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The Muncy Way

The Reformatory Ideal at the End of the 20th Century

Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

Despite efforts to bring parity to women's prisons, the reformatory ideal still played an important role in shaping the daily routines of incarcerated women in Pennsylvania at the end of the 20th century. Programs at Muncy, the only maximum security prison for women in Pennsylvania, emphasized their special needs as victims of physical and sexual abuse. Traditional emphasis on training for domestic life was transformed into a therapeutically oriented focus on emotional control. Relying on data from a survey and interviews conducted with women incarcerated at Muncy in 1999, this article describes the gendered nature of prison life and the way in which treatment programs for women were transformed from an emphasis on restoring moral virtue to fallen women to providing therapy for the mentally ill.

Key Words: incarcerated women • gender differences • therapeutic programs • mental illness • prisoner litigation

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