Arabic version: عالمة إجرام أسترالية توثق تجارب نساء يقضين أحكاماً بالسجن المؤبد في بنسلفانيا
According to ABC News, Australian-born criminologist Dr Kathryn Whitely has devoted much of her work to interviewing women serving life sentences in Pennsylvania prisons, alongside director AJ Nutter. The women often describe prison as a “waiting place” rather than a home, where they expect to remain before “eternally leaving this Earth”.
Dr Whitely said the prison system is largely ill-equipped to deal with many of the women she has interviewed. About two-thirds of those she has worked with have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse to varying degrees, she said, while stressing that every woman’s account is unique and should not be treated as the same.
Beth, now in her late 50s, spent five years on death row before her sentence was commuted to life without parole. At SCI Muncy, Pennsylvania’s maximum-security prison, she said writing, crocheting and reading helped her endure confinement. She recalled days of looking at the four walls and struggling to believe that prison was her life.
Many women tell Dr Whitely that better legal representation might have changed their circumstances. They describe a lack of communication with lawyers, little time to share their views and limited interest in what they believed could help their cases. Dr Whitely is also working with director Nathan Skulstad on a documentary about women serving life sentences in Pennsylvania.
Between 1980 and 2023, the number of women behind bars in the United States rose by more than 600 per cent, according to The Sentencing Project. Around 35,900 women in state prisons nationwide are incarcerated for violent offences. Dr Whitely said women convicted of violence are often judged more harshly than men and many want to be recognised as human beings rather than defined only by their crimes.
