Women after incarceration

Being released from prison comes with myriad struggles: negotiating logistical and bureaucratic obstacles seemingly designed to encourage recidivism; coping with new (and old) mental, emotional, and physical traumas; trying to repair and establish healthy relationships; and, in many cases, being thrust back into the same physical environment, with the same triggers and struggles, that led to incarceration in the first place.

Anthropologist Jorja Leap sees this struggle. Having previously researched how men become involved in gangs, she turned her attention to women involved in gangs, this time with an additional emphasis on what these women’s lives are like after incarceration. Entry Lessons is the result of Leap’s research into two main questions: What are the differences between men’s and women’s experiences with gangs, incarceration, and reentry, and how can reentry programs and services address those gendered differences in order to best serve formerly incarcerated women?

Women experience gangs differently than men do, Leap explains. They take on supporting roles, such as “girlfriends, or hood rats, or baby mamas” and “accomplices, personal assistants.” Most women are drawn to gangs for protection, in many cases because they experienced trauma as children. But not everyone understands protection in the same way. Leap points out that young girls are arrested “for their protection” more than young boys are, as authorities suppose that girls will be safer locked up than on the streets.