Violence is a social and relational problem of humanity. When coming across a feminine jail population, the violence problem can take diverse proportions. Beyond being perpetrators of some sort of violence, these women can also be victims throughout their lives and even during their period of imprisonment.

Describe the social representations that imprisoned women have concerning daily experiences in prison.

Knowing the meaning of daily experience in prison to women.

Qualitative exploratory-descriptive field study, carried through with 15 prisoners of the feminine prison of Ribeirão Preto (SP-Brazil). A semi-structuralized interview was used. Results submitted to the content analysis technique.

“Daily experiences with violence in prison”: they revealed feelings of abandonment and indifference to their health; they denounced suffering physical and psychological violence from employees and other female prisoners; the relation between them is marked by conflicts and aggressions. “Consequences of the arrest in the women's lives”: complained about the loss of contact with their familiars; there were relieves about lack of support and system's indifference for the readjustment in society.

This study contributed as stimulus and reference for the implementation of other researches with populations of prisons, amongst them the ones that aim to establish strategies for the reintegration of these women in society and the shift of paradigms related to them. Moreover, with the intention of supplementing researches with incarcerated women, we suggest studies that also have familiars and professionals (or visitors) as subjects.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.