RT Article
T1 Voter Registration and Jail-Incarcerated Women: Are Justice-Involved Women Civically Engaged?
JF Women & criminal justice
VO 30
IS 3
SP 172
OP 187
A1 Emerson, Amanda
A2 Allison, Molly
A2 Ramaswamy, Megha
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1780424930
AB Civic engagement, like the broader phenomenon of social engagement, seems out of keeping with the alienating ethos of incarceration. We sought to learn which demographic and contextual factors predicted one form of civic engagement, voter registration, in a jail-incarcerated female population. A 158-item survey was administered to 261 adult women incarcerated in three Midwestern jails, September 2014 to March 2016, as part of a parent intervention study for cervical cancer prevention. Chi-square comparisons between a voter registered and a non-registered group yielded significant differences in five demographic and social context indicators, and a model for voter registration was estimated using multiple logistic regression. Total time incarcerated, having personal health insurance, being stably housed, and identifying as a Black woman contributed significantly to voter registration. We suggest that in a justice-involved group the community’s facilitation of access to basic resources may trigger a reciprocal engagement in civic life, and we speculate that Black women may find belonging and motivation for engagement in resilient, long-standing sources outside official institutions. Our findings support the notion that meeting the basic needs of individuals post-incarceration can create healthier, more engaged communities.
K1 African Americans
K1 Civic Engagement
K1 Health care access
K1 Housing
K1 Prisoner populations
K1 Women
DO 10.1080/08974454.2019.1586620