Painful lives: Understanding self-harm amongst care-experienced women in prison
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211067914 |
| Author | Claire Fitzpatrick,Katie Hunter,Julie Shaw,Jo Staines |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211067914
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2023, Vol. 23(3) 348 –365
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958211067914
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Painful lives: Understanding
self-harm amongst
care-experienced women
in prison
Claire Fitzpatrick
Lancaster University, UK
Katie Hunter
Lancaster University, UK
Julie Shaw
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Jo Staines
University of Bristol, UK
Abstract
Self-harm incidents in custody in England and Wales recently reached a record high, increasing
particularly in women’s establishments. This article explores experiences of self-harm by drawing
on interviews with care-experienced women in prison in England. Using prior care experience
as the underlying thread enables us to explore this topic through a different lens. Considering
the functions of self-harm that women described, including the communication, alleviation and
ending of pain, highlights the painful lives of those experiencing both state care and control
institutions. This reveals that women have often been failed across different systems, sometimes
with devastating consequences. Urgent attention must be paid to the system failures affecting
those previously deemed by the state to require welfare and protection.
Keywords
Care-experienced, imprisoned women, self-harm, system-failures, trauma
Corresponding author:
Claire Fitzpatrick, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Lancaster University Law School, Bowland College,
Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, UK.
Email: claire.fitzpatrick@lancaster.ac.uk
1067914CRJ0010.1177/17488958211067914Criminology & Criminal JusticeFitzpatrick et al.
research-article2022
Article
Fitzpatrick et al. 349
Introduction
In her pioneering work on embodying punishment, Chamberlen (2018: 167) observes
how coping strategies for women in prison ‘reveal the body as a vessel of survival’.
This finding was powerfully highlighted by care-experienced women in prison in our
recent interviews, and starkly evident in many of our face-to-face encounters. Whilst
Chamberlen’s participants frequently came from traumatic backgrounds, her study did
not explore prior care experience among those previously in care1 as children. This
article builds on Chamberlen’s (2018) call to re-focus on the body as a site of pain and
punishment among criminalised women, while extending our knowledge by consider-
ing self-harm in prison among those previously deemed by the state to be in need of
welfare, protection and support.
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) (2020) data reveal that self-harm incidents in custody in
England and Wales reached a record high of 63,328 incidents in the 12 months to
December 2019, up 14% on the previous year. These figures highlight that self-harm
trends differ considerably by gender, with a rate of 3,130 incidents per 1,000 prisoners in
women’s establishments, compared with 650 incidents per 1000 prisoners in men’s
establishments (MoJ, 2020). While self-harm in prison is not a new issue (Carlen, 1988;
Corston, 2007), this evidence is deeply concerning and highlights the need for urgent
action.
While it has long been recognised that care-experienced women are particularly over-
represented in prison (and more so than care-experienced men and boys), identifying the
exact numbers is challenging (Innovation Unit, 2019). One study found that 24% of adult
males and 31% of adult females in custody had been in the care system as a child (MoJ,
2012). However, these are highly likely to be underestimates due to the difficulties in
identifying prior care status amongst those in locked institutions (Fitzpatrick, 2020).
This article uses care-experience as the underlying thread to connect women’s experi-
ences in the past and present, with a specific focus on understanding self-harm. Drawing
on semi-structured interviews with imprisoned women, we argue that care-experience
provides crucial contextual information for understanding the lives of some criminalised
women who self-harm. Exploring the various functions of self-harm revealed by women,
including the communication, alleviation and ending of pain, enables us to highlight
themes of continuity and change in the stories of those who navigate both state care and
control institutions. Importantly, this allows us to move beyond a sole focus on the nar-
row lens of the criminal justice system (Carlen, 1988), supporting both a deeper under-
standing of women’s lives and highlighting how they may have been failed across
different systems.
Messages from research
As Chandler (2013: 717) notes, ‘(t)he terminology around self-harm is highly contested’.
She defines self-injury as ‘cutting, burning or hitting [of] the body’ (2013: 717), and a
distinct corporeal practice from self-poisoning (overdosing). Similarly, Agenda (2020: 7)
define self-harm as ‘self-inflicted injury without suicidal intent’. We share this view of
self-harm while considering both self-harm and suicidality. While recognised in much
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