Embodied Surveillance And The Gendering Of Punishment

Abstract

This ethnography explores the enactment of “get tough” politics in a state prison for women and considers whether the implementation of seemingly gender-neutral programs and policies implies that women’s prisons are no longer operating as “gendered organizations.” The author will demonstrate that even when women’s prisons attempt to mimic the disciplinary policies associated with men’s facilities, they modify disciplinary practices in response to perceived differences in offending between men and women. A crucial modification is the use of an “embodied surveillance” that sharply differs from Foucault’s analysis of penal surveillance mechanisms. The article concludes with an analysis of how the practice of an embodied surveillance is embedded within a larger structure of gendered punishment.