The reporting and punishment of internal offences at Christchurch Women's Prison : a descriptive study

Abstract

This study investigated infractions at Christchurch Women's Prison (C.W.P), an all security rating institution for women. All the incident and misconduct reports and the punishments imposed on all sentenced female inmates were analysed for a 10 month period. Information was obtained from incident and misconduct reports and the inmates' personal files. The inmate files were examined to gather data on the age, ethnic group, major offence, length of sentence, and previous prison experience of each inmate.

The study had three main aims. The first was to investigate whether the reporting of incidents and misconducts (infractions) and the punishments given to the female inmates at the prison were influenced by the personal and criminal history variables of the inmates. The finding was that the inmate's age, ethnicity and previous incarceration experience were related to the reporting of incidents and misconducts and to the penalties imposed; but that the other inmate variables studied did not seem to have as great an effect. The second aim was to establish what types of incidents and misconducts were being reported during the research period. It was found that the most frequently reported misconducts were those involving Inmate - Officer Interactions, and that these offences were also punished the most severely. The third aim was to discover whether the claim by many researchers that women inmates are more likely than men to be written up for minor misconducts was justified and relevant in the case of C.W.P. This claim was found to have some substance at C.W.P.

The study is viewed overall from an interactional perspective, relevant theories include: Johnson's two hypotheses of rule violations, importation and derivation models, and stereotyping and labelling theories.

The implications of the findings are discussed in reference to areas that could be addressed in New Zealand penal policy such as: the legislation defining offences by inmates, the selection and training of officers, and the orientation programmes in place for new inmates.