Women In Prison, 1990
This monumental work on female incarceration, took Atwood to forty prisons in nine different countries in Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States. The access she managed to obtain inside some of the world’s worst penitentiaries and jails, including death row, make this ten-year undertaking the definitive photographic work on women in prison to date.
“For nine years, in nine countries, I photographed women in prison. I am often asked how I could have spent so much time on such a sad subject. Initially, curiosity was my main motive. Surprise, shock and amazement took over. Then the rage carried me to the end.
From the beginning, I was struck by the immense emotional lack of the prisoners. They were handicapped in many ways. They had been crushed not only by ignorance, poverty and a shattered family life, which are common to almost all prisoners, but also by years – if not a lifetime – of physical and sexual abuse by men. Today, the policy in women’s prisons is to humiliate rather than rehabilitate. In some societies, a man who has served time in prison is considered a hero. For a woman, it is always a disgrace.
89% of incarcerated women are incarcerated for non-violent crimes. Is it really necessary to put them in prison? Take a good look at these women. They had the courage to assume their guilt, to want to change, to speak to us, with their words and their images. These are the women we have turned our backs on.“
Jane Evelyn Atwood
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