The sociologist interviews ex-prisoners about the trauma of institutional separation

When Zimife Umeh, a new assistant professor of sociology at George Washington University’s Columbia College of Arts and Sciences (CCAS), first set out to research the experiences of incarcerated mothers, she worried that no one would talk to her. .

After all, she was asking women recently released from prison to reveal their most personal and painful memories. She would interview them about their childhood abuse, their years behind bars, and the pain of being separated from their children.

“I basically asked them to unpack their traumas for my research purposes,” said Ume, who joined the CCAS sociology faculty this fall. “It’s a very big question.”

But as she met with women in a home-to-foster setting, word spread among aid nonprofits that Ume could be trusted. From 2018 to 2019, she interviewed 40 ex-prisoners. And while each had unique stories about their struggles in the criminal justice system, many repeated a common refrain: They were relieved to finally be heard.

“I’m glad I have to tell like my story,” Ume recalls women telling her. “Nobody ever asked me how I got here.

Throughout her career, Ume has listened to people’s stories and woven them into a larger narrative of how interactions with institutions—prisons, foster homes, schools—shape lives.

Her current research—starting with her Ph.D. studies at Duke University and her postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University and now continuing at CCAS—examines how institutions treat battered black women as criminals. Through her work, Ume traces the paths to prison for mothers, many of whom have suffered poverty and abuse. And she reveals how their imprisonment continues to reverberate throughout their lives long after their release.

“The negative and punitive consequences are devastating and ongoing,” she explained. “It affects their ability to parent. It affects whether they find work with a living wage. It affects everything and feels like it will never end.”

Severing family ties

Early in his career, Ume spent five years as a public high school teacher in Philadelphia. Too often, she said, she has witnessed how students’ struggles with disciplinary systems often lead to confrontations with the police. When she saw young people entering the juvenile justice system for relatively minor crimes, she began to take a deeper look at what she and others called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Her research reveals moving facts about families torn apart by incarceration. Of the more than 150,000 women incarcerated in 2020 — a 475 percent increase since 1980 — nearly 60 percent are mothers, according to the nonprofit Sentencing Project.

Children whose mothers are incarcerated face a higher risk of a range of adverse outcomes, including dropping out of school and ending up behind bars themselves. Indeed, a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation suggests that parental incarceration can have as much negative impact on a child’s well-being as abuse or domestic violence.

Maintaining family ties can help ease the trauma of separation for both mothers and children, notes an Urban Institute study. But institutional barriers — such as courts and child welfare agencies that oversee custody decisions and prisons that regulate parents’ access to their children — keep families apart, Umeh said.

“How do you see yourself as a mother when someone else tells you how and when you can see your children?” she said.

Umme’s interview topics largely reflect the national profile of incarcerated women. Most are African-American women convicted of nonviolent crimes, from low-level drug incidents to what Umeh calls “economic survival,” like one mother who stole children’s clothes from Walmart. And like many women ensnared in the criminal justice system, Umeh said incarcerated mothers often experienced childhood abuse.

Even behind bars, however, many of the mothers in Umeh’s study sought ways to cling to their maternal identity—some even choosing not to have their children visit them. “It may not look like traditional motherhood,” she explained, “but they’re saying, ‘I’m still doing the act of motherhood by protecting my children—even if that means protecting them from me and my environment.’

And for most, their burden doesn’t end with their release. Umeh remembered one woman who, after a series of misdemeanors, was stripped of both her nursing assistant license and bartending license. She was forced to lie about her criminal record in a waitress application, but was fired when her employer found out. “What does re-entry mean if you can’t re-enter the labor market?” Umeh said. “How are you doing with your life?”

The next phase of Umeh’s research will focus on mother-child reunions and include input from institutional actors—social workers, child protective services agents, and judges—in the Washington, D.C., family court system. In the meantime, she plans to adapt her research into a book project. She already incorporates women’s stories into her undergraduate course on Black Feminist Perspectives and Criminal Justice.

Intense interviews can be tiring, Ume said, often leaving her emotionally drained. “It takes, it takes a sacrifice,” she admitted. However, she is sustained by the resilience of women who confide in her with their stories. Even in the most challenging times, she noted, most are committed to charting a brighter path for their families’ futures.

“It’s touching to see how determined they are to get their kids back, start new jobs, hang on to their sobriety,” she said. “We know they face an uphill battle. But their optimism is inspiring.”

---

---