Unit C - Blog 21

Britton gives many great examples of how to improve the prison system and make it less gendered. One recommendation she has is to restructure the system. It was developed and constructed by gender norms for in society. Britton believes we need to restructure to where positions are not gender related. So prisons aren’t divided by gender. She also has issues with how prisons are portrayed in society. This is responsible for a lot of the gender inequalities as well. If we (society) keep socializing prisons as these violent places, then it is going to keep feeding the stereotype. Another thing she believes is that these affiliations like violence being attached to gender exist, then they will exist in the prisons. Britton also has strategies about training the officers for men’s and women’s facilities, not just one. She also takes the stance to reduce sex segregated positions and to have some balance. These are all resolutions with specifics. The National Association of Female Correctional Officers’ recommendations are less detailed, as well as one dimensional. Their recommendations are all geared to sexual assault and preventing it. In my opinion, this is keeping the stereotypes alive. It is portraying the women as victims that can’t defend themselves. None of these solutions are restorative, they are all retributive. They are mainly punishment based. Britton has ideas that will influence structure and won’t depict female officers as sexual victims, but as officers that have ways to prevent these things from happening. Last, these recommendations don’t even imply that these females will be able to prevent it themselves. They are all about how the situation will be handled. There is room for speculation that they are looking to have men defend them better or they will be held accountable for not. And the very last recommendation included weapons and technology to defend it. I would go with Britton’s restorative stance any day of the week.