NCJ Number
85496
Date Published
1982
Length
27 pages
Annotation
The history of cooperation and conflict involving the Federal Industrial Institution for Women at Alderson, W. Va., mirrored the shifts in Federal correctional power from women to men, from autonomous prisons to a centralized system, and from a penology of individual treatment to one based on system needs.
Abstract
Women convicted of Federal crimes were first housed together in 1927 at the newly constructed Federal Industrial Institution for Women in Alderson, W. Va. Until that time, the Department of Justice had contracted to board Federal women offenders at particular State facilities. Before 1930, Alderson was virtually unchecked in operating a women-run, women-centered environment that offered a variety of educational, social, and vocational opportunities considered crucial to the rehabilitation of women offenders. This era of independent experimentation in providing unique services for female offenders entered into decline in 1930 as a result of two major changes in the Federal bureaucracy. Mabel Willebrandt, a powerful patron and protector of Alderson, resigned her position in the Justice Department, and the Bureau of Prisons was established to create a cohesive and professional Federal penal system. The Bureau sought to centralize policy within itself, which inevitably placed it in conflict with Alderson, which was accustomed to operating by the policy of its own administration. Conflict between Alderson and the Bureau was notable in staff and inmate issues, institutional management, and prison industries. Alderson's leadership was confronted with a male-run, system-oriented supervising agency that did not view female inmates as a population distinct from other inmates and which considered punishment important in corrections. The experiment in providing unique services for female offenders at Alderson was over. Seventy-one footnotes are listed.