"A Lot of People are Being Locked Up Because a Lot of People are Numbing Themselves": Rape Culture in the Lives of Incarcerated Women in Washington, D.C.

In this dissertation, I explore the concept of "rape culture" in the United States, examining how different types of violence within such a culture impacted the lives of twenty-three formerly and currently incarcerated women in Washington, D.C. After conducting thirty months of data collection at a prison reentry organization in Washington D.C., including participant-observation, forty-four interviews with research participants, and a focus group with prison reentry staff members, I engaged in qualitative data analysis to provide evidence for my assertions that currently and formerly incarcerated women were both "offenders" and "victims" of various forms of violence and inequalities. By examining these blurred lines between my research participants' identities as offenders and victims, I suggest that many of these women became involved in criminalized activities specifically because they were trying to cope with or recover from sexual victimization. I theorize and explore the concept of "rape culture," arguing that such a culture has three different forms of interconnected violence that overlap within the lives of survivors of sexual violence. I define, identify, and examine each type of violence in my research participants' lives, concluding that these three forms of violence profoundly impacted the women's lives before, during, and after incarceration. In conclusion, I offer a series of recommendations for prison policy reform and broad legal system reform based on suggestions made by my research participants.