Narrating Mother Identities From Prison

• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118773457
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118773457

Feminist Criminology

2019, Vol. 14(5) 519 –539

© The Author(s) 2018

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1557085118773457

journals.sagepub.com/home/fcx

Article

Narrating Mother Identities

From Prison

Beth A. Easterling1, Ben Feldmeyer2,

and Lois Presser3

Abstract

Incarcerated mothers face challenges to mothering in prison, including restricted

opportunities to perform parenting tasks, ambiguous loss, and a compromised

parenting identity. This study uses interviews with incarcerated mothers in the

United States to explore how such women negotiate motherhood. All of the women

grappled with how to care for their children from prison and projected futures

that they hoped to experience as mothers. They varied in their active involvement

as decision makers and in their intimacy with their children, but all were seen as

renegotiating narrative identities. The study underscores the fact that social actors

can be creative with self-narrative when they can be creative in few other ways.

Keywords

female inmates, mental health, qualitative research, ambiguous loss, incarcerated

mothers, narrative identities

Beginning in the 1980s, the United States embarked on a project of mass incarcera-

tion. Although American imprisonment rates slowed after 2006, they have remained

well above pre-1980 levels, with more than 1.5 million people in state or federal prison

at year end 2015 (Carson & Anderson, 2016). Whereas women have always repre-

sented a minority of the nation’s prisoners, between 1980 and 2014, their numbers in

prison increased by more than 700% (The Sentencing Project, 2015). The prison boom

has created a variety of consequences for both inmates and their families, as growing

numbers of parents and particularly growing numbers of mothers were incarcerated.

1Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA, USA

2University of Cincinnati, OH, USA

3The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Beth A. Easterling, Criminal Justice Program, College of Business and Professional Studies, Mary Baldwin

University, 101 E Frederick Street, Staunton, VA 24401, USA.

Email: beasterling@marybaldwin.edu

773457FCXXXX10.1177/1557085118773457Feminist CriminologyEasterling et al.

research-article2018

520 Feminist Criminology 14(5)

Most women in prison are mothers, and the majority of mothers in prison have chil-

dren below 18 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). We know that maternal incarceration has

far-reaching effects, in many cases triggering termination of parental rights (Brown &

Bloom, 2009; Reed & Reed, 1997) and contributing to mental illness (e.g., depression)

on the part of both incarcerated mothers and their children (Enos, 2001; Golden, 2005;

Imber-Black, 2008; Poehlmann, 2005), worsened socioeconomic disadvantage for

children (Allard & Greene, 2011), and strained familial relationships (Celinska &

Siegel, 2010; Foster & Hagan, 2013; Hoffman, Byrd, & Kightlinger, 2010; Maruna,

LeBel, & Lanier, 2004). Prior research on the topic has generated knowledge about

what happens to mothers and families during incarceration—that is, the effects of

imprisonment for mothers and/or their children—but has devoted less attention to how

mothers negotiate parenting from prison, which is the focus of the current study.

Incarcerated women are likely to have experienced serious hardships such as men-

tal health problems, substance abuse, low levels of education, lack of job skills (Imber-

Black, 2008), and social isolation (Siegel, 2011) even before entering prison. Relatedly,

many incarcerated mothers experienced stigma as “bad mothers” before incarceration,

which is only compounded afterward (Siegel, 2011). Incarceration presents a unique

set of challenges that often requires women to renegotiate their efforts and identities as

mothers. Mothers in general are subject to gendered expectations related to mother-

ing—expectations of selflessness, chasteness, and virtue. Criminal justice involve-

ment violates these gender stereotypes and tarnishes societal ideals of what

characterizes a “good mother” (Enos, 2001). Incarceration creates physical separation

from, and substantial barriers to, communication with one’s children, which challenge

mothering even more (Clement, 1993; Snyder, Carlo, & Coats Mullins, 2002). Without

consistent contact, mothers often experience strain and uncertainty concerning their

relationships with their children and their identities as mothers. Despite these prob-

lems, several studies suggest that they continue “staking their claim as mothers”

(Barnes & Stringer, 2014, p. 19). They do not abandon their parenting identities but are

forced to redefine what it means to mother behind bars (Easterling & Feldmeyer, 2017;

Enos, 2001).

Although research on the topic is scarce, at least three studies (Easterling &

Feldmeyer, 2017; Enos, 2001; Rowe, 2011) explore the way that mother identities are

shaped by incarceration. Enos (2001) explores ways in which women construct and

manage motherhood while incarcerated, as well as how incarcerated mothers maintain

relationships with their children. With a focus on race and ethnicity, Enos uses partic-

ipant-observation and interviews within a prison over three years to explore mothering

behind bars. She finds that inmate mothers work to “construct and maintain mother

positions and performance under considerable stress” (p. 34), largely through strate-

gies of managing caretakers and demonstrating mothering abilities while separated

from their children and simultaneously balancing motherhood with crime and drug

abuse. Enos (2001) further identifies four “career trajectories” of incarcerated mothers

which reflect variation in the ways incarcerated mothers perform their mothering roles

throughout the incarceration process: motherhood accepted (roles increase throughout

and after incarceration), motherhood terminated (roles decrease throughout and after