of women's prisons and the policies shaping their future

Written by a journalist, this book depicts the day-to-day struggles and concerns of inmates at the Connecticut Correctional Institution in Niantic, the state's only prison for women. Built in 1917 as a work farm for prostitutes, unwed mothers, and other women of allegedly immoral character, "The Farm," as it is still called, has long served as a barometer of prevailing social attitudes toward women.

In the summer of 1992, Andi Rierden obtained permission from the warden at Niantic to conduct research on life inside the institution. During the next three and a half years, she spent more than fifteen hundred hours among the women at the prison, recording interviews, strolling the grounds with inmates and correction officers, sharing meals, attending classes and group counseling sessions, and tracking former inmates after their release.

Rierden explores how the women at Niantic come to terms with their crimes and adapt to the realities of incarceration, form friendships and alliances, and cope with the absence of children and loved ones. Her subjects include gang members, a prostitute with AIDS who considers the disease a spiritual gift, and the prison's matriarch, a long-term inmate convicted of murdering her only child.

The stories of these women shed light on a wide range of issues, from the effects of more stringent drug laws and sentences to the rise of violence among inmates. In the process it becomes clear that the ideal of rehabilitation has been largely abandoned and replaced by a belief in punishment and retribution.

"By focusing on the particular lives of specific women, Rierden is able to provide a wealth of detail concerning the patterns of life in a women's prison. The importance of her approach should not be understated. Rierden describes a way of life that is far too often overlooked in the works of most social scientists."

Thomas L. Dumm, Amherst College

Adjunct professor of journalism at Fairfield University, Andi Rierden frequently writes on urban issues for the Sunday New York Times.

Women's Studies / Criminology
232 pp., 20 illustrations
LC 96-51511
$22.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-080-9
1997

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