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Women, crime and incarceration: exploring pathways of women in conflict with the law – The case of South Africa
- from Part II - Themes: 2ÈME Partie Thèmes
- Edited by Piet Hein van Kempen, Maartje Krabbe
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- Book:
- Women in Prison
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 25 September 2018
- Print publication:
- 20 March 2017, pp 73-104
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Summary
This chapter presents a selection of findings based on the study Hard Time(s): Women's Pathways to Crime and Incarceration by Artz et al. (2011), which was presented by the lead author researcher at the 2014 IPPF Colloquium, “Women in Prison: The Bangkok Rules and Beyond” in Bangkok, Thailand.
INTRODUCTION
What we know about crime, justice and punishment is based almost entirely on frameworks that have been developed to explain the experiences of men. It is widely accepted that, in comparison to literature on the reasons for men's offending, there is a paucity of research aimed at understanding the reasons why women engage in criminal offending and, more specifically, historical factors that influence offending behaviour. Moreover, almost nothing is known about women incarcerated anywhere on the African continent. What little is known about incarcerated women in South Africa suggests that they are among the most socially and economically vulnerable members of South African society. Their backgrounds - marked as many of them are by violence, extreme economic deprivation, and household disruption - point to longstanding failures of social policies to adequately address the needs of poor women. The specific vulnerabilities that these women face, however, and the ways in which these vulnerabilities interact with other risk factors and shape the specific contexts in which women choose to commit crimes, are not sufficiently known or understood. Understanding these distinctive experiences and the needs of women in prison is crucial for the formulation of effective and humane responses to women's crimes, and to minimising the damaging effects of incarceration on children, households and communities.
It is for this reason that the Gender, Health & Justice Research Unit embarked on a study to explore the reasons why women come into conflict with the law and end up in prison. We established the Pathways Project, an innovative, multi-method project designed for women's prison settings. Moving beyond classical criminological studies on prison - where positivist survey methods still dominate - our methods culminated in 55 in-depth narratives of incarcerated women. The “theoretical aim” of this project was to highlight the distinctive nature of female criminality, thereby shifting attention from the all-male focus on crime that has characterised most South African criminology (to date).
Women in prison in South Africa
- from Part III - National Reports: 3ÈME Partie Rapports Nationaux
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- By Lillian Artz
- Edited by Piet Hein van Kempen, Maartje Krabbe
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- Book:
- Women in Prison
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 25 September 2018
- Print publication:
- 20 March 2017, pp 663-696
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
In 2001, South Africa prisons and sentencing expert van Zyl Smit observed that “there has been no systematic study of the imprisonment of women in South Africa or of the regime to which they are subject”. Over a decade later, South African researchers produced just three key contemporary empirical studies that explore the lives and experiences of incarcerated women. None of these specifically focuses on the systematic collection of comprehensive demographic data or the conditions in women's prisons, nor are they nationwide in their scope. The availability of women in prisons data and research on the rest of the African continent does not fare much better. The limitations of accessible and accurate biographical and demographic data on the South African prison population, however, do not only pertain to female prisoners. While the South African prison system is known to take relatively detailed admissions and health data once a prisoner enters the system (cf. registration of inmates, Rule 4 of the Bangkok Rules and the White Paper on Correctional Services), the collation, analysis and dissemination of detailed offender data do not get presented in the annual reports of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). Despite commitments set out in the DCS White Paper - “the principal strategic document aimed at directing the management and service provision of the department” and the official policy frameworkfor the operations of DCS - to create a national offender population profile system, prisoner demographics are still inadequately presented in key annual and strategic reports of the Department.
What we do know from official DCS reports is that there are currently 243 correctional services facilities in South Africa. Eight of these are “female-only” facilities and 129 are for men only. Ninety-one (91) facilities have separate sections for female offenders, where women are housed separately from men, something which is required by law. The latest data released by the DCS (2014) show that there are currently 157,170 people in custody, of whom 113,458 have been sentenced and 43,712 are remand detainees. The International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) estimates that the official capacity of the prison system is 119,890, meaning that the occupation level of South African prisons is currently 129% over-capacitated. The proportion of sentenced prisoners serving 10 years and more is 48%.