Text d Women in Prison

Task: identify and discuss the key issues raised in the text.

Most prisons are male institutions in which male offenders are guarded and receive services by a male staff, although women have begun to enter the staff of the male prison world, first as clerical and professional personnel and more recently as correctional officers. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century there were no separate prisons for women in the United States. The small number of women prisoners were housed in male institutions, though usually in segregated sections. The first prison for women was opened in 1873 in India. During the next century, women convicts were exclusively imprisoned in women’s prisons. These institutions have tended to be smaller, and less threatening in appearance and operation than male prisons (e.g., absence of high walls and guard towers, and less regimentation). Yet, being smaller, they also lack many of the facilities of male institutions.

Currently, the population in women’s prisons resembles that in men’s prisons. The prisoners come predominantly from the uneducated, urban, poor sections of the population. And programs available in women’s prisons tend to emphasize society’s traditional stereotype of “women’s work”: cooking, sewing, cosmetology, and office work, to which more recently computer programming has been added.

A century after the first U.S. prison for women was opened, an effort to use facilities in a cost-effective manner led to the establishment of the first co-correctional institutions in which men and women, segregated at night, participate in joint daytime programs of work, recreation, and meals. Physical contact is limited to handholding. Infraction of the rules leads to transfer of the offenders to separate institutions. For the country as a whole, however, the majority of the women prisoners are serving their time in institutions for women.

There is an additional burden on women in institutions. Over two-thirds of women prisoners are mothers, with an average of two children. Many give birth in prison. The mother-child relationship poses problems to mothers that the correctional system has not resolved. Programs for facilitating mother-child contacts are woefully inadequate. Mothers may keep their newborns only for a few weeks. And children’s visits to prisons are typically limited because of the distance of prisons from the children’s homes and the restrictions placed on visiting hours.

Text e Correctional Institutions in the usa

Task:  fill in the text with the appropriate word-combination from the box.

treatment of inmates solitary confinement

primary responsibility

to be concerned maximum security

Correctional institutions in the USA are diverse in their physical facilities and in their approach to care and ___________. Prisons, jails, reformatories and training schools are different in the quality of the services they offer.

_____________ of all correctional institutions is custody and control of the inmates. This is prescribed by statute and is an expectation of the general public. It is obvious that any correctional institution that ignores the custody and control concept will not function for long. Hence, institutions have been and will continue __________ with the security they offer.

Most American prisons were built during the nineteenth century with open cells¹, strict discipline and harsh punishments such as ____________. They were built with the idea of making it difficult, if not impossible, for prisoners to escape. Today prisons are rated or range from ____________ to medium and minimum security, differ in the extent and nature of facilities for watching prisoners, the range of activities available to prisoners, and so on.

Note:    1. cell – камера