Women, Integration and Prison; Final Report - Short Version

There are two important elements of the Hungarian context that have decisively shaped the MIP research on the reintegration of women prisoners after release: the lack of previous policy research on this topic, and the ongoing transformation of the institutional setting. Both enabled and encouraged the research. The availability of relevant, policy-focused research both on reintegration after prison, as well as research on women prisoners was extremely limited. The few important studies on prisons and prisoners in the 1990-ies were sociologically focused and offered some data and insight into prison life, however, these were exclusively or largely based on men’s prisons and did not address reintegration. Finally in 2001, the first study on women prisoners was published, which offered basic data on women prisoners, and also on the three penitentiary facilities for women inmates in Hungary – and drew attention for the first time to the relevance of domestic violence in the lives of women prisoners. The other important research that provided the basis for our research as a source of secondary data, was a major study accomplished by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee during their Prison Monitoring Program. Their book was published in 2002 with rich survey data on legislation and aspects of prison life that featured as important for reintegration, e.g. on work and education in prisons. We will frequently refer to these few but important sources throughout our report. Yet, given our national context, the Hungarian report relies largely on interview data both with the women and with the agents, as well as on other data collected during fieldwork.