For this week’s research example, I decided to read literature written by political activist Angela Davis who has done extensive research on the prison system and is an advocator for the abolition of the prison. In her book, Are prisons obsolete?, she writes a chapter titled “How Gender Structures the Prison System” which speaks largely to my research topic in examining the difference in how female and male prisoners are treated by prison staff. The data that Davis gathers comes in the form of writings and memoirs of incarcerated women, specifically women of color. In these excerpts, the women described the inadequate medical attention they received, the constant sexual violence they experienced by prison staff in the form of verbal and physical abuse, and use of drugs to control their behavior. She uses past published reports, such as the 1996 Human Rights Watch Report and All too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons, to illuminate the violations of power exerted by male officers that used their privileges to engage in sexual relations, threat, verbally degrade and harass women prisoners. Although her research does not produce original data, she utilizes the records of experiences of incarcerated women as well as published reports to expose the harsh and unjust treatment of women in prisons, treatment that is not just confided in prison walls, but also lives in the greater society. Thus, one of the major reasons to abolish the prison system is because of the institutionalized abuse of women in prisons that is seen as obsolete in the larger society.

Davis, Angela Y., and Angela Y. Davis. Are prisons obsolete? an open media book. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2010.