Navigating the emotional terrain of prison reentry: State-sanctioned gendered violence

Abstract

The emotional experiences of incarceration are directly tied to state-sanctioned gendered violence. Most incarcerated women have a history of trauma, stemming directly from broader socio-political and economic forces, which is further rendered throughout the incarceration and reentry process. The carceral system in the United States disrupts family and social support systems, fails to provide accessible and adequate mental health and substance use services, and denies stabilization resources such as housing, employment, and citizenry for women once released from prison, yet their emotional experiences are largely absent in analyses of this gendered violence. Drawing from a larger intimate ethnography project with a woman, LaTasha, recently released from a 25-year to life prison sentence, this article examines how women negotiate and express emotions within the context of prison reentry contributing to feminist anthropological scholarship on state-sanctioned gender violence. Through an in-depth analysis of the challenges LaTasha faces in rebuilding relationships with family, navigating a system in which she has been outcasted, and asserting herself after being systematically disempowered, we gain insight into the ways in which carceral systems have prevented emotional complexity resulting in a form of incipient and largely invisible violence.