Why women should choose to reintegrate into a society

Why wo workforce should choose to reintegrate into a societyThis major question raised in 2006 is perhaps unmatched of the first concerns of Pat Carlens feminist support. Strongly opposed to women in prison house state of affairs, she is widely regarded as one of the worlds leading experts on iniquity, sex activity and punishment.iCarlen has put by dint of c atomic number 18er as a Professor of Sociology at Bath Universityiiand before was an Honorary Professor of Criminology of Keele where she was founded and was Head of the Department of Criminology as well as visit Professor of Criminology at Westminster University, London. In addition to the above she was a ingredient of both the Commissioning Panel and the Steering Committee of the ESRC Crime and Social wander Programme 1992-1997. Moreover, she is a founder member of the campaigning group Women in Prison created in1983. The group consisted of the first step to a long term and rough-cut attempt to reduce number and theoriz e and balance specific needs of female prisonsiii.Pat Carlen is a leading scholar in the area of women and punishment. In 1997 she was awarded the Sellin-Glueck Prize by the American Society of Criminology for outstanding international contri providedions to the do mainiv. Carlen devoted her life in researching a wide range of criminological moments however, she compassionately focused on analysing the penal control of women and matters surrounding their imprisonment. She found her inspiration in the unfair and striking features of womens imprisonment determinationv. True to her beliefs she illustrated the path towards the considerations for the abolition of womens imprisonment. In formulating her intellects she discussed some of prisons abolitions traditional and contemporary enemies after researching and inter lieuing people in the domainvi.Adrion Howe argues that the work of Pat Carlen be possessed of commenced a process which volition at long digest fundamentally transfo rm critical analyses of punishment regimes. However, processes in this direction have been slow and the work of Carlen on insisting that women prisoners be handled as a take worth of study and change was exemplaryvii.In 1983 Carlen wrote a book, Womens shackles, about Cornton Vale, Scotlands only prison for women. She did the research and as she said wrote the book as one off without expecting to do whatever further research on prisons. What really changed her mind was her meeting later in 1983 with an ex-prisoner, Chris Tchaicowsky, who at the time was the founder member of Women in Prison leading campaigns for women notwithstanding coiled up in prisons. She invited Carlen to join after reading her book. The task of the group was to raise public awareness of women in prisons via many ways. Carlen mostly helped in writing books and articles, helping the campaigning group to be bornviii.Classicists like Emile Durkheim fire the issue believing that the function of punishment is the promotion of social harmony with the exclusion of deviant persons from society and the transfer of moral identity to society. Womens Imprisonment is, nowadays, characterised by discontinuities, contradictions, fragmentation and transformation. Modern approaches rooted to crime reduction. Carlen in Analyzing Womens Imprisonment raised the question as to whether crime reduction will be achieved by increased use of imprisonment. Her approach on that issue was that sending a wrongdoer to prison may aggravate rather than ameliorate the psychological, economic and social factors which purpose woman to criminal activityix. A radical prison critic is that it was never used for punishment of all serious crimes but also to storehouse the poor, unemployed and mentally ill.In 1981, Carlen direct a survey and questioned Scottish magistrates and judges about womens imprisonment, receiving replies determining the reasons why a woman would go to prison. The answers consisted of whether she was a good mother, how ordered her life was, if she has a husband, if she has any children, whether she has abandoned her husband or her children are already in Care or if she was battered. Women like that are more than likely to be move to prison. However, these myths along with many other stereotypes about women offenders has had bad effects on prison regimes,xresulting to prejudice on sentence over women of the above categoriesxi. British jurist is supposed to be not only gender-neutral but also colour blindxii. Yet, this is not true when it comes to women imprisonment. People awarding sentence are more likely to convict women from ethnic minorities or young women. Thus, is racism the key to increase of female prison people?Early reformers such as caper Howard and Elizabeth Fry attempted to campaign for the segregation of female from male prisonersxiiiand different prison regimes for women but at the end the results of their efforts were not satisfactory. Pat Carlen continues on the same path in order to ameliorate the conditions that surround womens imprisonment in nowadays. Is it fair to start imprisonment reduction with women?A very small nub of violent crime is committed by women and females commit crime in very different circumstances to men. Carlens investigation showed that women mostly commit crime in relation to drugs, fraud or theft. The majority of British women prisoners have not been goaled because of the seriousness of their crimes but because of their abnormal domestic circumstances or less than stodgy life styles. A strong argument over womens imprisonment consist the failure of the non-penal welfare or health institutions to cope with their problems. Prisons are the only places that cannot respond to take those women for whom neither the health nor the welfare services will take responsibility still if they had committed the most minor crime. As prison officers advised Carlen in her research, prisons are not equipped to cope with the problems from which every other agency is copping out. This leads to the increase of the prison population. Between the years 1993-2001 the population increased by over 145 %xiv. In the previous ten years the women population in prisons doubled and male increased by approximately 50%.Additionally, women prisoners take to the woods to be isolated from their families imposing significant pain of imprisonment with the loss of their role as mothers. Furthermore, women generally are badly treated by the officers and the prison staff, when it comes to gynecological requirements (handcuffed in labor and during transfer or treatment to hospital, drug virginal inspections). In addition, one of the prisons roles is to help prisoners to cope with the new life they will come across after release, nevertheless only few rehabilitation regimes exist. An ex-prisoner told Carlen that in order to keep them out (criminals) we should give them something outside. Otherwise, a life of survive in there foreseems preferable to life out here where there is just nothingxv. Clive Soley agreed with Carlens findings and added that if society actually wants to improve the situation, must dance band as its priority the preparation for releasexvi.Pat Carlen admits that womens crime is less serious and not threatening to the public even after their release from prison, as well as the fact that only few prison escapes have occurred involving women and it is not unusual for most of them to voluntarily return to face their punishmentxvii. afterward making a lot of research and analysing the circumstances under women get to live with in prisons has come to the conclusion that prison is not only damaging during the course of sentence, but once coming out it has other problems as well. Her research and findings made her develop the idea discovering possible alternatives. Pat Carlen, points out that the main cause of the crime is the relationship between the offender and the community and bel ieves that the only cure also lies in the same relationshipxviii. Alternatives to imprisonments should include any curriculum of intervention likely to deter someone from future criminal activity. She continues to strongly analyse the possible future alternatives as her main contribution.Harris, a commentator, came to add to Carlens position of alternatives by pointing out that part of the problem is that it is unclear what the punter treatment of women actually meansxix. This is true as there are no gender specific sentences. Carlen also considered whether reform or abolition of womens imprisonment would be appropriate. As the main intention of her book Sledgehammer she argues that womens imprisonment in England and Wales at the end of the 20th century is excessively punitive totally inappropriate to the needs of the women organism sent to prison and is ready for abolition in its personate form. However, she came to argue that reform might be impossible to achieve and will alway s lead to the abandonment of imprisonment as punishment for minor offences. Eventually, is better to do something than nothing. Prison is to punish and within that context all reforms had to be thoughtxx.In 1997, Carlen gave some politico-philosophical justifications for imprisonment in order to clear up the primary aims it should have. However, the following no longer apply. She starts stating that the government has an obligation to wipe state clean making wrongdoers pay for their offences in applying the eye for an eye philosophy. Additionally, she verbalised that prisons can be used to improve peoples characters and teach them useful and new skills that could be helpful to lead new lives according to the law after their release. Imprisonment also can be said to prevent criminals to recommit a crime in the future on top of deterring others tempted to commit a crime. In this manner crime rates lower and public is protectedxxi. Carlen proposes an idea for a more productive reducti on of the female population. In her point of view sentencers should be required to justify to a Sentencing Council all custodial sentences and remand of who appropriate the offence was in relation to the offender in addition to any pre existing criteria for the award after their examination. Other requirements are for sentencers to state what they hope to achieve by the custodial sentence awarded and finally to induct the calculations of what the total be are likely to be. The aim behind her proposition is to make courts to think twice before sending someone into prison as they should publicize what they are doingxxii. Moreover, there is still the need for gender-tested and ethnicity-tested regimes that will ensure that some groups do not have a greater impact. Other ways that reduction of population can be achieved is if the society took certain measures to battle poverty and inequality as well as diminishing sexism and racism that result in tell sentencingxxiii.After considerin g the situation of the day the criminologist saw three possible future scenarios governing womens imprisonment in Britain. Firstly, more of the same circumstances, however, getting worse as the female prison population will rise. The second scenario involves less of the same other than with more experimentation with progressive projects resulting to changeable number on womens population. The last scenario that she encounters is the reduction on womens imprisonment. This scenario contains close regulations for the womens law breaking actions leading to the abolishment of the situation as it was known until thenxxiv. She supported the view of abolishing womens imprisonment for an experimental period of 5 years. For that period of time imprisonment should not be considered as one of the normal punishment for women and that a maximum of only degree Celsius custodial places should be retained for female offenders convicted of abnormally serious offences. If accused so, they should onl y be imprisoned after their case was referred by a test judge to a Sentencing Council who would make the final adjudication. Moreover, her proposition involved undertaking of fund and far-reaching examination of all sentencing.Her proposal for abolition was greeted with a certain measuring rod of skepticism. One radio interviewer asked if male burglars should retire knowing that their wives or girlfriends could carry on the business with impunity. This is clearly ironical however, is it entirely a false approach? As a Senior Official in the Home Office added to Carlens proposition What we want is smaller open prisons in the community and in an urban context. Over this point, the courts support an anti-feminist approach if you women wanted equality, youve got to take itxxv. The criminologists, Deborah Baskin and Ira Sommers, acceptably, point out that Carlen does not explain how womens criminal careers are circumscribed specifically by genderxxvi. Furthermore, they add that she doe s not distinguish the gender specific ways in which women are exploited and controlled by familialism and consumerism. Baskin and Sommers also argue that Carlens repetition of the unoriginal and functionalist rhetoric that only women experience dual exploitation in the public and private spheres adds little to the analysis. On the other hand, they furthermore continue to disagree that Carlen fails to see that working class men also have to make class gender deals which include being regulated within family. Briefly, Carlens analysis does not shroud the precise ways in which social reactions are gender specific and thus affect womens lives differently from mensxxvii.Pat Carlen characterise herself as not a prison abolitionist in the sense that she can easily envisage a time when it will not be considered necessary to have prisons and lock up certain offenders as a matter of public safetyxxviii. Abolition is not a thread to the public. The whole situation leaves the state with the preference to continuingly misuse millions of pounds on prisons or taking daring steps to stop legislators and sentencers seeing prison as being the absolute panacea for all political and social ills and instead consider it as an abnormal and unusual punishementxxix. Joe Sim added to the abolition argument that abolitionists ideas should not be dismissed as idealistic and utopian but rather should be understoodxxx. In the 1990s Carlen thought of some further developments including educational initiatives, personal officer scheme, introduction of sentence planning, opening up prisons. Nonetheless, many of these already exist only in name on paper or defunctxxxi. In 2006 she returned to the argument of abolition and noted that abolitionists have a number of enemies, and populist politicians are the greatest. Women imprisonment should be abolished as an experiment that will later follow in being applied to men as well. It started its test on women as they are considered to have non-thr eatening criminal profilesxxxii.Even if researches have taken place, nowadays, womens imprisonment involves as many inhumanities as ever. This occurs as there is a serious lack of attention from research. Carlen emphasized on the differential experiences of criminal justice and criminality encountered by females in comparison to malesxxxiii. She is bewilder to know what more can be done to make changes needed in order for womens imprisonment in 21st century to stop being the disgrace that used to be in the 20th century. During most of the 20th century women in prison tended to be invisible prisoners, the women whom nobody wanted and to the highest degree everyone had forgotten. At the beginning of the 21st century the prison is as much a set of all kinds of social production as it has ever been. Although, they still represent a very small proportion of the prison population, there is no rational reason why that proportion should not be even smaller. Instead, it is slowly but surel y increasing and this is not a problem being limited in England and Wales. The criminologist insisted in her diary that there must be an alternative and that the womens system has no management strategy and no structure to hold onxxxiv. The best regimes can do is ameliorate the worst effects. Thus, as Worrall also confirmed, crime will be broken by a government honest enough to admit that prison does not work and sufficiently courageous to accept that prison is itself part of crime problem rather than part of the solutionxxxv. All the above ideas can be dragged from the historical idea that prisons make bad people worsexxxvi.In conclusion, Pat Carlens contribution to criminology was enormous in relation to female offenders and their imprisonment. Her main aim in the sector was to ameliorate the present circumstances affecting womens imprisonment. She devoted her work in researching and interviewing people the area considering prisons in order to find the roots of the problem. This w ould later make her able to combat the obstacles and reach a more compromising situation. Many found her work inspiring. Nonetheless, others found that it lacks focus on certain areas. Her contribution pronounced the beginning of slow and steady developments in the field. On the other hand, the study of womens imprisonment has still a long way to go.