UC Riverside

Across the United States, African Americans and Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by punitive policies, contributing to a racialized mass incarceration (Bobo and Thompson 2010). While literature on secondary prisonization reveals the collateral consequences African American women experience when seeking to maintain contact with their incarcerated partners, research is needed to understand the experiences of Latina prison wives, due to the rising rate of incarceration among Latinos. Drawing on literature from social control theory and secondary prisonization, this study draws upon 25 interviews with Latina prison wives to address the following research questions: (1) What social control mechanisms do prison wives experience within the carceral context during visitations? (2) How and why do prison wives engage in informal social controls across social settings? (3) How do women cope with these control mechanisms? This study finds women, as non-convicted individuals, experience multi-faceted punishment as the enforcement of formal policies within the prison extend beyond the carceral context and influence engagement in informal social controls to avoid losing access to visiting their spouses.