ABSTRACT
The removal of deviant members from the community for various periods of time has long been a technique of social control. The use of civil banishment, exile, penal colonies, and jails has an ancient history. Yet prisons they remain, for in addition to direct deprivation of certain material comforts and personal belongings, the restrictions on personal freedom, and the separation from family and friends, imprisonment entails the social and psychological deprivations and injuries which have been described in a number of recent studies. While this chapter is concerned with explicating the character of the pains of imprisonment which women prisoners experience and with examining the adaptations made to these deprivations. It presents an examination of the pains of imprisonment begins where the inmate begins—in jail awaiting transfer to Frontera. The sole task of the jail in regard to prospective Frontera inmates is to exercise secure custody.
