BEING A WOMAN IN WOMEN'S PRISON

My doctorate study about power and hierarchy relations among prisoner women in women's closed prison is conducted in between March 2011-2012 to hear from prisoner women, to examine how they understand and perceive each other and how these are built on relations among women. Framework of the study consit of how they shape themselves and their status in a physical environment where no male exists, of observing their daily experiences in the lives they created away from society, their families and environments. That women prisoners referred to as "forgotten criminals" in literature are sent to prisons in other cities where they have no liberty and where they are detached from their families in spatial and physical senses, lead to aggrevation of their punishments more and more even if this situation is not desired. Friendship and family bonds women criminals, whose punishments are sentenced, recreated or re-established in prisons where they will spend long years even their whole lives, and their narration of themselves with these relations network will be explained and form the basis of this paper.