Article Review 2- Erin Lucas

Substance Abuse and Women

Henderson, Dorothy J. "Drug Abuse and Incarcerated Women Research Review." Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 15.6 (1998): 579-87. Science Direct. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074054729700319X>.

    This paper was made to explore what is already known about the women in jail that have struggled with substance abuse and point out the faults with this knowledge. According to Henderson, most of our current understanding of the population comes from incarcerated men with a drug problem and women outside of jails with the same issues. Knowing this, there are bound to be major gaps of understanding because none of our base knowledge comes from the group that is in question. Since the majority of incarcerated women are held because of drug abuse, it’s apparent that to help these women, we have to study and work with the correct group.

    Henderson begins by describing the average jailed woman, which is “a young woman of color who is a poor, single mother, has a history of substance abuse, and has committed a nonviolent crime related to her use of drugs.” (580) There is much more to the average incarcerated woman, but that is the basic statistic. The fact that the averages are known but there are very few studies out there shows one major gap society has when it comes to actually correcting people in jail. Beyond identifying the problem, little has been done research wise to help them.

    Along with having some sort of drug abuse problem, the majority of women in jail are poor. This is a whole other societal problem. It is harder to climb out of drug addiction if you cannot afford treatment for it. When they become incarcerated, they should be able to get treated instead of living like animals, especially when most have not committed violent crimes.

    In the next section, Henderson begins to tell the differences between incarcerated men and women with drug issues. She does this to show how idiotic it is to use the male population statistics when it comes to women in jail. She states, “Compared with incarcerated men, women inmates are more likely than men to have a coexisting psychiatric disorder, have lower self-esteem, to use hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, and to have used them more frequently before incarceration, to have taken drugs intravenously, and to test HIV-positive.” (581)

According to Henderson, this is a new development. Historically, men have always have a far higher rate of drug and alcohol abuse. So, it makes sense that prisons would be unprepared to handle the rise in female substance abuse. However, that does not excuse the lack of effort being put towards improving the prison system. Nowadays, it’s impossible to think that men and women should be treated the same. Further, these issues cannot be treated in the same way as the others. They have to have different therapies and medicine to even begin to treat them. By focusing more on incarcerated women in their studies, they could lower the amount of returning criminals and get the women back on track in life.

    Finally, she reviews the current gender specific treatment options along with what has already been suggested. “Recommendations include provisions for children, treatment for sexual abuse and coexisting psychiatric disorders, gynecologic care, addressing issues of low self-esteem, sexuality and women’s socialization, and the provision of all-women treatment spaces and counselors.” (582) These additions to the prison system could significantly help these women. Child care could help put the single mother’s in jail at ease while specific treatment for sexual abuse and mental disorders pinpoint different needs that are currently being neglected.

    The structure of this article was very similar to Shannon Lynch’s “Seeking Safety: An Intervention for Trauma-Exposed Incarcerated Women” in the fact that it began by pointing out the fatal gaps in our current system. Both focus heavily on specific treatments for incarcerated women and explore why there is such a deficit in our knowledge of the women. I believe Henderson’s is more applicable to fixing several flaws in the system because it is not focusing in on one style of treatment. Instead, it leaves the door open for several improvements. However, I do fault her for not explaining more about the current treatments. Her informational approach leaves little room for discussing the current situation of women’s jails while Lynch constantly compares Seeking Safety to institutions prisons already have. This shows that Lynch wants a program to improve what is already there, while Henderson wants an overhaul of the current system.