PRESA: An Exploratory Research on the Personal Development of Women as an Effect of their Incarceration in the Correctional Institution for Women

There is a growing number of incarcerated women in the Philippines. This is quite alarming because in this country, women have been expected to be mahinhin and submissive to authorities whether in the family, the Church, the State and even to the opposite sex. Many expectations arise from the stereotypes created about women and with these also come the roles that women perform in their lives.

The chief purpose of the present research is centered on one main point: the personal development of women as an effect of their confinement in the Correctional Institution for Women. This is to be traced on their changed roles inside the CIW in relation to the roles they undertook before serving their sentence. This inquiry may be stated otherwise in the form of the following questions:

1. What are the roles assumed by women in the correctional?
2. What are the similarities and differences of such assumed roles compared to the roles they have taken before they were situated inside the correctional?
3. How did the setting in the correctional facilitate, hinder, and/or change the roles of women?