ABSTRACT
This is the first chapter to discuss findings and, as with the remaining chapters, it is introduced by a respondent’s raw life-story. Life-stories are heart-felt illustrations of an overarching argument advanced by the author, that girls’ devastating life-circumstances are often mirrored in conditions of confinement inside this youth correctional facility. As with the following two chapters in Part I, this chapter discusses the reasoning (“deprivation as intervention”) supporting the implementation of these conditions. The reasoning is that the institution is designed to deprive, not nurture. The kind of deprivation this chapter focuses on is relational. The qualitative data presented here focus on examples of isolation, lack of programming and recreation, and the deliberate undermining of relationships. The author argues that these approaches are based on a dim and pessimistic perception of who young women under correctional supervision are, and what they need in order to succeed in life. With the purpose of debunking this perception, girls’ accounts of relationship interruption and loneliness prior to detention are contrasted with the deprivation they are subjected to once they make it inside the institution.
