THE PRISON

Greene et al. / CYCLES

JOURNALOF/ March
PAIN 2000

CYCLES OF PAIN: RISK FACTORS

IN THE LIVES OF INCARCERATED
MOTHERS AND THEIR CHILDREN
SUSAN GREENE
CRAIG HANEY
AÍDA HURTADO
University of California, Santa Cruz

This study extends the risk factors model of background or social history analysis to
the lives of incarcerated mothers. Interviews were conducted with a sample of incar-
cerated mothers. The presence of a number of criminogenic influences such as pov-
erty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence in the lives of women
incarcerated for primarily nonviolent—largely drug-related—offenses and in
the lives of their children were identified. The implications of these findings for
understanding female criminality and breaking the so-called cycle of crime are
discussed.

Women represent the fastest growing segment of the rapidly expanding

U.S. prison population (Bloom & Steinhart, 1993). Approximately four out
of five incarcerated women are mothers (American Correctional Associa-
tion, 1990; Beckerman, 1994; Harm, 1992). The female jail population has
grown an average of 11.2% annually since 1985 (Bureau of Justice Statistics,
1997), whereas the male population has grown annually by 6.1% (Bloom,
1997). Between 75% and 80% of incarcerated women have children, and two
thirds of these women have children under the age of 18 (Snell, 1994). Based
on 1996 data, there were approximately 200,000 children of female inmates
in the United States, at least 70% under the primary care of their mothers

We would like to thank the staff members of the various facilities in which this research was
conducted for their cooperation and access. We are also extremely grateful to the women who
participated in this study. Their willingness to share and the courage with which they shared
sometimes very painful social histories made this research possible. The mailing address for all
three authors is Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; fax:
831-459-3519; e-mail: sgreene@[Link] (Greene), psylaw@[Link] (Haney), and
aida@[Link] (Hurtado).
THE PRISON JOURNAL, Vol. 80 No. 1, March 2000 3-23
© 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.
3
4 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

before the mothers’ incarceration. Thus, even though women make up only a
small percentage of our inmate population (about 10%), it is important to
study this overlooked population because it is growing in number and
because these women have a pivotal role as mothers in the lives of the next
generation.
Research on incarcerated mothers and their children often focuses on how
the children’s lives are affected by their mothers’ incarceration. Studies have
examined and evaluated visits and contact between mother and child
(Baunach, 1985; Bloom & Steinhart, 1993; Hairston, 1991a, 1991b;
Johnston, 1995c; Stanton, 1980), care and placement of the children
(Baunach, 1985; Beckerman, 1994; Ginchild, 1995; Johnston, 1995a; Reed &
Reed, 1997; Sametz, 1980), legal issues with regard to custody and care
(Barry, Ginchild, & Lee, 1995; Bloom & Steinhart, 1993; Reed & Reed,
1997; Smith, 1995; Stanton, 1980), and interventions and social services
(Hairston & Lockett, 1987; Johnston, 1995b; Weilerstein, 1995).
Not surprisingly, we know that children are profoundly affected by their
mothers’ incarceration. Many will suffer feelings of anger, fear, guilt, grief,
rejection, shame, and loneliness. Studies have identified poor school perfor-
mance (Lowenstein, 1986; Stanton, 1980) and aggressive behavior
(Lowenstein, 1986; Sack, Seidler, & Thomas, 1976) in children of incarcer-
ated parents. In addition to the loss and instability that the incarceration of
their mothers brings, many children may be vulnerable because of the risk
factors to which their families’ difficult life circumstances have exposed
them. Many of them may have experienced the very criminogenic factors that
contributed to their mothers’ incarceration, giving rise to a cycle of criminal-
ity. This study examines these interrelated issues.

RISK FACTORS AND CYCLES OF CRIME

Criminogenic conditions are those environments and experiences to

which people are exposed that increase the likelihood that they will engage in
criminal behavior. Masten and Garmezy’s (1985) risk factor model of devel-
opment states that “the presence of risk factors assumes that there exists a
higher probability for the development of a disorder; as such, these factors
are statistically associated with higher incidence rates [of crime]” (p. 3). On
an individual level, vulnerabilities render people more susceptible to the
effects of risk factors, and protective factors such as innate resiliency or out-
side support give them a special advantage in overcoming the consequences
of encountered risk factors.
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 5

For example, children who suffer physical abuse are at a greater risk of
failure at one stage of development, and this, in turn, leads to a greater proba-
bility of failure in subsequent stages. Abuse causes disruption in critical areas
such as attachment, self-control, and moral and social judgments, which may
lead to distorted and maladaptive beliefs about the social world (Wolfe,
1987; Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991). A lack of interpersonal trust in childhood often
creates problems in adolescent and adult relationships. “Parental methods of
punishment play an important role in the emergence of self control in chil-
dren” (Wolfe, 1987, p. 103), and children with poor self-control show more
aggression and lower social competence in peer relationships (Wolfe, 1987).
Many children learn through modeling that aggressive behavior is a legiti-
mate way to resolve conflict. Consequently, the experience of physical abuse
is considered a risk factor for later aggressive behavior that may interact with
other risk factors and lead to delinquent behavior (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit,
1990).
Children who have been sexually abused also suffer developmental
adjustment problems and/or stress-related disorders (Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991).
Sexual abuse “represents a more distinct form of maltreatment that encom-
passes betrayal of trust, physical violation, and coercion that affects chil-
dren’s development in diverse ways” (Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991, p. 292). Several
studies show that the traumatic effects of childhood sexual abuse are related
to the specific characteristics of the incident(s), such as the relationship of the
abuser to the child, age of onset, duration and frequency of abuse, force, pen-
etration, coping abilities, and positive support (Beitchman, Zucker, Hood,
DaCosta, & Akman, 1991; Browne & Finkelhor, 1986; Conte & Schuerman,
1987; Finkelhor, 1994; Kendall-Tackett, Meyer Williams, & Finkelhor,
1993; Staples & Dare, 1996; Widom & Ames, 1994; Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991).
Although symptoms differ across age groups, studies have consistently
found that sexually abused children manifest significantly more symptoms
of aggression, acting out, anxiety, depression, sexualized behavior, with-
drawal, severe internalizing, low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, and
substance abuse (Beitchman, Zucker, Hood, DaCosta, & Akman, 1992;
Davison & Marshall, 1996; Kendall-Tackett et al., 1993; Rohsenhow,
Corbett, & Devine, 1988; Staples & Dare, 1996; Widom & Ames, 1994;
Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991).
The unique effects of physical and sexual abuse are difficult to isolate
because they often co-occur with poverty, substance abuse, and witnessing
violence. Children who witness family violence, generally aimed at the
mother, may be developmentally impaired and suffer severe and specific
stress-related disorders. Similar to the effects of other forms of abuse,
6 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

stress-related symptoms of witnessing violence are related to the severity

and frequency of the traumatic events and the child’s coping abilities and
resources (Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991). Children of women battered by their hus-
bands are more likely to imitate that violence as adults. Sons who witness
such violence have a 1,000% greater rate of wife abuse than sons who do not
witness domestic violence (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). Daughters of
battered wives are less likely to leave their own abusive husbands (Lerman,
1981).
Poor parenting and environments plagued by abuse and neglect tend to be
recreated by adults “who were once its childhood victims” (Haney, 1995,
p. 571). These cycles of violence and abuse—patterns of behavior passed
down from generation to generation—are difficult to break (Dodge et al.,
1990; McCord, 1991; Widom, 1989). This research focuses on exploring and
understanding the background experiences of incarcerated mothers and their
perceptions of the patterns of risk factors to which their own children have
been exposed. By asking incarcerated women about their own histories and
how they perceive the contexts and meanings of the crimes for which they are
imprisoned, we may better understand the roots of female criminal behavior.
By asking them about the circumstances under which their own children are
being raised, we may gain an additional perspective on the cycles of crime in
which they and their families may be inadvertently enmeshed.

METHOD

SAMPLE

Participants were a sample of 102 mothers incarcerated in three jails in

central California: a small, local, county women’s facility; a local transitional
recovery home for addicted women serving jail sentences; and a large, urban
women’s correctional facility (a majority [86%] of the women were in the
latter facility). In each case, the women were volunteers who came forward
after the interviewer made a verbal announcement and request to groups of
women, typically in the jail dormitories or living units. Respondents were
asked if they were willing to be interviewed about a range of issues that were
relevant to incarcerated mothers, and they were assured that their participa-
tion would not affect their current status or case and that the information they
provided would be anonymous and confidential. It is possible that because of
the manner of selecting the sample of respondents, we have overincluded
respondents who were comfortable and even eager to talk about their plight
and underincluded those who were not.
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 7

The sample was made up of 43% Latinas, 32% European Americans, 7%

African Americans, 4% Native Americans, 2% Asian Americans, and 12%
women of mixed ethnicity. There is a slight overrepresentation of Latinas
(43% in the sample vs. 36% in the jail populations at these women’s facili-
ties) and an underrepresentation of African American women (7% in our
sample vs. 21% in the jail populations). The women ranged in age from 18 to
50 years with an average of 32. Of the women, 44% were single and had
never been married, 31% were separated or divorced, 22% were married, and
3% were widowed.
The women’s education levels ranged from having completed some high
school to having earned an advanced degree: 47% completed some high
school, 34% completed high school or earned a general equivalency degree,
15% attended some college or had vocational training, 3% completed a
4-year college program and earned a bachelor’s degree, and 1% earned an
advanced degree. Of these women, 69% were serving time for a drug-related
offense (including under the influence, possession, sales and probation viola-
tions for original drug charges), 23% were incarcerated for violating proba-
tion, and 15% either turned themselves in or were arrested for warrants.
The mothers had between one and eight children (average of 2.5 children).
Seventy-one percent of the mothers lived with their children before they were
arrested and expected to live with their children after serving their sentence.
Of the mothers in this sample, 76% had legal custody of their children, and
24% shared joint custody with the children’s fathers.

MEASURES

A structured interview format was followed in which a series of 160 ques-

tions were posed to respondents. In addition to quantitative coding, verbatim
answers were recorded in writing at the time of the interview. Interviews
ranged from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours and averaged 1 hour. Respondents pro-
vided sociodemographic information including source of income, level of
education, marital status, father’s education, and mother’s education. To
develop a family social history profile of the women, respondents answered
questions about their childhood experiences of physical, sexual, and domes-
tic abuse. They were also asked about their parents’and their own histories of
drug use, addiction, and incarceration.
Information about the children of these incarcerated mothers was also col-
lected. Interviewers selected the oldest child under 18 as the focus of subse-
quent questions. We based this selection rule on the assumption that the old-
est child under 18 would have spent the longest time cohabiting with his or
her mother, and his or her experiences would provide us with the broadest
8 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

database. Thus, we asked each mother a parallel set of questions about her
child’s experiences, similar to the ones she was asked about her own child-
hood. These included questions about experiences of physical and sexual
abuse and witnessing drugs and domestic violence at home. Mothers were
also asked about the number of homes in which their child had lived during
the past 5 years as well as the father’s presence and involvement in the child’s
life.
Mothers were asked open-ended questions about the following: their
goals on release; what they worried about most with regard to their children;
when and why they started using drugs; if their reasons changed as they con-
tinued to use drugs; if they thought there were specific experiences that
directed their lives one way or another, and if so, what those experiences
were.

RESULTS

REPORTED RISK FACTORS AND OTHER TRAUMA

Although we did not inquire directly about their family of origin’s income
(because of concerns about the reliability of the estimates), the education
level of the inmates’ parents suggests that economic deprivation may have
been a common experience for many of the women we interviewed. Slightly
less than one third of the respondents did not know the educational back-
ground of their parents, but more than 50% of those who knew reported that
their mothers had not completed high school, and 40% reported the same
about their fathers. In addition, some 86% of the women reported that they
had received government aid at some point in their lives. For many of the
women, the earlier patterns of economic instability continued into adult-
hood. Thus, 54% were receiving aid at the time they were arrested, and less
than one half (44%) had paying jobs.
In addition, the incarcerated mothers’ lives were characterized by another
kind of instability that is both a cause and a consequence of economic mar-
ginality. The women reported that they had moved an average of seven times
before they turned 18 years old. Some women told us they could not remem-
ber all the places they had lived and gave conservative estimates because they
were “always” on the move—they counted only the homes they could
remember but were sure they were forgetting some. One woman said, “We
must have moved at least 20 times. My mother was married 6 times, and we
never stayed any place for long enough to make friends.”
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 9

Most of the mothers in the sample suffered traumatic, abusive experiences

during their childhood. Fully 86% of these women had, as children, suffered
either sexual or physical abuse or witnessed violence at home. When asked
questions about how they were punished or disciplined as children, about two
out of three of the incarcerated mothers (65%) had been subjected to physi-
cally abusive punishment. One woman gave this typical response: “My father
used to hit us with a belt or a hanger. Mom would scratch or slap us.” Others
said the following: “[I was] hit, slapped and yelled at a lot, and my mother
chased me with guns,” “[I was] spanked with cords, shoes, you name it,” and
“I was beat with a belt, hit, dragged around the house.”
Some women offered what they believed to be underlying reasons for the
harsh punishment they received. One remembered,

I was mostly punished by my mother. One incident I can recall is when I was
swung around by my hair and swung up against the wall. She took a coat hanger
and hit my back with it. She always told me she wished she had had a boy and
not a girl.

Another woman reported, “My mother really used to beat me, she just never
had a close relationship with me.” Some women referred to the abuse as
deserved; as one explained, “My mother threw my brother’s baby bottle at me
and cut my eye open. My dad would hit us when we needed it but he didn’t hit
us for nothing. My mom, now she’d hit us [for no reason].”
A majority (60%) of the women remembered violence at home that scared
them as children. Generally, their memories were of their parents’ fighting
and their mothers’ being hit by either their fathers or their mothers’ boy-
friends. One woman told us, “My dad was always beating on my mom. Me
and my brother used to hear him beating on her, and we’d be in the room cry-
ing. It was really hard.” Another reported, “Once when my mom and dad got
into a fight or something, we were in a foster home for about 2 weeks, and
they separated my sisters and brothers and me. My dad used to beat her up.”
More than one half of the incarcerated women (55%) were sexually
abused, a rate double that of women in the general population (27%)
(Finkelhor, 1986). Yet, few of them were able to discuss the traumatic experi-
ences with a sympathetic other. In fact, about one third of the women who
were sexually abused as children told us they had never talked to anyone
about it. Some of the other women reported that when they did get the cour-
age to tell their mothers, they were greeted with skepticism and disbelief. One
woman said,
10 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

I told my mom that my stepfather was coming into my room at night, and my
mom didn’t believe me. She told me to stop telling stories and talking like that
just ’cause I didn’t like him. Then he killed himself.

Another woman remembered, “When I told my mom that my uncle touched

my private parts with his, she slapped me and told me she didn’t want to hear
me talk like that ever again.”
More than one half (54%) of the women were separated from their parents
for an extended period of time during their childhoods. The most frequently
reported reasons were running away; being put in juvenile hall, a group
home, or a hospital; or one parent’s leaving the family. One woman remem-
bered, “I was taken to a shelter. My mom had nervous breakdowns a lot, and
my father was in prison.” Another said, “I was separated from my dad when
they divorced. The only time I saw my dad was when he was coming to beat
my mom up.” And, one woman recounted, “I was made a ward of the court
and removed from my mother’s home at 15 because of the abuse. I went to
school and my teacher noticed that I had been whipped. I lived in foster care.”
Growing up in unpredictable, abusive, and unstable environments made
these women more prone to running away from home and/or dropping out of
school. Three out of five said they ran away from home as children. One
woman remembered, “When I first ran away at 13, I felt unloved, and I just
wanted to drown all my pain.” Another woman told us she ran away at age 11
“to escape my family life.” Some never went back, and more than one half ran
away at least twice.
Several women believed the instability in their childhoods hindered them
from finishing high school. One woman told us,

I don’t know how to read and write because of problems between my mother
and father. My dad used to drink a lot, and I knew one day I’d come home from
school and my mother would be dead. I was afraid my father was gonna kill her,
so I needed to stay home from school to protect her.

Another woman explained, “My father was an alcoholic and addict, and there
was no stability at home. I maybe would have graduated if we didn’t move
around so much. If I didn’t get hit, I wouldn’t have run away.”

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AS RISK FACTOR AND COPING MECHANISM

Drugs and alcohol were an ordinary part of these stressful, violent, and
abusive environments. Many of the women remembered learning a seem-
ingly straightforward lesson about how to ease the pain around them and
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 11

cope with stress and unhappiness. Nearly two thirds (62%) of the women
recalled that their parents or the people with whom they lived were involved
with drugs or alcohol; 43% of the women remembered seeing their mothers
drunk or under the influence of drugs, and 55% remembered seeing their
fathers drunk or under the influence of drugs. In fact, some women told us
they were introduced to drugs and alcohol by their parents. One admitted,
“My father started giving me beers when I was 12, and it was like if I didn’t
drink with them, I didn’t fit into the family.” Another woman explained, “My
mom was giving me crank when I was 12. Mom was giving it to me so I fig-
ured it was okay.”
If drugs and alcohol were not introduced at home, both were easily acces-
sible in the neighborhoods where the women lived. The average age at which
they started using drugs or alcohol was 16 years. One woman claimed that
her drug use stemmed from “meeting the wrong people. I wasn’t a bad kid,
but because my mom was an alcoholic, I stayed away from home and met
people who turned me onto drugs.” The majority of these women turned to
drugs because they were curious or felt pressure from a friend or boyfriend
although, perhaps surprisingly, only 4% reported that they were introduced
to drugs by a boyfriend.
The women reported that drugs were used by many of their friends, were
easy to obtain, and helped to ease the pain they were feeling. One woman told
us, “I wanted to have fun and didn’t feel happy inside. Drugs made me feel
happy and giddy and laugh. I laughed a lot.” Another woman reported, “I
used drugs to get rid of the pain that I was going through. I couldn’t take it
anymore, so I started using.” Others talked about the lack of love they suf-
fered. One mother told us, “I was confused with life; I didn’t really care about
life. I guess because I didn’t have no love. I guess I used drugs to comfort
me.” Another said, “I used ‘cause it felt good. I liked the way it felt. It felt like
there was something inside of me that was empty, like a hole, and it filled it
up. That’s what it felt like.” Some women sold drugs to help support their
families. One mother told us, “I was a cocktail waitress at 25 working 6 days
a week, 12 hours a day. I used to support us, and it kept me going. And when
you’re real poor, it can help you.”
Of course, no matter what their age when they entered the drug culture, it
was likely that the drug culture would complicate the women’s lives, multiply
their problems, and lead them, eventually, to more pain. In addition, because
men largely controlled the distribution of drugs, the women’s dependency on
men increased once they had become addicted, and they were often placed in
compromised positions where they ended up trading sex for drugs. One
woman explained,
12 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

A female’s place in the drug world and a man’s place are two different things.
Men have control; men are usually the dealers. When a woman needs drugs, he
says, “Suck my dick for an hour” then often doesn’t give her drugs, and she
moves on to the next man.

Some women told us they stayed in abusive relationships with men primarily
because the men controlled the drug supply. More than one half (58%) of the
women admitted having been in physically abusive, sexual relationships in
the past.
In the current climate of the war on drugs, involvement in the drug culture
also placed these mothers at high risk of arrest. Fully 69% of the women
whom we interviewed were serving sentences for drug-related offenses, 58%
said they were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol at the time of their arrest, and
71% said they had at some time in the past been addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Only 4% of the women reported addiction to alcohol only.
Typically, as a result of their drug use, these women eventually ended up
in jail, separated from their children, adding more pain and trauma to their
own lives as well as the lives of their children. Because there was little effec-
tive drug treatment provided in jail or on the streets, rates of recidivism were
high. Almost four out of five of these mothers (79%) had served time in jail
before, an average of four times. Thus, in most cases, the current incarcera-
tion was not the first time a mother’s children had to deal with their mother’s
absence and the trauma and instability it brought. Many of the women talked
about the impact their absence was having on their children. Several women
worried that their children would not understand the situation and what was
happening with their mother. One mother said, “I hope [my daughter] can
understand I love her and I’m not gonna abandon her like she thinks is hap-
pening.” Another worried, “I know [my son is] very angry and he’s hurt.
When I got arrested, he got mad ’cause he knows the chances of getting me
back right away are gone.” Several mothers declared that they did not think it
was fair for their children to be going through what they themselves went
through as children.

MOTHERS’ REPORTS OF CHILDREN’S

RISK FACTORS AND OTHER TRAUMA

For many of the mothers who had been living at the economic margins of
society and were struggling with alcohol and drug use, the stresses of
attempting to maintain a home and raise a family were frequently over-
whelming. As we noted above, many of the mothers had themselves been
raised under conditions in which their parents had been unable to protect
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 13

Figure 1: Total Childhood Risk Factors: Mothers and Children

them from exposure to damaging criminogenic risk factors. In the second

part of our interviews, we inquired of the mothers whether their own prob-
lems were compromising the lives of their children as their parents’ problems
had compromised theirs (e.g., Wolfe & Jaffe, 1991).
Of the 102 children referred to in the interviews (recall that each mother
answered only about her oldest child under the age of 18), 47% were girls and
53% were boys. Ranging from 4 months to 18 years, their average age was 10
years. Of the children, 24% lived with their fathers, and about one third had
regular contact (one visit per week or more) with their fathers. However,
almost one half (46%) did not see their fathers at all. The most frequently
reported reasons for the father’s absence were that he was in prison, had been
in an abusive relationship with the mother, or just chose not to be involved.
Typical of the comments in the latter category, women told us the following:
“He just doesn’t come around,” he is “too into his own world,” and “He
chooses not to take the time to visit them.”
To examine the possibility that common patterns or cycles of abuse and
violence were being replicated in the lives of their children, we asked the
mothers to describe their children’s experiences. The parallels in their trau-
matic social histories were dramatic and disturbing. As illustrated in Figure 1,
83% of the mothers’children had been either sexually or physically abused or
witnessed violence at home—almost identical to the frequency among the
mothers themselves. The mothers reported knowledge of physical abuse in
the case of almost one half (44%) of the children about whom we asked. This
is somewhat less than, but comparable to, the number of mothers who
reported being abused themselves. When asked how they punished their own
14 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

children, many immediately insisted, “I don’t believe in hitting my chil-

dren.” They were asked if their child had ever been hit as punishment or for
doing something bad; 44% said they had, and the majority of them reported
that someone else had administered the physical punishment. One mother
explained, “My ex-husband lost control sometimes and left bruises on my
youngest son.” Perhaps as might be expected—both because of the stigma
attached and the fact that it often occurs without the mother’s knowledge—
there was a marked disparity in the percentages of sexual victimization
reported by the mothers. Thus, according to these mothers’ reports, only 9%
of the 102 children had been sexually abused.
On the other hand, fully 70% of the mothers told us that their children had
witnessed violence at home. Given that 58% of the women in this sample
reported having been in a physically abusive relationship, it is likely that
much of the violence that the children witnessed involved the mothers them-
selves. One mother told us, “I was in an abusive relationship with my son’s
father, and he doesn’t like to see us fight. I don’t want to have anything to do
with him, I had to have him put in jail.” Another woman who said that her son
had seen violence at home a lot of the time told us,

Most of my marriages have been with violent people since I was 14. My son’s
father told me he’s gonna kill my boyfriend. You don’t know how many nights
I’ve spent locked in my room with my three kids in my king-sized bed. He had
an unregistered gun.

Several mothers talked about court-ordered restraining orders they had

against their children’s fathers because of abusive relationships.
More than one half of the mothers (55%) reported that their children had
seen the people they lived with using drugs or alcohol, and 57% said their
children had seen the mothers themselves drunk or under the influence of
drugs. There was a fair amount of instability reported for the children as well:
The mothers indicated that their children (whose average age was 10 years)
had moved on average 3 times over the past 5-year period (with a range of 0 to
15 moves reported).

DISCUSSION

Consistent with findings of previous research on incarcerated mothers,

results of this study show that the majority of these women come from fami-
lies where criminogenic risk factors such as physical and/or sexual abuse,
violence, and drugs were prevalent (Bloom & Steinhart, 1993; Chesney-
Lind, 1997; Snell, 1994). Short- and long-term attempts to cope with these
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 15

traumatic childhood experiences have been shown to vary (Kendall-

Tackett et al., 1993; Widom, 1989), but for this sample—and arguably this
population—substance abuse and addiction were common adaptations. The
women in this study were candid about both the role of substance abuse in
reducing the psychic pain in their lives and the damaging long-term conse-
quences that led the majority of them to jail.
Studies of incarcerated women have linked their traumatic histories to a
variety of psychological and psychiatric problems. For example, Jordan,
Schlenger, Fairbank, and Caddell (1996) suggested that high rates of border-
line personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse,
and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among women
inmates were caused in part by their exposure to extreme, traumatic events in
their past. Not unlike the women in the present study, the majority (78%) of
the women in the Jordan et al. (1996) study had experienced a traumatic
event, most commonly childhood physical and sexual assaults (61%).
Although there are a myriad of variables and reactions to such traumatic
experiences, substance abuse and dependence are extremely common prob-
lems among women inmates and the most common reasons for their incar-
ceration. Thus, Teplin, Abram, and McClelland (1996) found that more than
80% of a large sample of women jail detainees who were surveyed met the
criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder and that the most common disor-
ders were drug and/or alcohol abuse or dependence and PTSD. Substance
abuse or dependence was the most prevalent and affected 70% of the sample.
These findings are almost identical to those of the current study in which
71% of the women admitted substance abuse or dependence at some time in
their pasts.
It is important to recognize that the method used in this study was subject
to self-report bias. Of course, detailed family histories and information about
patterns of physical, sexual, and/or domestic abuse and drugs and alcohol in
the environments in which the mothers and their children were raised often
can be uncovered only through self-report data like these. In addition, several
factors suggested to us that self-report bias was not a serious problem in these
interviews. Most of the mothers desperately wanted to be reunited with their
children and had no incentive to exaggerate their own victimization. More-
over, they claimed they were good mothers and were determined to overcome
the consequences of their traumatic experiences and eventually provide sup-
portive homes for their children. In fact, it seems more plausible that they
were underreporting trauma and risk factors, at least for their children, whose
lives they had undertaken to safeguard and protect. Indeed, some of the moth-
ers expressed shock and concern in the course of our interviews when they
began to realize that they were describing patterns in the lives of their chil-
16 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

dren that very much resembled the trauma and turmoil that had characterized
their own social histories.
To be sure, many of the mothers who were interviewed for this study were
well aware of the connection between their childhood trauma and many of
their adult problems. And, many certainly recognized the potentially damag-
ing effects that the risk factors and traumas they had experienced could pose
for their children. They expressed a desire to provide stable, nurturing homes
for them, and they talked about wanting to “stay clean” and live a “normal”
life so that their children could have the “healthy childhood [that] every child
deserves.” Even though poverty, abuse, and drugs were common in their own
lives, the mothers recognized the potential damage that exposure to such
things could inflict on their children; they worried that their children would
not be able to escape the cycles that had ensnared them. Many of the mothers
voiced concerns about their children’s getting a good education, and some
worried aloud about their daughters “getting pregnant at a young age like I
did.” One woman told us, “I want a future for my kids so they don’t turn out
like me.” Another complained, “I feel like my daughter is going through the
same thing I did, and I didn’t think it was fair to me, and I don’t think it’s fair
to her.”
The results of the present study suggest that the cycles of pain to which
these incarcerated women were exposed are being replicated in the lives of
their own children, despite the mothers’ expressed intentions to do better and
to protect their children from the traumas the mothers endured. Thus, our
self-report data provided unsettling confirmation of the cyclic, repetitive
nature of exposure to childhood maltreatment and trauma. As illustrated in
Figure 2, reported experiences of the children of the incarcerated women in
this study suggest that many of the children had already been exposed to the
kind of traumatic risk factors that pervaded their mothers’ own lives. The
majority of the children had witnessed violence at home, and slightly less
than one half had been physically abused.
In addition to exposure to these risk factors, separation from the mother as
the primary caregiver as a result of her incarceration represented a separate
form of trauma. The fact that 71% of the mothers were living with their chil-
dren before their arrest and were now in jail was an emotionally painful
stressor for mother and child alike. Because the majority of these mothers
were the primary caretakers of their children, their own emotional stress and
“their extended absence from the home, [sic] can contribute to the develop-
ment of psychiatric disorders and behavior problems among their children”
(Jordan et al., 1996, p. 513).
It is not unreasonable to suggest that the children’s exposure to risk factors
such as familial instability, physical abuse, and exposure to violence and
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 17

Figure 2: Risk Factors Experienced: Mothers and Children

drugs makes it more likely that they will follow adaptive patterns similar to
their mothers’, increasing the chances that they too will end up in jail. One
mother emphatically explained,

The responsibility of a mother to her child is a big one. The family structure is
the one thing that’s torn apart in these institutions. You see children more likely
to participate themselves because what this does is open up an area where they
are taken from their parents. No one can love their children like the mother can.
In order to escape, they’ll try drugs and start hanging out with the wrong group
because they are searching for acceptance. Many people are good mothers
before they go in jail. . . . A child needs a mother.

Indeed, the mothers repeatedly told us that they wanted to be present and
function as effective parents for their children, to stay away from drugs, and
to avoid involvement with the same people with whom they associated before
they were incarcerated. One woman declared, “My mother was a drug user,
and I hated being taken away from my mother. I don’t want to be away from
my kids any longer. I don’t want to make them suffer like I did.” And, they
very much wanted their children to have healthier, happier childhoods with
more opportunities to escape the dependencies that dictated their own lives.
Many mothers reiterated, “I don’t want to see my child go through everything
I went through.” Moreover, because of the serious problems with and short-
age of homes in the foster care system, these mothers are likely the most reli-
able and effective available resource for interrupting such cycles of poverty,
abuse, drugs, and criminality.
18 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

Unfortunately, there was little evidence that they were being given the
help that would enable them to translate these good intentions into practical
realities. To break these cycles of pain and implement their plans for a better
life for themselves and their children, these mothers need intensive counsel-
ing or therapeutic help to stay free of drugs and alcohol; assistance in getting
jobs; access to affordable, clean, and sober homes; and other tools with
which to create an emotionally and economically stable life. Typically, how-
ever, the women were released from jail with a criminal record, the clothes
they came in with, and an appointment to report to their parole officers. Too
often, the only people they know in the outside world are friends too eager to
offer a “hit” to ease the pain. With no place else to go and no one to pull them
in a different direction, the old cycles too often repeat themselves.
One important structural issue to be addressed in social programs
designed to assist incarcerated women after they have been released is the
poverty they almost inevitably will confront. We know that poverty can be a
powerful determinant in the cognitive and behavioral development of chil-
dren (Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1994). A common characteristic
of exposure to poverty is the absence of any strong, ongoing, intimate rela-
tionships, which in turn impairs one’s ability to establish trust and support in
later years. Children may be forced to mature quickly, either fending for
themselves at a young age or helping support and care for their family during
critical developmental years when they are in desperate need of nurturing and
consistent parenting themselves (Haney, 1995). Children may grow up lack-
ing a sense of safety, security, and hope for their futures.
Poverty imposes stress on parents struggling to support a family—stress
that is often expressed in frustration, despair, and depression. Poverty also
functions as a precursor to abuse. McLoyd (1990) argues that poor parents
experience relatively higher levels of stress and are more punitive toward
their children than nonpoor parents, making poor children more likely to be
physically abused. In a study of welfare recipients, Horowitz and Wolock
(1981) found that more than one third of children from families living in the
“most deprived material circumstances” experienced severe abuse compared
with only one tenth of children from families living in less deprived material
circumstances. There are competing theories about the comparative effects
of persistent poverty versus “current” poverty (or sudden economic loss), but
researchers agree that economic deprivation can predict and does increase
severe and recurrent physical abuse (Kruttschnitt, McLeod, & Dornfeld,
1994). Thus, addressing the structural variable of poverty is critical not only
because it is an important risk factor in its own right but also because of its
connection to other criminogenic influences like child maltreatment, delin-
quency, and substance abuse. Although these factors are generally examined
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 19

individually, multiple factors may accumulate and interact to create a

destructive pathway that leads from poverty to prison.
It is also important to recognize that as a group, the women interviewed
for this study did not speak with a single voice, present an identical social-
historical profile of risk factors and adaptations, or always acknowledge lit-
erally the same cyclical patterns of parenting. Hence, despite what we
regard as remarkable commonalities, there is not simply one certain solu-
tion that will prove effective for the range of problems that emerged. Simi-
larly, it is important not to assume that all (or even most) women who have
been abused or witnessed violence are destined to become addicted to drugs
or alcohol or to move repeatedly in and out of jail. However, identifying pat-
terns in the lives of incarcerated women can help facilitate an understanding
of how their behavior is a common response to the environments in which
they were raised.
There is a dire need in the criminal justice system to recognize and
respond to the unique needs of women. Childhood sexual abuse, domestic
violence, caretaker responsibilities, and women’s varied reasons for drug
addiction are still practically ignored. The problems and needs specific to
women are underresearched and generally overlooked. “This neglect may
stem from sexism and racism, from the fact that most criminologists are
white men, or from the fact that female prisoners remain overshadowed by
the vastly greater number of male prisoners” (McQuaide & Ehrenreich,
1998, p. 234).
Furthermore, it is important to focus not only on victimization but also to
“identify women’s agency in the midst of social constraint” (Stewart, 1994,
p. 21) to develop various strategies to help them overcome and alter their
social environments. Listening to and learning about the women’s experi-
ences can improve the services we offer to incarcerated mothers on their
release and create alternatives to incarcerating addicted mothers. As a result,
they may be better able to manage their own lives and the lives of their chil-
dren, and actively control their relationships with the men in their lives.
Mothers who gain control of their situations may take a more active and
authoritative role in encouraging the men in their lives to share in parenting
responsibilities and rewards.
The present research has concentrated on incarcerated mothers in recog-
nition of the fact that they are typically the primary caretakers of their chil-
dren. Although fathers may perform important parenting functions and play
significant roles for their children, our research and that of others has shown
that many fathers are simply absent in their children’s lives both before and
after the mother goes to jail. In a 1993 study by Bloom and Steinhart involv-
ing 866 children of incarcerated mothers, fathers fulfilled a primary caretaker
20 THE PRISON JOURNAL / March 2000

role for 17% of the children. These data and the interviews conducted with
our respondents suggest that fathers may be significantly less involved in the
lives of their children than incarcerated mothers. Still, the social and emo-
tional contributions of fathers as coparents could represent potentially
important parts of their children’s lives.
Alternatives to incarceration, such as homes where mothers can live with
their children while serving their sentences, offer opportunities for mothers
to address their problems while learning to assimilate back into society. Such
programs allow women to learn parenting skills while they are acting as par-
ents, to take responsibility for maintaining a home, and to participate in treat-
ment and educational and job training programs specific to their personal
needs. Their children are spared the trauma of losing their mothers for
months or years, and children and mothers leave better prepared for a more
successful reentry to society.
Most incarcerated women have limited access to resources to help them
make plans for their release before they are released. If each woman had an
advocate assigned to her a few weeks before her release, she could begin to
prepare for her release and arrange where she will live, how she will get there,
and how she will reunite with her children. Advocates would work as links
between the community and the women in jail to help them develop and carry
out their plans for a new and “normal” life. Their plans almost always include
living with and caring for their children, so helping the mothers achieve their
goals would also help their children.

CONCLUSION

Despite the individualistic premise on which our criminal justice system

is founded—that we are all autonomous beings who freely choose our behav-
ior and are equally blameworthy for the consequences of our bad
choices—the majority of these women had little control over their painful
lives and the environments of poverty, abuse, and drugs to which they were
exposed as children. By studying women’s lives, we can learn about “the
power of context in shaping the chances and choices of a life” (Franz, Cole,
Crosby, & Stewart, 1994, p. 328). And, increased awareness about the impact
of childhood victimization has the potential to help prevent the cycles of
abuse from infecting the children of survivors.
Without any consistent support or treatment to help the mothers under-
stand and overcome the pain they carry from their abusive childhoods, they
struggle with current risk factors and life stressors (that often include drug
addictions) while simultaneously trying to raise children and prevent them
 Greene et al. / CYCLES OF PAIN 21

from having to endure the same traumas that filled their own childhoods.
They often fail to perform these multiple, demanding tasks. Unfortunately,
as the results of this survey show, too many of their children had already
experienced physical abuse, and the majority had witnessed violence, drug
and/or alcohol use at home, and had seen their mothers drunk or under the
influence of drugs. And, they will suffer continued separation from their
incarcerated mothers.
We remain convinced that the mothers we interviewed need guidance,
support, and resources to implement their plans and intentions to raise their
children in more positive environments than they experienced and interrupt
the cycles of poverty, abuse, violence, drugs, pain, and prison. These essen-
tial services and other alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent female
offenders may help to prevent their children from becoming the next genera-
tion of inmates.

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