Negotiating the Maximum-Security Offender Identity: Experiences From Incarcerated Women

Abstract

The representation of women classified as maximum-security offenders continues to be a challenge due to paucity of research regarding their experiences. Generally, their stories are masked under the experiences of the other categories of incarcerated women. Drawing from a larger study conducted with incarcerated women in a South African correctional centre in Johannesburg, in this article I provide a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews on the lived experiences of negotiating the maximum-security offender identity by 13 women. The results suggest that the maximum-security offender identity is associated with rejection, dehumanisation, denial of agency, restricted movement, and labelling. The article also highlights the significance of providing agency to incarcerated women in deconstructing stereotypes that represent them as angry and uneducated with no value to society. A more balanced repositioning of their stories emerges as they get an opportunity to construct their own experiences.

Keywords

maximum-security offenders agency incarcerated women correctional centre stereotypes

Introduction

Scholarly literature, the media, and the justice system often represent incarcerated women who have committed violent crimes as either pathological, with aggressive tendencies which render them inherently evil, or incapacitated victims of gender-based violence (Africa, 2010; Artz et al., 2012; Dastile, 2013; Jagmohan, 2018; Madriz, 1997). Their voices have been disqualified, minimised, muted, or deprioritised by social structures such as the media and the justice system (Barlow, 2015; Fili, 2013; Schram et al., 2004).

The denial and narrowing of agency for incarcerated women result in stereotyping, labelling, and invisibility, as their stories are often not told or heard from their perspective (Fryer, 2006). Disqualification of incarcerated women’s voices is often achieved through denying them opportunities to share their experiences and distorting their opinions. Authors (Bove & Tryon, 2018; Dastile, 2013; Sandoval & Baumgartner, 2017) make a case for uncovering counterstories to the dominant narratives and discourses about incarcerated women. Such uncovering of women offenders’ stories needs to be done through allowing them an opportunity to craft their stories, as they are experts in their own right in constructing their own life histories (Dastile, 2013).

In this article, I intend to contribute to the growing literature that acknowledges the agency of incarcerated women in discourses about them (Artz et al., 2012; Bove & Tryon, 2018; Dastile, 2013, 2017; Kruttschnitt & Carbone-Lopez, 2006; Sandoval & Baumgartner, 2017) with the aim of countering negative labelling and deficit theorising. I aim to create a balanced understanding of their experiences as they enact their identities in the correctional environment. The focus is particularly on women who are classified as maximum-security offenders in a South African Correctional Centre, because most research has focused on the experiences of women offenders in general (Dastile, 2013, 2014, 2017; Enck & McDaniel, 2015; Fili, 2013; Geiger, 2006; Hesselink & Dastile, 2010, 2015; Jules-Macquet, 2014; Luyt, 2008; Sloth-Nielsen, 2005; Vetten, 2008). Very few studies (Grossi, 2017; Hall et al., 2016) have focused on the representation of women classified as maximum offenders. Because most research has explored experiences of all incarcerated women, the experiences of women classified as maximum-security offenders have been subsumed under the general incarcerated women population and therefore not well understood.

Women classified as maximum-security offenders embody social identities that are perceived to be troublesome (often understood to be dangerous), and in need of separation from other offenders, stricter control, and more security. This account of women classified as maximum-security offenders is often characterised by incomplete stories with distortions and negative labelling. Very few studies (Bove & Tryon, 2018; Fili, 2013; Kruttschnitt & Carbone-Lopez, 2006; Schram et al., 2004; Silverman, 2001) have examined how women construct their incarceration identities. Dissel (1996) also indicated that maximum-security offenders are often not included in rehabilitation processes and tend to be treated in a routine and inflexible manner due to concerns about security risks.

Literature Review

Globally, the incarceration of women continues to be less than that of men and this has resulted in less attention being given to incarcerated women in programme implementation and research (Steyn & Booyens, 2017). In South Africa, the highest number of women incarceration was recorded during the apartheid years, as most women were detained as political prisoners. A subsequent decline was noted in the post-apartheid era, with stability being more than 2.1% between 2006 and 2007. The statistics of incarcerated women remained constant until a noticed slow increase between 2010 and 2017. Such increase is greatly attributed to more economic crimes and access to means of committing these crimes by women (Dastile, 2017; Hesselink & Mostert, 2014; Luyt & du Preez, 2010).

Research on incarcerated women in South Africa has focused on various aspects in the last decade. Focus has been on understanding the profile of incarcerated women, pathways that influence women’s criminality, experiences with incarceration, criminal assessment of women who murdered their spouses, rehabilitation statistics for incarcerated women, same-sex relationship experiences, murderous women, and motherhood in correctional centres (Africa, 2010; Agboola, 2015; Agboola & Rabe, 2018; Artz et al., 2012, 2013; Dastile, 2013, 2014; Hesselink & Dastile, 2010, 2015; Jules-Macquet, 2014; Luyt, 2008; Prinsloo & Hesselink, 2015; Sloth-Nielsen, 2005; Steyn & Booyens, 2017; Vetten, 2008).

Some of the literature (Agboola & Rabe, 2018; Artz et al., 2012; Dastile, 2014, 2017) on incarcerated women also represents them as poor, uneducated, and lacking in job skills. Although these studies have contributed significantly to providing an understanding of the experiences of incarcerated women, intersectional approach in female offending, gendered and culturally sensitive needs as well as systemic injustice that increased women’s vulnerability to crime, few of these studies have focused on the classification of incarcerated women in correctional centres (Agboola & Rabe, 2018; Dastile, 2017; Herbig & Hesselink, 2016; Labane, 2012). Although women’s experiences of incarceration have also been explored (Artz et al., 2012; Casey, 2018; Dastile, 2013) with incarceration understood to be an environment of denial, overcrowding, deprivation, victimisation, and dehumanisation, these studies have not explicated how different classification categories of incarcerated women experience these dynamics.

Classification of Incarcerated Women

Classification of women offenders has received attention over the years with calls for the recognition of gendered pathways to women’s criminality to minimise over- and underclassification of incarcerated women (Bloom et al., 2003; Van Voorhis & Presser, 2001; White, 2012). In most countries, including South Africa, the use of reintegration models in the classification of offenders has become common, with focus on the vocational, health, educational, and religious needs of the offender in addition to risk assessment (Herbig & Hesselink, 2016; “White Paper on Corrections,” 2005). Risk assessment focuses on prior and current convictions, history of violence, and security classification (minimum, medium, and maximum) with high security classification indicating the higher risk posed by the offender (Carlson & Garrett, 2008; Silverman, 2001). Dastile (2017) and Artz (2017) highlight language as one of the factors that subsumes and dispossesses incarcerated women. These authors indicate how indigenous women may not even relate to, let alone understand, western and patriarchy-informed ways of classification imposed on them.

Incarceration does not mean that offenders are incapable of voicing their ideas, opinions, and contributions to society. Therefore, research methodologies that give women agency are highly recommended as their input provides valuable information and insights about possible research topics, humanity, who they are in totality and thus can have a positive impact in changing stereotypes about them (Artz, 2017; Dastile, 2017; Fryer, 2006). This also paves the way for active involvement of incarcerated women in their governance, which potentially contributes to better citizenship within the correctional centre (Schram et al., 2004). Given an opportunity, incarcerated women have the potential to perform empowered, hopeful narratives and a positive self-concept that allow them to imagine better futures for themselves and others (Enck & McDaniel, 2015; Moore et al., 2018). However, in the absence of formal opportunities to demonstrate agency in correctional spaces, incarcerated women often demonstrate agency through resistance, resourcefulness, self-protection, and self-value (Sandoval & Baumgartner, 2017).

Method

Research Design

A qualitative research framework using in-depth interviews as a method for data collection was utilised in the larger research project (Pollack, 2016). The in-depth interviews were crucial in providing agency and an opportunity for women to share their lived experiences in negotiating the maximum-security offender identity.

Participants

The participants in this article were drawn from a larger study of 18 incarcerated women who were interviewed in the Johannesburg Correctional Centre. Data were drawn from 13 of the women who participated in the larger study, whose experiences were relevant for this article. As indicated in Table 1, the women had been convicted and sentenced for serious offences including murder, attempted murder, fraud, and hijacking. All of the women were African and their ages ranged from 23 to 62 years. The women had been in the correctional system for a minimum of 1 year to a maximum of 26 years. Their sentences ranged from 10 years to life imprisonment and all were once classified as maximum-security offenders, with two of the women reclassified as medium-security offenders.

Table 1.

Participants.

Pseudoname	Age	Nature of offence	Sentence	Level of education prior to incarceration	Duration of the sentence	Classification
Angela	23	Murder, kidnapping, and robbery with aggravating circumstances	Life	Grade 11	5 years	Maximum
Nomusa	26	Murder	10 years	Grade 11	1 year and 3 months	Maximum
Joyce	28	Murder	Life plus 15 years	Grade 11	8 years	Maximum
Aruna	36	Fraud and robbery	10 years	Degree	5 years	Maximum
Anita	38	Murder	Life	Degree	7 years	Maximum
Paulina	38	Robbery and attempted murder	35 years	Grade 11	14 years	Medium
Ruby	46	Murder	Life	Diploma	4 years	Maximum
Lizzy	48	Murder	Life	Grade 12	7 years	Maximum
Margaret	55	Murder	Life	Grade 8	5 years	Maximum
Yolisa	56	Murder, armed robbery, and attempted murder	Life	Grade 11	10 years	Maximum
Dorothy	60	Murder	13 years and 4 months	Grade 8	13 years	Medium
Caroline	62	Murder	Life plus 10 years	Diploma	5 years	Maximum
Gabisile	30	Robbery and murder	18 years	Grade 10	4 years	Maximum

Source. Qhogwana (2017).

Instrument

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were utilised to collect data about experiences of being a maximum-security offender. The narrative that was invoked in relation to this specific experience was phrased as follows: “Tell me about your experiences of being a maximum-security offender.”

Procedure

The ethics committee from University of South Africa provided ethical clearance for the larger study. Permission and access to the participants was granted by the Department of Correctional Services. Convenience sampling and snowball sampling were used in recruiting women for participation. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews in a private office in the Social Workers and Psychologists section within the Correctional Centre. Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from the participants. The women were invited to communicate in a language that was comfortable for them. A majority of the women expressed themselves in isiZulu, isiXhosa, seSotho, and seTswana, whereas others mixed the different languages, including English. The sessions were audio-recorded with permission from each of the women who participated in the study. These were transcribed and translated into English by experienced multilingual translators.

Data Analysis

Braune and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis method was used as a guideline for analysing the transcripts from the participants. This involved thorough familiarity with data, which entailed repeated listening to the audio records and reading of the transcripts. The initial stages of the analysis involved writing and coding data into categories that were later developed into themes. The final stages of analysis entailed a process of synthesis, which involved establishing links and relationships between identified themes and the sociocultural context. To ensure rigour in the analysis process, the author consistently checked the transcripts against the themes and the categories that were identified.

Reflexivity was also a crucial process that was utilised in the analysis of data and throughout the research process. Patnaik (2013) defines reflexivity as a way of understanding one’s own attitudes, values, and biases, a useful tool in not only gaining deeper insight into the research, but also ensuring that the focus remains on the research and its participants. Apart from being a researcher and a volunteer in the correctional centre spiritual rehabilitation programmes, I also carried with me other roles that were significant in influencing the research process. These involved being an African woman, a mother, a psychologist, and a woman with no lived experience of incarceration.

Reflexivity in this research was managed through Dowling’s (2006) three-phrase process (bracketing pre action, bracketing in action, and bracketing on action) using a reflexive journal that allowed me to write my experiences, attitudes, and emotions. Bracketing pre action allowed for awareness of emotions, feelings, and experiences that emanated from my own positionality and thus management of the potential impact of these prior to the research process through supervised reflexivity, with my research project supervisor. Bracketing in action is dependent on emerging data and involved responses that clarified my role as a researcher and at times acknowledging some of the women’s irritations and concerns over being interviewed by someone with no lived experience of incarceration, as indicated by one of the participants in the process.

My professional background as a psychologist facilitated better management of bracketing in action as I was also able to reflect and give feedback on nonverbal behaviours and feelings of participants, at the same time developing connections that encouraged openness by participants. As a result, in the process, I also encountered difficult emotions (sadness, trauma, and guilt), changes in attitude, and understanding of incarcerated women in ways that I had never imagined (this aspect is dealt with in detail in another article). Bracketing on action entailed the use of new insights obtained during the research process on subsequent empirical work. To manage “politics of location” based on familiarity with the research space, I had to ensure that ethical standards were adhered to. For example, women who had participated in spiritual voluntary projects that I had facilitated were excluded from the research. Bracketing through journaling was very useful in ensuring consistent continuous inspection of the data for biased interpretation (Lieblich et al., 1998; Thompson, 2011; Tufford & Newman, 2010).

Results

The women in this study highlighted some of the challenges associated with the identity of being a maximum-security offender. Their responses indicated an identity that is associated with rejection, differential treatment, dehumanisation, denial of agency, restricted movement, and labelling. Even though women classified as maximum-security offenders are stereotyped and dehumanised, the in-depth interviews afforded them an opportunity to deconstruct some of the stereotypes and assumptions held about them.

Being a Maximum-Security Offender

The participants refer to themselves and fellow inmates who are incarcerated as either maximum or medium offenders. The maximum-security offender identity was associated with serious aggressive and violent crimes, long sentences, being unwanted and rejected by communities, and a group that deserves to be locked up and die in the correctional centre, as reflected below:

Being a maximum . . . it means that you have a long sentence and the thing that you did is very serious, it actually means . . . mh the thing that you did is very serious. The community really doesn’t want you . . . it means that the community really doesn’t want you, you see . . . really the community doesn’t want you, you must just serve your time, be locked up and die here. (Angel)

A maximum, it means the crime that you have committed is violent and I can say it is about people who have committed violent crimes. (Gabisile)

It means you did an aggressive crime like murder, hijacking, and robbery. It’s worse when you are classified as a maximum people fear you. Like even inside here because of your crime people fear you. We are seen differently from the mediums we are viewed as more dangerous especially because we are always escorted and we are a more restricted group than the mediums. (Nomusa)

The difference is that inside here, even though at home in . . . (removed to protect identity of participant) they rejected me. Even the ones that I used to attend church with . . . Yes so they rejected me, they have never visited me, since I was arrested, I’ve got five years now inside here, they do not come, my relatives also. (Margaret)

Being a maximum-security offender was also associated with limited movements, which meant doing activities within the correctional centre only, with no opportunity to visit other correctional centres like the mediums, as indicated below:

. . . I’m a maximum I am not allowed, even though I am not dangerous to the society. I am not allowed to go like other places (correctional centres) to explore what they are doing there so I am not allowed . . . I am stuck in here, like to join the choir, like if I decide to join the drama I will only perform it here. I am not allowed to go outside. (Nomusa)

Yeah, when you are maximum, you, you’ve got short steps, like I would say, because there is nothing you can do, you can study, but uh, like the, the, the there’s nothing you can do like going out, outside like the mediums. Mediums you’ve got the opportunity to go out, to sing outside, join the choir, play sports and go out and play with the other prisons like nationally. With the maximum you can’t, there’s a criteria that they use for only maximums. If you are a maximum, you have to stay indoors. (Paulina)

Some of the women classified as maximum-security offenders further expressed a feeling of segregation, differential treatment in programming in comparison with mediums, which seems to result in feelings of worthlessness, as reflected below:

We are segregated as maximums . . . within the system we are segregated . . . every time you find that there will be courses that you hear that there is a certain course but they will always say . . . in most of the cases they always say that it’s for mediums. (Anita)

Because of you are a maximum, they tell you that “you are the maximum you can’t go out” and when you have a look at it, mediums, okay the mediums go out. So that gives that picture that . . . it means when you are a maximum it means you are not worthy, you see? (Gabisile)

“Not Normal Human Beings”

The dehumanisation metanarrative characteristic of correctional environments was evident in how one of the women understood herself in relation to her offence and the correctional environment. She views the correctional centre as a place where offenders are segregated, with the aim of rehabilitating them, as they are deemed to have failed to behave like normal human beings. Consequently, the purpose of rehabilitation is to restore offenders to the standard of human beings to integrate them back to society, as reflected below:

I feel that when you are incarcerated, when you are convicted you behaved uh . . . like not a normal human being . . . you didn’t do uh . . . you didn’t live up to the standard of human beings. So you need to be segregated . . . get life . . . Go and get some rehabilitation so that you can come to your senses . . . Come to the standard of people you know . . . ethically so, morally so, you know. You just have to live to that standard of other people so that you can be reintegrated uh back to them, back to the society. (Anita)

One of the women highlighted how she was treated like an object and denied empathy, despite her pain and context prior to incarceration. The excerpt below highlights this mechanical form of dehumanisation:

Here at home (in prison) they never wanted to understand me, they never even tried to understand me, not even a little . . . you understand? Obviously I’m also human, sister, I feel pain you see. They don’t want to understand, like I, sister, I arrived here in prison when I was very young, you understand? Like outside, you see, outside I had a drug problem, so much addicted to drugs. I lost my grandmother, you understand so my stepmother and I were not getting along. She does not love me and I don’t . . . So after my grandmother passed on, I went to go and live with my father and I was not comfortable. Have you have you felt like you have been adopted or something? So I did not feel comfortable. So I ran away and went to live in Cape Town with Nigerians and I was hooked into drugs and everything, you understand. When I came back, I come, I came being sick, I had TB and that’s when I also found out that I am [HIV] positive . . . so I came back sick . . . just when I recovered, I was arrested, you understand? I came to prison. (Angela)

Silenced Through Victimisation

The narratives of women classified as maximum-security offenders indicate that they are often denied agency in expressing their feelings and opinions. Their attempts at voicing their opinions are met with victimisation aimed at silencing them from narrating their experiences:

Do not write my name, they going to be mad. Do not write my name, as we talk like this you are going to write another name . . . because they will ask why I am saying these things, they get angry . . . when the minister comes we reveal everything, tomorrow they treat us bad. (Lizzy)

Actually, here at home [in prison], they are evil sister, I will tell you the truth, just you don’t see . . . Just this thing that we are talking about . . . Because when they hear this thing they are going to lock me up for long. (Angela)

The significance of giving incarcerated women a voice is seen in how it has the potential of ensuring that programmes that are implemented in the correctional centre respond to their needs. The excerpt below indicates that women feel that their input adds value to some of the programmes that were initiated in the correctional centre:

You know (name removed to protect identity) by the time she was the minister of correctional services she will come here. She will visit each section and then she will give us chance to talk. She will talk to us and ask us you know. That section, C-Section it was opened by the time she was here . . . the Gogos (Grandmothers) they were also given their own section because she used to listen to us. With her listening, we managed to get our own section where we can study and where we can stay there and concentrate on our books. Most of the Gogos (Grandmothers) were engaging in beading courses doing this and that because she is the one who used to listen to us and then after she left we were very much disappointed because there was no one who was going to listen to us. (Ruby)

Labelled as an “Angry Group”

Evident in some of the women’s narratives is the representation of women classified as maximum-security offenders as an angry group, with recommendations made for them to attend programmes that will assist in managing their anger. The framing of these women as an angry group contributes to the dismissal of other feelings expressed by them. This selective focus on anger also individualises their criminal behaviour and in the process negates the socioeconomic factors that contribute to women offending. The following excerpts highlight these issues and how anger is seen as a significant emotion in women classified as maximum-security offenders:

The only courses that we are allowed to do here maybe they will say “you maximums you have a lot of anger you can go and do anger and then do psychologists.” (Nomusa)

The truth is when you tell them something those mothers (correctional officers) say that you are insulting them and you do not have respect, you have anger and at that time you are just telling them what you feel . . . (Angela)

Despite the selective focus on the anger of women classified as maximum-security offenders, some of their excerpts indicate how they also deconstruct this label through expression of other emotions like calmness, tearfulness, and trauma. Some of their emotions, for example, trauma and sadness, stemmed from painful experiences of gender-based violence endured prior to incarceration. Other emotions like calmness and sweetness are associated with who these women are; however, their difficult circumstances seem to have made them vulnerable to committing murder, as highlighted in the following excerpts:

Some of the women they came for murder and you will never say because they so quiet and so calm and so sweet you know. But he hit and hit and he was an alcoholic and a drug addict and used to hit and beat. One day “I decided one fine day to get back and I reached for the knife and it was one small just to scare him I didn’t expect” . . . and some of them did not even do it themselves, they got people to do it. (Aruna)

I would get beaten up, get robbed, raped . . . get sick, made sick by these people and when I came back . . . [exclaims] I don’t know how I can explain it, you know [sighs and teary] . . . I am trying to find a way to explain that I was used a lot, you understand. I was used a lot and abused a lot. People made a lot of promises to me and they didn’t keep them, you see, people really defrauded me, played with my feelings a lot and at that time I didn’t see it, I was lost. I was confused and young. (Angela)

What was also evident is that the women’s anger also stemmed from systemic issues like competition for resources and lack of understanding by the correctional officers, as reflected below:

What I have learnt . . . it doesn’t take much to make prisoners fight, they fight for small things. We can fight because we stand in a queue for the sink because in one cell we 36 or 42 of us can stay . . . there is one toilet . . . Because I was standing in line, waiting my turn, maybe I go inside and come back. When I come back, there is now another person. When I say to her “no I am next in line,” you can fight over that. You just fight for small things even queueing for a sink to wash your dishes and it just ends up being a big issue because, but it is a small thing. Even space, our spaces are this size [demonstrates], this place, you go this way and this, this side and this, its beds. You can see people fighting, fighting for space because someone cleans you come and spill things. (Yolisa)

I rehabilitated myself I do not want to lie. Otherwise these police (Correctional Officers), there is nothing that they have done for me, not even a little. They just make me angry . . . (Angela)

Educationally Empowered

Although some of the women reflected a history of being burdened by poverty, a structural insubordination that made them vulnerable to committing crime, a more educationally empowered and skilled group also emerged, as reflected below:

When I came here because whilst I was outside I was a teacher so I decided to continue with my teaching here in prison. (Ruby)

I was finance director of a company. I worked for them for four years. (Aruna)

I was working for that mine. I was an official there, I was a shaft examiner. (Anita)

I was a teacher; I was a teacher and then yeah. I had access of most of the things, I used to work, and I was working. (Caroline)

Although the intersection of class and gender cannot be ignored in shaping the experiences of incarcerated women, one cannot deny the educationally empowered incarcerated women. The same group seems to have been a thorn in the flesh for the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) as they collectively challenged policies and decisions that denied them their right to education:

We just struggle to have every little thing, it’s a its uh a h*** of a thing you know to have a laptop in our cells. We had to go to courts and do motions and stuff like that. We had to do motions just to make sure that we had a laptop in our cells, we had to fight, they said “no the policy.” I understand, they say the policy does not allow that but I mean education cannot be curtailed by anything not even incarceration, it is a right for me to study. So I decided to say that you know what I am going to study regardless of the incarceration or the sentence or the wall or what, even the system is not going to stop me from studying. If I have to go to the High Court, I’ll go to the High Court and get what I want and I did just that. I went to Johannesburg High court, I did a motion I made sure that I go to High Court and I was granted that I can have a laptop in my cell I’ve got the right to study. We were not allowed to come into single cells we had to fight for that as well to say we need a conducive environment for us to study. I cannot study in a cell where there are 40 people, 40 inmates it’s just not on, I cannot concentrate. (Anita)

Preventing Crime Through Sharing Their Experiences

Some of the women are eager to participate in reducing crime through sharing their own experiences and stories with people from society. Two women valued opportunities to warn children and other women from dangers. One of the two women felt she needed to reach out to her sister through writing her a letter and encouraging her to leave her abusive marriage before she ends up killing her husband. The sister responded to her warning and left her husband. Some of these issues are highlighted in the excerpts below:

One thing that I like about one of the programmes that is the one of pillar to post, where they bring learners here . . . so that they can see how prison is like so that they can stop the wrong things that they are doing. If they can see us sitting there, if can see if they can see how we sleep, the food that we eat and when they go outside they will not do wrong. (Ruby)

Even the last time my younger sister who comes third after me had a problem with her husband. She has been having problems for a while, so I wrote her a letter advising her not to even do what I did because she will end up leaving her children and being right here. It is better that she goes home, leave this man, yes and she did that. Last week when I phoned home my last born told me that her aunt went back home and left her husband and her other child in their house. (Margaret)

The themes highlighted above indicate how women classified as maximum-security offenders understand and enact this identity. Through their responses to the in-depth interviews, the women highlighted the challenges associated with their maximum-security identity. The women also indicated how they navigate their existence in the correctional centre while also negotiating this identity.

Discussion

This article demonstrates that maximum-security offender classification for incarcerated women is a troubled identity associated with serious crimes, aggression and danger, long sentences, and rejection by society. Similar to previous research (Artz et al., 2012; Casey, 2018; Dastile, 2013) that indicates correctional institutions as spaces of denial, deprivation, and victimisation, for women classified as maximum-security offenders these dynamics seem to be also linked to their classification. Consequently, experiences of women classified as maximum offenders give an impression of an “othered” group within the correctional centre with lived experiences of differential treatment, segregation, being silenced through victimisation, dehumanisation, and labelling.

Analogous to arguments by Fryer (2006) and Schram et al. (2004), this study highlights the significance of providing agency for incarcerated women for better governance within the correctional centre as well as input that can be valuable to society at large. One of the women highlighted how being listened to by the previous minister of correctional services provided a forum for them to suggest ways in which their rehabilitation programmes could be improved. Two women also highlighted how sharing their personal journeys with crime and incarceration can play a role in deterring children and women from crime.

This article also builds on the significance of using methodologies that allow women to share their unique experiences as proposed by Dastile (2013, 2017). The utilisation of in-depth interviews in this study allowed the action of the voice of the marginalised through providing a way in which incarcerated women could subjectively create and recreate themselves as well as their realities. The women in this study were able to deconstruct the label of an angry group through highlighting the diversity of their emotions and experiences prior to and during incarceration. Their responses indicated a presence of happiness, sadness, trauma, and calmness that also manifests in their lives. This is significant in repositioning the representation of women classified as maximum-security offenders, not only as an angry group but also as a group that is capable of expressing and experiencing a diverse range of emotions. In the process, their humanity is restored and a sense of empowerment surfaces and this paves the way for the correctional system and society to respond to them as humans.

It is also notable that the anger of incarcerated women is a label cast with limited efforts to understand its meaning for incarcerated women who express it. The narratives from the women in this article indicate how some of their anger is located in structural and systemic social issues (i.e., limited resources, overcrowding, and lack of empathy) which are also mimicked within the correctional centre. This indicates a need for efforts to individually understand the latent meaning of the anger expressed by incarcerated women to facilitate development and implementation of programmes that are responsive to their needs. The selective focus placed on their anger, while overlooking other emotional experiences, also creates an imbalanced understanding of their emotions, with the potential of instilling fear and unwillingness for the correctional services community and society at large to interact with them. One cannot imagine the development and implementation of effective and needs-based rehabilitation programmes for people who are labelled, muted, and dehumanised.

Reflections from this study indicate that not all women who are incarcerated have the same profile. Although there are women who are uneducated and with limited job or business skills, consistent with findings by Steyn and Booyens (2017), some of the women that were interviewed in this study are educationally empowered (two were teachers, three had university degrees) with skills (teaching, financial, and management) acquired prior to and during incarceration. However, some of the women’s narratives reveal how their pursuit of educational empowerment within the correctional centre is often constrained by their maximum-security offender status.

Incarcerated women who are educated and skilled struggle to enact their envisaged identities of empowerment in the correctional centre. This is so because their envisaged identities are inevitably at odds with the metanarrative of what it means to be an incarcerated woman classified as maximum offender, a narrative that defines a disempowered woman as not worthy of education. This study demonstrates how incarcerated women can enact agency in a constructive and meaningful way, even though their narratives are somehow constrained by dominant negative metanarratives. Their stories also reveal performative repertoires (Enck & McDaniel, 2015) that have the potential of enabling women classified as maximum offenders to renarratise their lives and in the process take meaningful action that exposes a balanced view of their identities, reflecting empowerment in a disempowering system. This further indicates that some of the incarcerated women are not simply passive bodies crippled by their challenging circumstances, but also capable of performing their agency in a positive way (Enck & McDaniel, 2015; Sandoval & Baumgartner, 2017). Consequently, correctional centres can also create formal ways that enable incarcerated women to transfer their skills to other offenders within the correctional environment.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

The sample in this study comprised African women who were classified as maximum offenders, and thus experiences of women from other racial groups have not been explored; therefore, further studies into experiences of a more racially diverse group may be beneficial. Although this article’s aim was not to compare the experiences of women classified as maximum-security offenders to medium offenders, some of the women did indicate an experience of differential treatment in comparison with medium-security offenders, resulting in feelings of worthlessness. Therefore, a follow-up study that seeks to compare the experiences of women across classification categories utilised in correctional centres would bring more insight in this regard. Although the results from this study cannot be generalised to all women and all correctional centres, the study highlights the significance of providing agency to incarcerated women classified as maximum-security offenders.

Conclusion

This article makes visible diverse agentic capacities of incarcerated women who are also negotiating an “othered” and troubled identity inherent in the maximum-security offender classification. Although the participants in this study highlighted constrained agency linked to the maximum-security offender identity, they also demonstrated that they have individual (verbal and written) and collective (group activism) agency that can change their lives through influencing the correctional centre and society positively. Authors (Dastile, 2013; Enck & McDaniel, 2015) argue that when incarcerated women tell their stories, they also perform opportunities to reconstitute themselves and their lived narratives in different ways.

As the participants shared their lived experiences with the maximum-security offender identity, the stereotypes and labels embroiled within this identity were also challenged and a more balanced repositioning of the women’s narratives also emerged. Consequently, incarcerated women classified as maximum-security offenders were not only understood to be an angry, poor, uneducated, and unskilled group, they were also understood as people with diverse emotions, skills, education, and voices that can add value in better governance and citizenship within the correctional centre and in deterring other people from committing crime in the society. Therefore, the recognition of incarcerated women’s stories is important for consorting with the women in creating more diverse opportunities for narrative agency and change inside and outside the correctional centre. Recommendations are thus made for correctional centres to provide more agentic opportunities for incarcerated women, as this has a potential of enhancing better governance and citizenship in the correctional centre as well as preventing crime in society.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Puleng Segalo (Unisa) who has been instrumental in the research journey, as well as Professors Neo Morejele and Hennie Lötter for their guidance in the preparation of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sibulelo Qhogwana

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