Naisvankien sopeutumisesta yhteiskuntaan Venäjällä

Authors

• Larisa Kangaspuro University of Helsinki

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33345/idantutkimus.111592

Keywords:

Prison, Social inclusion, female ex-prisoners, Russia

Abstract

Definitions of social inclusion commonly include concepts like respect, diversity, shared goals and values, as well as a feeling of belonging to a community. Another term, which is similar in meaning and used more often in academic literature is resocialization. Generally, resocialization involves measures taken during and after a prison sentence to help ex-prisoners avoid recidivism.

The term “resocialization” was introduced to the lexicon of academic psychology by American social psychologists Daniel B. Kennedy and August Kerber (1990) to signify an individual’s “secondary” entry into a sociocultural environment following either “defective” socialization (resocialization of ex-prisoners) or a change in sociocultural surroundings (resocialization of migrants). The resocialization of ex-prisoners is an important step on the way to decreasing recidivism rates, which in turn leads to a safer society. The sociologist Coline Cardi studies society’s perception of female-inflicted violence. Her work shows that society places far greater demands on women than on men, and that women are perceived more often as victims than as perpetrators of violence. This puts female offenders in double violation of the norm: by committing a crime, a woman contravenes the social norm as well as the legal norm. In Russia, where motherhood, marriage and family life are still considered the main instruments of self-realisation for women, incarceration can be a serious ordeal.

The paper presented results of the pilot project on Nordic-Rus­sian co-op­er­a­tion for the so­cial in­teg­ra­tion, pre­ven­tion of mar­gin­al­isa­tion, and hu­man rights pro­tec­tion of fe­male pris­on­ers.  This project (1/8/2018 – 31/10/2019), funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Nordic-Russian co-operation programme, was led by me. Its ambition was to establish a Nordic-Russian network of experts, which would ensure exchange of experience and best practices.