Baking Bittersweet: Mothers’ Dessert-Making Behind Bars

• Author: A. Elizabeth Stearns
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118769748
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118769748

Feminist Criminology

2019, Vol. 14(5) 612 –632

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085118769748

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Article

Baking Bittersweet: Mothers’

Dessert-Making Behind Bars

A. Elizabeth Stearns1

Abstract

Food is a significant component of life; its preparation is gendered and associated

with caregiving roles. For incarcerated women, food is especially salient. Inmate-

created recipes can assist with asserting pro-social identities and responding

to powerlessness. It is less certain if incarcerated mothers draw upon recipes to

emphasize mothering identities. Therefore, this study uses focus groups at a jail and

additionally analyzes contributed recipes to explore the way dessert-making behind

bars affirms motherhood. Results suggest that dessert preparation aids in disrupting

negative stereotypes, illuminates the fragility of incarcerated mothering, and highlights

agentic practices. Implications for policy and research are included.

Keywords

jail, mothering, women in jail, mothers in jail, foodways in jail

Food is one of the more salient features of incarcerated life (Smoyer & Minke, 2015).

Research suggests that inmates demonstrate remarkable resourcefulness with food to

create positive identities, respond to feelings of powerlessness, and establish status

(de Graaf & Kilty, 2016; Godderis, 2006; Minke, 2014; Smoyer, 2014). Cookbooks

featuring recipes concocted behind bars, for example, the book Convict Cookbook

published by inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary (Walla Walla WA Convicts,

2004), validate the ingenuity employed to create delicious and proprietary food using

commissary purchases and cafeteria items.

Food has the power to influence many aspects of prison life, including relation-

ships, identity, mental and physical health, and prison culture (Collings Eves, 2005;

1University of Louisiana at Lafayette, LA, USA

Corresponding Author:

A. Elizabeth Stearns, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box

43581, Lafayette, LA 70504, USA.

Email: stearns@louisiana.edu

769748FCXXXX10.1177/1557085118769748Feminist CriminologyStearns

research-article2018

Stearns 613

Godderis, 2006; Janowski, 2012; Milligan, Waller, & Andrews, 2002; Minke, 2014;

Smoyer, 2015; Smoyer & Minke, 2015). This suggests that studies of food creation

and consumption behind bars have significant value, especially as mass incarceration

continues to be a concern in U.S. society (Clear & Frost, 2015).

Nationally, correctional populations are demonstrating a slight decline (Kaeble &

Glaze, 2016); however, the number of women detained in jails continues to rise. In

fact, the rates for women occupying jails remain the sole exception to a downward

trend in the United States (Minton & Zeng, 2015; Swavola, Riley, & Subramanian,

2016). Over the past four decades, numbers of women held in jail have increased from

a total of 8,000 to nearly 110,000, with 80% of these women reporting they are moth-

ers of minor children (Swavola et al., 2016).

The current study explores the practice of dessert creation by mothers detained at a

local jail, theorizing that one way these women express identity and valued social roles

is through the de-construction and rebuilding of everyday commissary and cafeteria

ingredients. The data are drawn from two focus group sessions held at the jail and from

an analysis of the recipes themselves. Possible relationships between dessert-making

and a gendered, mothering identity behind bars are explored to add to the body of lit-

erature on incarcerated women and foodways.

Literature Review

Women in Jail

Scholars have noted that the cycle of female offending and the impact of women’s

incarceration differ in significant ways from male patterns and experiences, pointing

to a need for new insights (Crewe, Hulley, & Wright, 2017; Swavola et al., 2016).

Women who are housed in facilities modeled on or constructed for men face a number

of unique challenges, such as lack of appropriate obstetric and gynecological care,

lack of sanitary supplies, and a dearth of trauma-informed care (T. Gray, Mays, &

Stohr, 1995; Swavola et al., 2016).

One of the more differentiating characteristics of imprisoned women, as compared

with men, is their role as primary caretaker of minor children (Schafer & Dellinger,

2000; Swavola et al., 2016). Since the early 1990s, the number of children below 18

with a father in state or federal prison has increased by 77% whereas the number of

children with a mother in state or federal prison has risen by 131% (Glaze & Maruschak,

2008). In addition, more imprisoned mothers than fathers report being the primary

caretaker of minor children at the time of their arrest (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008;

Swavola et al., 2016). Approximately 80% of women in jail are mothers and the major-

ity of these mothers are single parents, solely responsible for minor children at the

time of their arrest (Swavola et al., 2016).

Criminologists have noted a dearth of literature focused on local jails, suggesting

that privileging research in prison settings provides an incomplete and inadequate

picture of the incarceration experience (Bales & Garduno, 2015). Furthermore, the