Portrayals of Women as Ex-Cons in the Media - Article Example

Portrayals of Women as Ex-Cons in the Media The commonly used term ‘mass media’ encompasses numerous institutions and individuals that differ in method and purpose. In general usage, the term has been considered to define groups who make up the communications profession in both the entertainment and news industries. The specific role of the media in society is often debated but what is not argued is that access to information is essential to the health of a liberal democratic society. Newspapers, radio, television and the internet allow citizens the opportunity to make informed choices and serves as part of the checks and balances of a society, a ‘fourth branch of government.’ Mass media is necessary as its existence ensures that those elected to public office are held accountable. The media also serves to entertain and the line drawn between news reporters’ efforts to amuse and sources of entertainment attempting to inform is crossed continuously. Media acts as the link between people’s personal lives to events outside what they encounter in their everyday routine. Because of this connection, it serves as an important vehicle in the understanding of how society functions and strengthens the public’s involvement in those decisions that affect their standard of living. The media reflects and reports and, as some speculate, shapes collective societal thought. This is particularly true when it comes to the media’s portrayal of women, especially those women who are entering upon a new life having been released from a prison institution. Investigating the various methods that are used to report stories of women in prison, it can be determined that many of these stories are constructed so as to present a specific viewpoint that tends to support a stereotyped portrait of what a woman leaving prison ought to appear. It has been suggested in a number of studies that crime news and media are constructed around a central idea rather than actually reported as they are (Young, 1971; Cohen 1971, 1972; Cohen and Young, 1973; Chibnall, 1977 and Hall et al, 1978). The concept of a constructed news story, or stories as the case may be, centers on the concept that coverage is selective, only relating those stories that support a desired outcome. As it has been portrayed in the media, this concept is responsible for the general opinion among the public that the prison system works at least to a nominal degree. The failures are suggested to be occurring as a result of greater need for strict controls rather than because of systemic, practical or ineffective practices. According to Mathieson (2000), the rising rates of crime, including crime committed by women, is construed by the media as evidence that more prisons are needed as well as tougher laws constraining behaviour. In addition, the escalation of crime is itself elevated as news reports tend to focus on the small percentage of violent and sexual crimes and, as a result, over-represent the percentage of criminal activity these crimes entail (Sparks, 1992; Livingstone et al, 2001; Roberts, 2001; Wykes, 2001; Reiner et al 2003). In portraying crime in this manner, those who are convicted of committing any crime, regardless of their gender or the nature of their crime, immediately become associated with this dangerous element that functions to instill yet more fear in a believing and misinformed public. Through this portrayal of prisons as part of a system of law enforcement that works to curtail violent crime and reform criminals, the media has adopted the New Labour contention that prisons are necessary for the proper care and function of a peaceful society. This concept is supported by frequent coverage of state initiatives in which prisons can be seen to be working through the diligent efforts of yellow jacketed prisoners working off their debt to society through mandatory volunteer work and their apparent eagerness to sign proffered pledges in which they promise to adhere to the law in the future (Home Office, 2006). With these types of promises regarding the effectiveness of prisons to keep the public safe, as well as the light touch on reporting prison issues that remains just enough to call for more support for prisons while still supporting the need, there is little opportunity or incentive for the media to call attention to the inherent problems with the system (Ryan & Sim, 2006). In addition, the media bias in favour of prisons and in demonizing the criminals makes it difficult for those being released to find a new place in society following their difficult period of reform or to talk about the problems they witnessed. With these concepts in mind, it is necessary to turn to an investigation of what the media is actually saying regarding the status of women in prison or just being released to fully appreciate the extent of the problem. While this investigation is not exhaustive, it gives an idea of how news is constructed so as to indicate a specific viewpoint of prisons as being too lenient to be completely effective, yet desirable as a means of controlling offenders just the same. One such example can be found in a 2005 story run by the Daily Express. The headline itself sets the mood of the piece by suggesting that prison is less punishment and more holiday by proclaiming “Prison? It’s like a Hotel.” The first paragraph of the story throws further lightness on the concept of jail time as it refers to the “supposedly toughest” jails in the country and the “soft touch” provided the inmates through the bistro-style dining room, “comfortable” beds and “befrienders” who help new arrivals settle in. The term bistro-style is not explicitly defined, but could be accurately used to define a wide array of eating configurations, including the simple provision of tables and chairs at which inmates might sit down to eat within a large communal room. Similarly, the term ‘befrienders’ is merely an appellation given to those inmates specifically selected to help new inmates learn the rules, a necessary function regardless of what they are called and not necessarily making them instantly ‘friends’ with the new arrivals. The adjective ‘comfortable’ used to describe the beds is equally ambiguous, capable of denoting anything softer than a concrete floor or metal bench. What is also not made immediately clear is that the article is describing the conditions at the First Night Centre, relating the special conditions within this single unit to the conditions found throughout the rest of the prison. One prisoner refers to this centre as being like a hotel in that she was checked in, helped to settle in and provided with an adequate meal as part of the prison’s reception routine, yet this statement is inferred to be the commonly held opinion of all prisoners regardless of the unit they are housed in or how long they have been incarcerated. This impression hints that prisoners are not being punished for their crimes but are instead gaining a free holiday away from the daily cares and troubles of the outside world at the expense of the taxpayers. Despite these impressions, evidence exists that indicate the true story is anything but a luxury accommodation. According the HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on Holloway published in March of 2004, the “standards of cleanliness were unacceptable, with communal areas dirty, rubbish-strewn or poorly decorated.” In addition, 48 per cent of the inmates indicated that they did not feel safe within their prison cells, 36 per cent said they had been insulted or assaulted by their fellow inmates and another 32 per cent indicated staff members had victimized them in some way (HMI 2004). While it may be considered that this was a one-time occurrence of such an article, a more recent opinion survey conducted by the same newspaper indicates that prisoners are being fed much better meals in prison than even the patients in area hospitals. “The taxpayer is having to spend £12 per day to feed each inmate kept in emergency accommodation, thanks to the Government’s shambolic handling of the prisons crisis. It dwarfs the £3 spent per patient in some of our hospital wards and is six times the average cost of feeding prisoners in established jails” (“Have We Given Prisoners Too Many Rights?”, 2007). Again, there is a lack of information provided regarding what the emergency accommodation might entail which might explain why meals at this institution might be more expensive (i.e. are they special formulations administered via feeding tube or other medically supervised manner which offsets the cost?). Making it even worse, the names of these emergency accommodation units are not provided, so the facts cannot be checked regarding just how much is truly spent or the reasons for this. While the figures are compared to ‘some of our hospital wards’, again, the nature of these hospital wards is not provided which might explain the disparity in price. Finally, a simple math problem reveals that most of the food provided in prison institutions ends up being less than £2 per day per prisoner. Yet the short article attempts to throw even this number off by indicating that schools around the UK spend a minimum of just 60p per day providing lunches for pupils. Note that this statement includes the word ‘minimum’ suggesting many students are fed lunches that are more expensive than this and also that the meals provided per day are limited to one meal only as opposed to the three meals required in prison institutions. A 2004 BBC News report portrays life inside Highpoint Prison as being little more than a pleasant rehabilitation center providing troubled women with a chance to clean up, think through their lives and straighten out for a more positive future. While one image accompanying the story depicts the prison’s barred doors being locked by a male guard, there are no prisoners evident in the photo and the guard is young and attractive, indicating that he is a beneficial caretaker rather than an armed guard ready to do violence any time the situation warrants. Other images accompanying the article depict several women sitting around a small table sharing a meal together, as if they were just good friends on a luncheon and another single shot of a woman who was interviewed in the article. In the background of her photo, one sees the prison building looking more like a less expensive apartment home, blue sky and green grass around her. That she is outside already hints at a greater freedom of movement than most people associate with the concept of prison and certainly doesn’t support the concept of the headline, which announces it is a story from “Inside a Women’s Prison.” These images of an expansive outdoors, a comfortable eating area and an empty hallway containing only the single prison guard do not support the article’s subtitle that indicates women’s prisons are facing tremendous issues of overcrowding or that women are being incarcerated at an unprecedented rate. The story itself does little to portray a prison system that delivers on the punitive treatment that is often considered necessary to bring about productive change. The idea that this ‘soft’ treatment of criminals isn’t working is further brought out in the opening of the article in which the article’s author indicates that “Women are increasingly turning to crime, and the country’s female prison population has more than doubled since 1993” (Chidzoy, 2004). Implicit in this introduction is the idea that the prison system is too soft to prevent women from committing crime, and, perhaps going even another step further, that the soft treatment they can expect to receive within the prison system may actually be encouraging more of them to risk disobeying the law. This idea that the prison may not be as effective as it should be is underscored by the given fact that most of the inmates are mothers of children under the age of 16, indicating that they are willing to risk selling drugs and getting caught despite the fact that their children would then be necessarily placed in foster care. The choice of inmates to interview for the article is also supportive of the idea that the prisons are ineffective as this particular inmate has been in and out of prison throughout her entire life, at least 25 years of a revolving door system. She indicates that the reason she has been in and out of prison so much is because of a drug addiction that she hopes she’s finally beaten as the result of the drug rehab program available through the prison, the first indication that it may be effective after all. However, it is difficult for a reader to understand that this person has been in and out of prison for 25 years as the result of a drug addiction and this is the time that she’s beaten it. Yet there does seem to be some dissension in the way the media is reporting on women’s prison issues. Predominantly rising from a grassroots operation, the media outlets are beginning to question whether the current system designed to punish men for the more violent crimes they are typically involved in are appropriate for female offenders whose crimes are generally not as violent or committed for the same motivations. The failure to reduce re-offenders is noted as of special concern in an article in the Guardian based on a report issued by the Fawcett Society (Pearce, 2003). This report refocuses attention on the original purpose behind the establishment of prison institutions as a means of removing violent offenders from the general population and thus rendering society safer. However, most female prisoners are incarcerated on charges of non-violent crime and are sentenced to less than one year of prison for their offenses. In a significant shift from the other mainstream media outlets, this report presents the case that many women are vulnerable due to abuse, violence and poverty, sometimes offering them few options other than to turn to crime as a means of supporting their families. In addition, the report indicates that many more women are less likely to commit a second offense once they’ve been incarcerated once because the punishment is often seen as excessive to the crime. Radically different from many of the reports regarding the effectiveness of prisons in rehabilitating women, this news item focuses on the specific problems inherent in the system as it pertains specifically to women. For instance, it mentions “because there are fewer women’s prisons, women tend to be imprisoned further from their families than men, despite the fact that many have young children and that family contact is a key tool in reducing reoffending” (Pearce, 2003). The report suggests that not enough work has been done to understand the reasons why women break the law as opposed to the motivational factors involved in male offenders. “The majority of women in prison have mental health problems, drug and alcohol problems and have been abused. These are all factors related to offending which the criminal justice system needs to address if we are to tackle the growing number of women who reoffend after leaving prison” (Baird, cited in Pearce, 2004). Another report in the Guardian indicates the injustice experienced by women who break the law. According to Libby Brook (2001), twice as many women as men are jailed for their first offense despite numerous reasons why the courts should be more lenient rather than more severe. “We know that the majority of women offenders pose a low risk to the public. We know that imprisoning mothers has a disproportionately disruptive effect on family life. … We know that women react more adversely to custody than men, not least because of the higher incidence of mental-health problems among female prisoners. We know that more than half the women in prison have experienced physical or sexual abuse. So why are we locking up more of the most vulnerable people in the country?” (Brooks, 2001). The issues of degradation and family abandonment, according to Brooks only 17 per cent of men stick with their female counterparts while she’s in prison, further exacerbate the problem, yet the mainstream media continues to report on the effectiveness of female prisons, the need for reform and to urge stricter punishments for women who commit crime. Fortunately, publications like the Guardian and newer media forms such as BBC 1XTRA are finding the ability to speak out about such issues, beginning to explore them on a larger scale and exposing the fallacies of a hegemonic ideology. This attention to the factors involved in why women offend by alternative forms of media reporting has led to greater attention by the Home Office in determining more effective means of addressing the issue, but, as the rising numbers of female prisoners attests, much more remains to be done. Society will not change its attitudes regarding what makes a ‘good’ girl or a ‘bad’ one, nor will it quickly forgive those individuals who have gone against these accepted definitions without further support from both the state and the media institutions. With attention given to the various elements that drive a woman to crime, as well as possible means of addressing these issues within the public and private spheres, women caught committing crime may find themselves more easily accepted into society and therefore less likely to reoffend in the future. References Brooks, Libby. (30 January 2001). “A Woman’s Place?” Guardian Unlimited. Chibnall, Steve. (1977). Law And Order News. Tavistock: British Press. Chidzoy, Sarah. (18 October 2004). “Inside a Women’s Prison.” BBC News. Cohen, Stan (Ed.). (1971). Images of Deviance. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Cohen, Stan. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Cohen, Stan & Young, Jock (Eds.). (1973). 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