“All we want is to be near our husbands”: How Latina prison wives navigate social controls

Abstract

Incarceration extends beyond prison walls, shaping the lives of those connected to incarcerated individuals through systems of social control. While literature on secondary prisonization documents the financial, emotional, and bureaucratic burdens women endure, far less is known about how Latinas navigate carceral controls to sustain their romantic relationships. Given the rising rates of incarceration among Latinos, understanding how the prison's formal social controls shape Latinas’ lived experiences is critical. Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with Latina prison wives, this study asks: (a) What social control mechanisms do prison wives experience within the carceral context during visitations? (b) How and why do prison wives engage in informal social controls across social settings? (c) How do women cope with these control mechanisms? Findings reveal that formal carceral policies, particularly inconsistent dress code enforcement and racial segregation, disrupt social relationships and foster distrust among visitors. To protect their visiting privileges, some women internalize and reproduce institutional norms, inhibiting the development of supportive social networks among communities disproportionately affected by incarceration. At the same time, women developed protective strategies that both secured their visiting privileges while facilitating community-building by sharing resources and emotional support.

Keywords

Carceral state secondary prisonization social controls

Introduction

Across the United States, incarceration has served as a mechanism of social control enacted by the carceral state, which prioritizes punishment, detention, and incarceration to manage poverty and marginalized communities (Gacek, 2022). In 2023, 96% of California's in-custody population were men (Harris and Cremin, 2024). Despite Latinos comprising 38% of the state's adult population, they represented 46% of incarcerated individuals, compared to 28.3% of Black and 20.7% of White populations (CDCR, 2020; Harris and Cremin, 2024). As the fastest-growing ethnic group in state prisons, the disproportionate incarceration of Latinos illustrates how the “Latino Threat” narrative shapes racialized policing practices that target perceived criminality, illegality, and foreignness (Chavez, 2013).

Research has documented how the carceral state shapes romantic relationships, as one in seven adults reported having a spouse or co-parent incarcerated in 2018 (Elderbroom et al., 2018). However, less is known about the barriers Latinas navigate to sustain their relationships. Latinxs are often categorized as White in research data, invisibilizing their experiences in the criminal legal system and reinforcing a Black–White binary that obscures their disproportionate exposure to carceral controls (Eppler-Epstein and King, 2016). Understanding their experiences is critical, as women often bear the emotional and economic burdens of incarceration while navigating institutional barriers to visit. For Latina women, these experiences are further shaped by racialized and gendered stereotypes, revealing the need to examine how social controls affect the entire community.

Women with incarcerated partners are subjected to formal social controls, including visitation restrictions, moral dress codes, and scrutiny by correctional officers (COs) (Comfort, 2008; Dixey and Woodall, 2012; Fishman, 1988). This phenomenon, known as “secondary prisonization,” requires women to abide by carceral policies, routines, and surveillance to maintain contact with their partners (Comfort, 2008). Along with formal controls, women also experience informal social controls, which shape how visitors regulate one another's behaviors to abide by prison norms and protect their visiting privileges. For example, Fishman (1988) found that some first-time visitors suspected long-term prison wives engaged in criminal behavior, while Codd (2003) showed that men's status within prison often transferred to their partners, influencing women's social interactions. These studies reveal how social controls encourage visitors to internalize the carceral state's perception of marginalized individuals as untrustworthy, but additional research is needed to examine how Latina prison wives experience formal controls and in turn influence their engagement in informal controls.

By centering Latinas’ lived experiences, this study shows how formal carceral policies attempt to disrupt social relationships and perpetuate distrust among visitors through inconsistent dress codes and racial segregation, inhibiting the development of supportive social networks among communities that are disproportionately impacted by incarceration. However, women developed strategies to actively build community by engaging in advocacy, providing emotional support, and sharing resources to navigate bureaucratic processes. Findings contribute to social control theory by illustrating the permeability of social controls; they also advance feminist and Critical Race Theories by demonstrating how the carceral state exploits gender inequality by forcing women to care for incarcerated individuals while simultaneously regulating others’ behaviors to advance control over marginalized communities.

Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with Latina prison wives, this study asks the following: What social control mechanisms do prison wives experience within the carceral context during visitations? How and why do prison wives engage in informal social controls across social settings? And lastly, how do women cope with these control mechanisms? By addressing these questions, this paper offers three contributions: (a) it extends the conceptual framework of secondary prisonization by demonstrating how women not only internalize carceral controls but also reinforce them relationally among other visitors; (b) it contextualizes Latinas’ social dynamics within the California state prison system; and (c) it expands the literature on social control theory. The following sections outline the theoretical framework and methodological approach used to understand Latinas’ lived experiences.

Literature review

This study draws on social control theory from an organizational, sociological perspective to examine how the carceral state shapes romantic relationships and social networks. Organizational social control demonstrates how institutions regulate behavior through formal policies, surveillance, and internalized norms. Literature from secondary prisonization showcases how women endure scrutiny and heightened levels of uncertainty as they visit their partners in prisons. Despite the formal and informal social controls that shape women's behaviors, they resist the carceral state by building support systems that alleviate the hardships they experience.

Carceral social controls

Within organizations, social control is the process by which members are socialized into acceptable norms, their movements are structured, and their social relationships are regulated (Millham et al., 1972). With the purpose of regulating people's behaviors, social controls are implemented in formal and informal ways. Formal controls consist of rewards and punishments that incentivize particular behaviors. The effectiveness of an organization's control mechanisms depends upon their goal implementation, members’ dependency for resources, and the structure of informal social systems (Millham et al., 1972). Informal controls are assessed by how members internalize organizational culture and influence others to practice acceptable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Millham et al., 1972). Together, formal and informal social controls reinforce compliance and organizational culture.

Prisons are prime examples of coercive organizations that rely on social control mechanisms to achieve obedience. Formal controls structure incarcerated individuals’ daily lives through physical confinement, restricted communication, limited family contact, and constant surveillance by prison staff (Thomas, 1977). Informal controls further regulate incarcerated individuals’ behavior by rewarding compliance with access to privileges and resources (Millham et al., 1972; Thomas, 1977). These mechanisms demonstrate how power, dependency, and organizational goals intersect to regulate and enforce behavioral norms in carceral institutions.

Another central feature of carceral control is racial classifications. Although the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in prisons unconstitutional in Johnson v. California, prison administrators continue to rely on racialized classifications to determine housing placements (Goodman, 2008). Goodman (2014, 2008: 737) describes this process as “negotiated settlement,” whereby prison staff and incarcerated individuals work together to determine the appropriate racial classification they align with, including “Black,” “White,” “Hispanic,” or “Other.” However, racial classifications are often conflated with gang affiliation as prison staff also consider the individual's home community and social networks (Lopez-Aguado, 2018). Once incarcerated individuals receive one of four classifications, they are assigned housing according to their race, reinforcing racial boundaries under the disguise of institutional safety (Goodman, 2008; Walker, 2016).

At the informal level, incarcerated individuals are expected to comply with racialized norms enforced by race-based gangs. Upon entry, high-status gang members provide informal orientations that dictate appropriate behaviors, including who they can interact with (Bloch and Olivares-Pelayo, 2021; Goodman, 2014). If racialized norms are violated, they can be transferred to another housing unit or be physically punished by gang leaders known as “shot callers” (Walker, 2016). To receive the gang's protection, individuals must demonstrate their loyalty, often through violence (Bloch and Olivares-Pelayo, 2021). These racial politics demonstrate how incarcerated individuals internalize and legitimize social controls, strengthening formal racial segregation through informal enforcement (Millham et al., 1972). While scholars have documented how such controls shape incarcerated individuals’ behavior, far less attention has been given to how these racialized regulations affect their romantic partners navigating the carceral state to sustain their romantic relationships.

Secondary prisonization

Family members seeking to maintain relationships with incarcerated individuals are subject to formal social controls to gain admittance onto prison grounds, a phenomenon known as “secondary prisonization” (Comfort, 2008). Women visiting their incarcerated partners must adjust their schedules to attend visits, change their wardrobes to reflect the prison's dress code, and alter their behaviors to comply with the prison's regulations. From the perspective of prison staff, visitations are logistical operations that demand surveillance and control of incarcerated individuals and visitors to maintain institutional safety (Comfort, 2008; Dixey and Woodall, 2012; Fishman, 1988). This results in women undergoing identity and security checks to verify they are approved visitors, their attire is non-provocative, and they enter prison grounds without unauthorized items.

Although the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) provides general visitation dress codes— no low-cut tops, sleeveless shirts, or above-the-knee bottoms—COs have an immense amount of discretion in how they enforce them (Boppre et al., 2022; Castle, 2023). Harris (2025: 10) describes how she, along with other visitors, were placed “at the mercy of the state” as COs determined whether their attire was appropriate. Since visitation is the only time they spend with their partners, women wear clothing that represents their personal style. But in doing so, many are cited for dress code violations throughout their visit (Comfort et al., 2005; Comfort, 2008). Castle (2023) found Black and Latina women, in particular, were asked to undergo strip-searches more often than White women due to being suspected of having contraband. While visitors can refuse to be strip-searched, they endure the degrading procedure to ensure they can visit their partners and avoid repercussions. Similarly, women with curvier bodies experienced hypersexualization as they were unable to find loose-fitting clothing that was considered appropriate (Castle, 2023; Comfort, 2008). To prevent being denied entry, women purchased conservative clothing that aligned with a carceral identity (Castle, 2023; Christian, 2005; Comfort, 2008). These practices illustrate how non-convicted women experience punitive social controls as a collateral consequence of incarceration.

Women also experience informal social controls while navigating carceral spaces. Fishman (1988) found that new prison wives suspected long-term prison wives engaged in crimes and brought contraband onto prison grounds, leading some women to avoid creating friendships altogether. Women's interactions with other visitors were also impacted by their partner's crimes as they often shared their husband's status within prison. For example, if their partner was convicted of a sex offense, women were viewed as “lepers” and tied to negative stereotypes (Codd, 2003). In turn, women's decisions about whom to interact with resembled COs’ perspectives of individuals to be suspicious of. This enacts further harm as it disrupts women's ability to build supportive relationships that facilitate access to crucial resources. However, existing research has not fully examined the extent to which women reproduce social control by informally regulating one another's behaviors.

Building support

Although women experience social controls that aim to regulate their behaviors, they resist the carceral state by developing support networks to buffer the negative effects of incarceration. For instance, Christian (2005) found women visiting incarcerated men built community spaces by sharing motel costs and gathering before visits to get ready. Visitors’ collective experiences of navigating an intimidating environment also led to engaging in helping behavior as they provided resources, offered support, and shared transportation to prison grounds (Castle, 2023; Christian, 2005; Trahan and Evans, 2020). Foster (2019) also found that family members who routinely visited created a social club to maintain friendships outside of visitation and alleviate the hardships of imprisonment. These community spaces provided family members with resources and helped reduce their feelings of isolation.

In addition to in-person support, family members relied on online groups for advice and information. Peterson et al. (2013) revealed that many of their participants with unsupportive family members used online communities to share their feelings without being judged. In fact, the most requested advice on Prison Talk Online was personal, regarding how to cope with judgment from family members and navigate a new reality with their partners (Hink et al., 2019). Facebook support groups also allowed visitors to obtain updated news on prisons as women from different yards received phone calls from their partners notifying them of changes, such as lockdowns (Castle, 2023). These online platforms facilitated the creation of reciprocal relationships as women spoke about their experiences and invited others to share their stories (Hink et al., 2019; Peterson et al., 2013). Although prior research highlights ongoing support, additional studies are needed to examine how formal organizational norms shape visitors’ interactions on online spaces.

As a coercive organization, the carceral system relies on formal and informal social controls to enforce compliance among incarcerated individuals and visitors. Research shows how women with incarcerated partners navigate formal controls during processing (Boppre et al., 2022; Castle, 2023; Comfort, 2008; Dixey and Woodall, 2012), but it remains unclear if women impose informal controls among one another. Such understanding can reveal the permeability of social controls, how they shape women's relationships, and impede access to crucial resources through social networks. Drawing on this literature, I argue women recognize the harm formal carceral policies have on their social relationships and resist them by creating spaces of community to help one another navigate institutional barriers.

Methodology

To understand how Latinas with incarcerated husbands navigate social controls, this study draws on 25 semi-structured interviews conducted between July and August of 2022. This project exclusively focuses on Latinas, a population whose experiences remain underexamined in prior research on prison visitations. This is concerning given that Hispanics have become the largest ethnic population in California state prisons. Centering Latinas’ lived experiences allows for a deeper understanding of how racialized and gendered forms of carceral control shape women's social relationships and access to resources.

Following approval from the university's Institutional Review Board, participants were recruited using snowball sampling and through two private Facebook CDCR support groups. I began by joining the Facebook groups and contacted the moderators for permission to post recruitment flyers. Upon approval, I posted the recruitment flier along with a brief description of myself. During recruitment, one support group had 180 members and the second group had over 1400 members. I simultaneously recruited participants through my social networks as I personally experienced the incarceration of a family member. To participate, respondents had to identify as Latina, be over the age of 18, California residents, and be married to an incarcerated man.

The interviews were conducted in-person and over Zoom at a time and location convenient to participants. Twenty-three interviews were conducted on Zoom as participants’ location ranged from Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California. Interviews lasted between 1 and 2½ hours and were audio recorded with participants’ permission. I drew on literature from social control, secondary prisonization, and building community to develop questions that aligned with each theme. For example, questions related to formal social control asked women to describe their interactions with COs and in turn, how that affected their visitations (e.g. denied visits). Questions on informal social control focused on in-person and online interactions among prison wives to analyze whether formal policies shaped their social relationships (e.g. if they carpooled with other prison wives to visits). The secondary prisonization theme asked about their experiences undergoing processing, such as being asked to change or undergo strip-searches. Lastly, questions under the building community theme explored whether women supported one another and if they participated in advocacy. Once interviews were completed, participants were compensated with $25 for their time.

My social location as a Latina who grew up in a low-income community shaped by hyper-surveillance and gang injunctions allowed me to emotionally and physically understand the pains associated with incarceration. Although I am not a prison wife, I was transparent and vulnerable about my own experiences undergoing processing to visit my brother-in-law. Reyes (2020) argues every researcher possesses an ethnographic toolkit that includes invisible traits (e.g. social capital, education) and visible traits (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity) that help researchers build rapport with participants. While my invisible traits, including my education and training, differed from those of my participants, my visible traits allowed me to share the emotions associated with visiting: the excitement of carpooling with other women, how anxious I felt about whether my clothing would be approved, the joy of getting tokens to take pictures during visits, and the sadness of leaving a loved one behind. Miller (2022) refers to this as “the gift of proximity” as the burden of pain allows for connection to the people we hope to learn from and a deeper understanding of how this suffering shapes their behaviors.

This “outsider within” (Collins, 1986) status shaped my methodological and analytical approach. My close proximity allowed me to ask new questions such as: how women's experiences differed when interacting with Latina prison wives versus non-Latina prison wives, whether they avoided other prison wives, or if their visits were ever jeopardized due to another woman's behavior. Through my interviews, I learned that formal policies, such as visitation protocols and access to family visits, altered women's behavior to ensure access to their spouse. However, informal controls also shaped their ability to sustain their romantic relationships. Together, formal and informal social controls deepened the burden women carried.

Among the 25 participants, the majority identified as Mexican American (N = 19), while others identified as multi-racial (N = 3), Salvadoran (N = 1), Guatemalan (N = 1), and Latina without knowledge of her ancestral roots (N = 1). Participants’ ages ranged from 25 to 56, with a mean age of 37. Their husbands’ conviction and years-in-prison were also collected to understand the prison's level of security and their visitation protocols. The majority of men were housed in maximum or medium security prisons as 13 were sentenced to life. The average years men had been incarcerated was 13.6, ranging from 1 year to 24 years and only one participant was undergoing trial at the time of the interview.

All interviews were transcribed verbatim and uploaded into Atlas.ti, a qualitative software program, to begin analysis. While grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) has historically guided qualitative research in sociology, this study is guided by Deterding and Waters (2021) flexible coding method, which combines an inductive and deductive approach. Drawing on social control theory from an organizational sociological perspective, my analysis was guided by the understanding that carceral institutions extend regulations beyond their physical boundaries. During the first stage of coding, broad index codes were developed based on the interview guide and theoretical framework, including themes such as “preparing for visit,” “visitation,” and “prison wife community.” In the second stage, I revisited each index code to create subcodes that captured specific examples and emergent data. For instance, within “preparing for visits,” I developed analytical codes that described the processes women underwent before entering prison grounds, such as “carpooling” and “online Facebook groups.” Through this iterative process, it became clear that the prison's mechanisms of social control were reproduced in women's daily lives, shaping their social relationships and access to support networks.

Findings

Latina prison wives’ experiences of secondary prisonization were shaped not only by their interactions with COs and arbitrary rule implementations, but also by visitors’ enforcement of carceral norms. Women's participation in reinforcing clothing regulations, visitation guidelines, and racial politics fostered mistrust and disrupted the formation of supportive social networks. However, despite the carceral state's attempt to regulate their behaviors, women developed protective strategies to offer one another resources, advice, and guidance on navigating bureaucratic processes while protecting their visitation privileges.

Internalizing and reproducing carceral controls

Carceral policies on visitation constrained women's ability to maintain emotional intimacy with their husbands and shaped their social relationships with other visitors. Given COs had discretion on who they can deny entry to, women were hyperaware of the possibility of visitation denials. This fear led some women to internalize and reproduce institutional norms within visitation and in online spaces, impeding them from accessing crucial resources and guidance from women undergoing similar circumstances.

Among processing procedures, dress inspections were participants’ highest concern as COs enforced them inconsistently (Boppre et al., 2022; Castle, 2023; Comfort, 2008). Participants described feeling nervous or anxious (N = 13), being asked to change clothing multiple times (N = 20), were subjected to wanded searches due to underwire bras (N = 12), and, in two cases, undergoing a strip-search. Although CDCR's website lists dress code guidelines, the inconsistency of rule enforcement by COs became a source of anxiety for many women visiting their husbands. While one CO allowed clothing that was more form fitting, another would require that visitor to change. When women became aware of which officer was conducting visitor processing, they anticipated how harshly dress inspections were going to be and whether they would be required to change. Similar to Castle's (2023) findings, women with curvier bodies were asked to change two to four times during a single visit, which reduced the limited time they had with their husbands. Silvia shared her frustration with this practice:

They would constantly mess with me … One time when I got in, the cop goes, I saw you got here earlier and it's like 10 o’clock now. What happened? I’m like it's ‘cause I had to go change, and he goes, Yeah, they always fuck with the girls with big asses and big titties…

Given the inconsistency of dress code implementation, almost every participant (N = 21) carried extra clothing in their car. During one visit, Ana was repeatedly turned away after changing into every outfit she had. Although the facility had a Visiting Center that loaned clothing, the only pants that fit her were extremely baggy sweatpants. While some women decided to wear clothing that was one to two sizes bigger, such as graphic tees and sweatpants, to expedite their processing, others felt humiliated as they were required to wear clothing they felt was unattractive. Ana described the internal battle she underwent as she was forced to choose between her dignity and access to her husband:

I almost decided not to go in because they looked ridiculous, I look like a clown with these big baggy sweatpants but I was like no, I’m not gunna let them take my visit away just because they want to say no to my clothes … but I wanted to cry, it was just so frustrating.

Although visitation is framed as a privilege, inconsistent dress code enforcement punished women for their bodies and forced them to develop a carceral identity by inhibiting their self-expression through clothing. These obstacles created a false sense of choice that led some women to stop attending visits given the arbitrary rules made it extremely difficult to attend.

Once inside the visiting room, physical affection was also heavily regulated by COs. At the time of the interviews, visitations were starting to resume after being closed due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Despite visitors being required to be vaccinated or demonstrate a negative COVID-19 test, the prison maintained strict regulations on physical contact. Women were only allowed to briefly hug and kiss their husbands at the beginning and end of visits. After not visiting for months, physical touch was an important part of strengthening their romantic connections. Araceli described this additional layer of suffering:

Not being able to hold your husband's hand, not being able to kiss him … It's just horrible. These officers are trying to be super cops. When all we want is to be near our husbands.

When women showed affection towards their husband, guards used scare tactics to enforce post-pandemic regulations as they could terminate or cancel visiting privileges for excessive touch. After her husband was transferred to a state prison, Angelica was given a warning for kissing her husband. “We briefly kissed and I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to and they’re like, you know we could terminate your visit right now.” Following months of limited contact, women described these threats as additional hardships that strained many relationships.

Given visitation privileges are used as tools of social control, it led some women to informally enforce carceral norms onto other visitors to prevent visitation denials. Women policed visitors’ clothing choices and behaviors to protect their privileges and avoided any interactions that jeopardized them.

On prison grounds, women reinforced the dress code by policing each other's outfits and advising others to avoid form-fitting clothing. To prevent delayed processing and reduced visiting time, they informed others if their outfits might draw unwanted scrutiny from guards. Megan, for instance, visited her husband in Central California two to three times a month and was familiar with the clothing regulations. She advised women in line to wear professional attire, such as clothing used in an office or religious space, to avoid being asked to change. Her motivation was twofold—to avoid sexual excitement of incarcerated individuals and maximize time with her spouse:

You’re not here to go provoke other men … some women do go in very showing cleavage very tight knit-clothes … We’re here for one thing and it's to see our spouses. You’re causing the line to stop … Be aware of the rules … So you’re not holding up everybody else from seeing their loved one … Dress the way they’re asking you and you won’t have a problem…

Similarly, Johanna described COs as being nitpicky with women who “give them a reason to be.” She continued to state, “the only time that I see women have issues is when they’re trying to be provocative with what they’re wearing.” Megan and Johanna's advice, shared by three others, demonstrated how women reinforced carceral norms by policing visitors’ clothing, suppressing their self-expression and attractiveness, and perpetuating the development of carceral identities among visitors.

Informal social controls were also practiced on online spaces. All but two participants engaged and posted on Facebook support groups to connect with others navigating incarceration. Since COVID-19 affected women's quality time with their husbands, some participants opted into only attending 1-hour online video visits (N = 4), while others alternated between video and in-person visits (N = 14). During video visits, women were prohibited from recording or taking photos; if this rule was violated, their visitation privileges could be terminated. When women posted photos of their video visits, participants (N = 5) described witnessing group members comment that their visits could be terminated if someone reported their posts to prison staff. Some members also shared the possibility of guards joining Facebook to surveil women's interactions, which instilled fear and encouraged rule compliance. Leticia recalled women getting “hell” for posting images of their video visits.“You don’t really know if there might be like COs on those pages and just letting them know, you shouldn’t be doing that. You don’t know if that might affect you or your husband negatively,” she shared. Leticia was aware of the consequences women could face by posting video visits and also considered how her behavior could affect her husband's privileges.

Although Facebook support groups were a helpful resource to many women, they also became spaces where carceral norms were enforced. As members advised women how to behave appropriately, they reinforced carceral controls among one another, extending the prison's formal authority into their daily interactions.

Racial politics

Prison institutions justify racial classifications as a mechanism for safety and control, yet these practices have contributed to the emergence of race-based gangs in response to shifting racial demographics. In the 1950s, “La Eme,” also known as Sureños, formed to protect Los Angeles Chicanos from White incarcerated individuals, who were then the majority (Hunt et al., 1993; Lopez-Aguado, 2018; Weide, 2022). Today, La Eme is among the most powerful gangs in California prisons, exerting control over general population yards. They have established a hierarchical structure among incarcerated individuals, including “shot callers” (e.g. delegate responsibilities and organize crimes) and “foot soldiers” (e.g. carry out orders and collect drug profits). Through this structure, they enforce racial politics that regulate men's behavior by establishing who they can interact with; if racialized norms are violated, individuals are subjected to violent repercussions (Hunt et al., 1993; Weide, 2022).

Rather than enforcing safety, however, the present study finds that racial classifications perpetuate harm, distrust, and social division among incarcerated men and their partners. Racial classifications dictated women's social interactions as they feared their husbands could receive repercussions for interacting with people from different racial backgrounds. To protect their husbands, women abided by the racialized norms. However, this limited their access to crucial resources and support as it disrupted the development of social relationships with women undergoing similar experiences.

Among the participants, 19 women acknowledged their husband's previous or current engagement in racial politics as a survival strategy. However, participation in racial politics often resulted in additional disciplinary write-ups and time added to men's sentences. Johanna had been visiting her husband for 12 years. But he only had 3 years of “clean time,” defined as time served without behavioral write-ups. Johanna explained how her husband's role as a soldier resulted in repeated infractions as they “have to get their hands dirty … they’re the ones that cause all the bloodshed.” Sophia also recognized that prison wives must be understanding of the racial politics since “they have jobs and obligations to do … and sometimes they have to do things they don’t want to do.” Both women refer to the hierarchy of power that is enforced in race-based gangs where soldiers are given multiple behavioral infractions, lose visiting privileges, and force women to endure the carceral state for an indefinite amount of time.

While men's engagement in racial politics provided them with protection and security, it heightened women's anxiety as they could be reprimanded for their partner's actions. Before enrolling in educational programs, Catalina's husband was ordered to assault individuals who owed money. While later attending a support group for families with incarcerated loved ones, Catalina encountered the wife of one of these men. She shared, “the ladies didn’t talk to me because they knew who my husband was … They wouldn’t approach me … [they] were mad at me because of what happened to their husband.” Despite being outside prison grounds and seeking community support, Catalina was held accountable for her husband's behavior. Similarly, Dayana described her ex-husband proudly representing his gang affiliation and the resulting need to protect herself from retaliation. “I'm already watching my back. I'm already watching what I say … being in that prison and feeling like you’re in a pool full of sharks … it was scary,” she recalled. Although women were already vigilant when entering prison grounds, their husband's participation in racial politics created a hyperawareness as they understood they could be targeted for their husbands’ actions. This increased distrust caused women to be cautious about who approached them, avoided interactions with other prison wives, and inhibited their ability to build support networks.

When women drew on the prison wife community for resources, such as carpooling to visits, they reached out to others within their husband's assigned racial classification. Since Olga would drive eighteen hours to visit her husband in northern California, she carpooled with women visiting the same facility to share costs and take turns driving. When asked about her interactions with other prison wives, she shared:

The majority of the wives that I would carpool up with or spend a lot of in-person time with were Latinos or Mexicanas very few times of other races. I think that has a lot to do with prison politics … we hear like the husband don’t want different races to carpool together.

On her first visit, Sophia carpooled with an African American woman given she did not drive. Upon arrival, her husband told her to find another ride home. Although she sought support from the prison wife community to visit her husband, Sophia understood that if a woman from a different racial group felt disrespected, their husbands would have to resolve the conflict behind bars. As she explained, “Because they’re in there, we have to follow their rules … so they won’t get in trouble, because whatever we do on the outside and they find out, they’ll tell him.” To protect their husbands from being questioned or engage in altercations, Latina prison wives often communicated with women whose husbands were also Sureños, restricting their access to broader support networks.

Although 14 women described being open to interacting with prison wives from different racial groups—particularly when their husbands did not participate in racial politics or had been transferred to lower-level, integrated prisons—they shared that these interactions were courteous rather than intentional friendships. Krystal attempted to create friendships with women regardless of race but noticed that with Black women, the relationship “doesn’t really ever evolve, doesn’t ever have substance.” Latinas who tried to interact with Black or White prison wives often felt these relationships never advanced. While the institutionalization of racial classifications was justified to prevent violence between racial groups, it also set parameters on who women could interact with, reinforcing the prison's goal of racial division among populations disproportionately impacted by incarceration.

Building support and community

Despite institutional efforts to foster isolation and distrust, women created support networks to resist carceral controls. Four women participated in nonprofit organizations to learn about new initiatives, become leaders, and engage in healing. Organizations provided them with tools to participate in advocacy and collective action, including efforts to improve incarcerated individuals’ access to healthcare, the prison's implementation of COVID-19 regulations, and resist CDCR's proposed yard integration. As a community of prison wives, they organized to bring awareness to their experiences and demand equitable resources for their partners.

In addition to advocacy, women relied on Facebook groups to counter the isolation produced by carceral norms. Prior research shows that support groups allow women to offer one another encouragement, guidance, and emotional support (Hink et al., 2019; Peterson et al., 2013). Although participants were wary of posting due to rule enforcement, Facebook provided a sense of anonymity that made participation feel safer. Women used protective strategies—such as maintaining private profiles, posting anonymously, limiting identifying information, or reading past posts to receive information—to prevent retaliation. For example, Melissa served as a liaison between prison staff and family members through her role as the Inmate Family Council chair in the facility her husband was housed in; she communicated family concerns with staff and disseminated facility updates. However, she concealed identifying information by using her maiden name and avoided sharing photos with her husband. This allowed her to foster spaces of community while protecting her relationship and visiting privileges. Although Gabriela did not post, she relied on others’ posts to manage the stress of navigating the carceral system while pregnant: “I belong to a lot of the groups because … they understand what you’re going through … maybe your family doesn’t completely understand because they’re not in your situation … versus someone who has a husband who's incarcerated.” Consistent with Trahan and Evans’ (2020: 248) findings, Gabriela “paid it back” by offering resources and guidance to new members, highlighting how even selective participation sustained community support.

Support extended beyond advice, as women cared for one another during extreme hardships, including deaths, hospitalizations, and unexpected marriage delays. When Mariana's father was hospitalized and she was unable to communicate with her husband, she relied on another prison wife for support:

I would spend the night at the hospital with my dad and not come home for like two, three days. I had a good friend who is also a prison wife … stepping in with my kids, bringing them food, taking them to school, or checking on my mom.

Similarly, after deciding to marry her partner and submitting paperwork in 2020, Illiana's marriage ceremony was canceled and placed on hold for over a year due to the pandemic. She relied on her community for reassurance and strength during this heart-breaking time: “[They] tell me that they love me, they’re here for me, he's gonna marry me … our love's gonna withhold … hearing those things … it's like, they know that feeling.” These moments of hardship highlighted how women deepened their bonds by caring for one another, a characteristic the prison attempts to disrupt.

Women also drew on prior conversations with prison staff to share bureaucratic knowledge and guide others through an unfamiliar and haunting process. For example, women who had overnight family visits, typically lasting two days and two nights, posted photos of allowable items on Facebook. At the time of the interviews, 13 women had family visits every 30–90 days; others were ineligible due to their husbands’ disciplinary write-ups, the nature of their convictions, or pending applications. For some women, family visits strengthened their relationship's intimacy, while others prioritized providing their children quality time with their fathers. Despite visiting her husband for 16 years, Olga relied on other prison wives to learn which items were permitted after his transfer to a new facility. She emphasized the importance of this collective knowledge as “the support system we build is crucial in surviving the journey of being a prison wife because we learn from each other.” After relearning institutional rules, Olga created family navigation manuals, helped women become approved visitors, and guided them through appeals of visitation denials, empowering families to resist the carceral state's effort to separate them.

Women's shared experiences with processing, navigating arbitrary and ever-changing regulations, and coping with the socio-emotional challenges of having an incarcerated partner made social support a crucial resource. Both in-person and virtual spaces fostered a sense of community, provided emotional and bureaucratic guidance, and enabled women to resist the isolating effects of carceral controls. The social support women had fostered under a punitive environment is a clear illustration that control mechanisms can be radically resisted.

Conclusion and discussion

Comfort's (2008) concept of secondary prisonization reveals the internal processes women undergo when interacting with the prison system, as they make decisions in their daily lives to comply with institutional norms, such as adjusting their schedules to attend visits, adhering to the arbitrary dress codes, and enduring ongoing surveillance. This study adds to this framework by demonstrating that women not only internalize prison norms but also reproduce them within their interactions with other visitors across prison grounds and online spaces, thereby shaping their social relationships. As such, this paper makes three contributions: (a) it extends the conceptual framework of secondary prisonization by showing how women reinforce carceral controls relationally among other visitors; (b) it contextualizes Latinas’ social dynamics within the California state prison system; and (c) it expands the literature on social control theory.

Building on this, the findings demonstrate that secondary prisonization is not only produced through formal policies, but also through informal social regulation among women. Since visitations are framed as privileges that can be revoked at the discretion of COs, women become hyperaware of potential visitation denials. In response, some reproduce institutional norms by enforcing clothing regulations, visitation guidelines on Facebook support groups, and participate in racial politics. Although women engaged in informal social controls to protect their visiting privileges, they ultimately helped sustain the prison's broader objectives of regulating behavior and extending punishment onto entire communities.

These layered forms of surveillance discipline women's bodies, relationships, and expressions across carceral and online spaces. The systematic enforcement of moral attires reproduces gendered and racialized mechanisms of control, perpetuating stereotypes of Latinas as hypersexual, aggressive, and criminals (e.g. gang affiliation and illegality) (Lopez, 2025; Pasko and Lopez, 2018). These stereotypes operate as controlling images that become visible through dress code violations, wandings by COs, and mandatory strip-searches. The fear generated through inconsistent enforcement can motivate women to engage in informal surveillance, reinforcing the state's sexist, racist, and classist regulation of women's bodies.

By centering Latinas’ experiences, this study also reveals how racial classifications perpetuate harm within marginalized communities by fostering mistrust and disrupting social relationships that could alleviate the hardships they endure. Although women engaged in racial politics to protect their husbands, these practices ultimately reproduced the carceral state's goal of preventing solidarity among racial and ethnic groups disproportionately impacted by incarceration. Harris (2025) highlighted how trust was a crucial ingredient in Black women becoming “mainline mamas” as they hung out after visiting hours, cared for one another, and spent time together when available. Findings reveal racial politics prevent Latinas from interacting with different racial groups on and off prison grounds, inhibiting them from building comparable trust and ultimately becoming mainline mamas. Future research should examine how racialized distrust develops within Latinx communities navigating incarceration and how multiracial relationships negotiate prison politics.

Despite these constraints, women actively resisted carceral controls by building networks of support and sharing collective knowledge (Castle, 2023; Harris, 2025). Women recognized the obstacles they endured strained their family ties; to combat this, they helped each other navigate bureaucratic barriers, bridged information, and provided emotional support during the process. Similar to Harris’s (2025) experience, women cared for each other and found meaningful relationships in an environment where people are seeking to survive.

These findings offer important theoretical and practical implications. First, they extend social control theory by demonstrating how institutional norms are internalized and enacted beyond organizational boundaries, shaping women's behaviors and interactions. Second, they contribute to feminist theory by showcasing how carceral control exploits gendered expectations of care, reinforcing patriarchal norms that position women's compliance with racial politics as necessary for men's safety, while minimizing their labor and emotional hardships. Lastly, this study advances Critical Race Theory by centering Latinas’ experiences to challenge narratives that position non-Black minorities as unaffected by the criminal legal system. Despite California having one of the largest Latinx populations, the state fails to report how many Latinx individuals are funneled into the criminal legal system, invisiblizing the effects of the carceral state on this community (Eppler-Epstein and King, 2016). As the carceral state increasingly collaborates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, producing the crimmigration system, these findings also offer insight into how Latinas may navigate immigration detention, where Latinos are disproportionately targeted and subjected to criminal punishment.

These findings also inform state policy by demonstrating how carceral controls constrain women's ability to maintain contact with incarcerated loved ones. Research shows that incarcerated Latinos are housed farther from their home communities than Black and White individuals, despite evidence that closer proximity increases family visitation, reduces recidivism, and supports reintegration (Berg and Huebner, 2011; Cochran et al., 2016). Prisons can strengthen family bonds by creating welcoming and interactive visitation environments. Traditional visiting rooms are often structured with incarcerated individuals facing COs and visitors around them, leading to interactions heavily based on conversations (Schubert et al., 2016). Alternative arrangements can allow families to utilize outdoor spaces to cook, share meals, and play with their children. When participants described overnight family visits, they expressed a sense of belonging within a small, gated community, sharing meals with “neighbors” (e.g. other visitors and COs) and playing sports with their children on the facility's lawn. These forms of interactions suggest that more meaningful visitation environments can foster community-building and mitigate racial tensions shaped by racial politics.

This study's focus on Latina prison wives limits the understanding of how other racial and ethnic groups interpret, reproduce, or resist institutional norms. Future research should examine whether racial politics and mistrust affect individuals’ access to organizational resources, programs, or support groups. Scholars can also explore the decision-making processes through which women decide to police or support one another across different contexts. Additionally, by centering heterosexual, married couples, this study offers limited insight into how the prison's heteronormative ideals shape the experiences of other romantic relationships. Given I recruited participants using snowball sampling and social media, future research should consider mixed-method or experimental designs to generate more representative samples. Collectively, women's lived experiences expose the structural violence embedded in state prisons and demand for reforms rooted in equity, care, and family preservation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their detailed comments and suggestions.

ORCID iD

Elvira De La Torre

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author received financial support from the Presley Center of Crime & Justice Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Elvira De La Torre is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. Her research examines how carceral policies operate beyond traditional sites of confinement, shaping institutional contexts such as immigration detention, to regulate marginalized communities.

References

Berg

Huebner

(2011) Reentry and the ties that bind: an examination of social ties, employment, and recidivism. Justice Quarterly 28(2): 382–410.

Bloch

Olivares-Pelayo

(2021) Carceral geographies from inside prison gates: the micro-politics of everyday racialisation. Antipode 53(5): 1319–1338.

Boppre

Dehart

Shapiro

(2022) “The prison system doesn’t make it comfortable to visit”: prison visitation from the perspectives of people incarcerated and family members. Criminal Justice and Behavior 49(10): 1474–1494.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (2020) Offender Data Points: Offender Demographics for the 24-Month Period Ending December 2019. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Office of Research.

Castle

(2023) A sisterhood: the collective resilience born in the periphery of prison. Sociological Inquiry 93(1): 117–152.

Charmaz

(2006) Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage Publications.

Chavez

(2013) The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Christian

(2005) Riding the bus: barriers to prison visitation and family management strategies. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 21(1): 31–48.

Cochran

Mears

Bales

, et al. (2016) Spatial distance, community disadvantage, and racial and ethnic variation in prison inmate access to social ties. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 53(2): 220–254.

10.

Codd

(2003) Women inside and out: prisoners’ partners, women in prison and the struggle for identity. Internet Journal of Criminology: 1–24.

11.

Collins

(1986) Learning from the outsider within: the sociological significance of Black feminist thought. Social Problems 33(6): S14–S32.

12.

Comfort

(2008) Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

13.

Comfort

Grinstead

McCartney

, et al. (2005) “You can’t do nothing in this damn place”: sex and intimacy among couples with an incarcerated male partner. The Journal of Sex Research 42(1): 3–12.

14.

Deterding

Waters

(2021) Flexible coding of in-depth interviews: a twenty-first-century approach. Sociological Methods & Research 50(2): 708–739.

15.

Dixey

Woodall

(2012) The significance of ‘the visit’ in an English category-B prison: views from prisoners, prisoners’ families, and prison staff. Community, Work, & Family 15(1): 29–47.

16.

Elderbroom

Bennett

Gong

, et al. (2018) Every second: The impact of the incarceration crisis on America’s families, Report. FWD.us, Washington, DC.

17.

Eppler-Epstein

King

(2016) The Alarming Lack of Data on Latinos in the Criminal Justice System, Report. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

18.

Fishman

(1988) Stigmatization and prisoners’ wives’ feelings of shame. Deviant Behavior 9(2): 169–192.

19.

Foster

(2019) ‘Doing the wait’: an exploration into the waiting experiences of prisoners’ families. Time & Society 28(2): 459–477.

20.

Gacek

(2022) Portable prisons: Electronic monitoring and the creation of carceral territory. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill–Queen’s University Press.

21.

Goodman

(2008) “It’s just Black, White, or Hispanic”: an observational study of racializing moves in California’s segregated prison reception centers. Law & Society Review 42(4): 735–770.

22.

Goodman

(2014) Race in California’s prison fire camps for men: prison politics, space, and the racialization of everyday life. American Journal of Sociology 120(2): 352–394.

23.

Harris

Cremin

(2024) California’s prison population. Fact sheet, Public Policy Institute of California.

24.

Harris

(2025) Mainline Mama: A Memoir–A Prison Abolitionist's Story of Black Motherhood, Self–resilience and Love. New York, NY: Amistad.

25.

Hink

Smith

, et al. (2019) Connecting and coping with stigmatized others: examining social support messages in prison talk online. Communication Studies 70(5): 582–600.

26.

Hunt

Riegel

Morales

, et al. (1993) Changes in prison culture: prison gangs and the case of the “Pepsi Generation”. Social Problems 40(3): 398–409.

27.

Lopez

(2025) Growing up Latina in the U.S.: controlling images, stereotypes, and resistance. Latino Studies 22: 52–72.

28.

Lopez-Aguado

(2018) Stick Together and Come Back Home: Racial Sorting and the Spillover of the Carceral Identity. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

29.

Miller

(2022) Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration. New York, NY: Back Bay Books.

30.

Millham

Bullock

Cherrett

(1972) Social control in organizations. The British Journal of Sociology 23(4): 406–421.

31.

Pasko

Lopez

(2018) The Latina penalty: juvenile correctional attitudes toward the Latina juvenile offender. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice 16(4): 272–291.

32.

Peterson

Cohen

Smith

(2013) “Courtesy incarceration”: exploring family members’ experiences of imprisonment. In: Hartnett

Novek

Wood

(eds) Working for Justice: A Handbook of Prison Education and Activism. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 83–102.

33.

Reyes

(2020) Ethnographic toolkit: strategic positionality and researchers’ visible and invisible tools in field research. Ethnography 21(2): 220–240.

34.

Schubert

Duininck

Shlafer

(2016) Visiting mom: a pilot evaluation of a prison-based visiting program serving incarcerated mothers and their minor children. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 55(4): 213–234.

35.

Thomas

(1977) Prisonization and its consequences: an examination of socialization in a coercive setting. Sociological Focus 10(1): 53–68.

36.

Trahan

Evans

(2020) Social exchange and the formation of prison visitation communities. Qualitative Criminology 8(2): 235–256.

37.

Walker

(2016) Race making in a penal institution. American Journal of Sociology 121(4): 1051–1078.

38.

Weide

(2022) Structural disorganization: can prison gangs mitigate serious violence in carceral institutions? Critical Criminology 30: 113–132.