Co-Correctional Facilities

History

The first prisons in the United States incarcerated women and men, and adults and children together. This mixed-gender, mixed-age setting was not always the most conducive environment for the prisoners, particularly for women and children since rape and other acts of intimidation and violence occurred regularly in them. As a result, reformers began to advocate for gender segregation during the 19th century. In 1873, the first women's prison opened in Indiana. Women-centered facilities such as Indiana Women's Prison provided job opportunities for professional women, who served in positions as matrons, administrators, and other prison staff. These female workers were expected to act as positive role models for the inmates.

Almost one century later in 1971, a co-correctional facility was opened in Forth Worth, Texas, for adults sentenced to the federal prison system. During the 1970s, five federal co-correctional facilities opened, and by 1977 fifteen state co-correctional prisons had been established. Through the 1980s and 1990s, many more co-correctional facilities were set up. According to the American Correctional Association's 2002 Directory of Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies, and Probation and Parole Authorities, 54 adult and 38 juvenile state co-correctional facilities were in operation in the United States during 2001. Eighteen of these are part of the federal prison system.

The level of interaction between female and male inmates varies among co-correctional facilities. In many, there is virtually no direct contact between the sexes, while others have contact at all times except during sleeping hours.

Current Practice

In the modern era, co-correctional facilities do not have the same problems of the sexually integrated prisons over a century ago. Instead, prisoners enjoy an environment that is more comparable to that of society outside the prison than is evident in same-sex institutions. Being able to interact with members of the opposite gender on a daily basis is thought to reduce disruptive and predatory homosexual activity, [Page 140]lessen violence between prisoners, and promote a better self-image of the inmates.

Co-correctional institutions generally try to facilitate cross-gender relationships, to assist with rehabilitation and effective reintegration into the community outside prison for offenders. Supporters of this approach to prison management claim that these facilities improve access to programs for all offenders, particularly women, who often receive less educational and vocational training than men.

As they did in the beginning, co-correctional facilities enable administrators to redistribute prisoners into systems with more space. Thus, some prison administrations deal with the increased numbers of women by using available space in men's prisons, while others transfer men into low-capacity women's prisons to relieve some of the overcrowding among the men's institutions. The Federal Bureau of Prisons also sometimes uses these facilities to house prisoners at risk of victimization in other institutions, including former police officers and judges, and “blatant” homosexual persons.

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