This document provides an overview of pseudo families that form in prison. It discusses what pseudo families are, why inmates join them, the roles that exist within pseudo families, sources of conflict, and how power and control can manifest. Pseudo families form support networks and fill social roles for inmates. However, they can also experience domestic violence and abuse mirroring dynamics outside of prison. The roles, conflicts, and power issues are illustrated through examples from the TV show Orange is the New Black.

1. PSEUDO FAMILIES
Domestic Violence in Prison Families
MARCH 31, 2016
HAROLD SOWARDS II
CJ 440: Margaret Brown

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Table of Contents
What is a pseudo family? –Pg. 2
Why join a pseudo family? – Pg. 2- 3
Roles of a pseudo family- Pg. 3-5
Conflict- Pg. 5-7
Using the Power and Control Wheel to Evaluate Pseudo Families- Pg. 7- 9
Stages of abuse –Pg. 9
Piper- Pg. 9-11
References- Pg. 12-14

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What is a pseudo family?
It is time to delve into pseudo family violence, but first it is important to understand
what these pseudo families are. According to Auds (2006), a pseudo family can be described as
a family not related to you, but pretends to be and cares about you. The best example of this is
commonly found in prison, with the television show Orange is the New Black being a well-
known example of the said phenomenon. According to Bedard (2009), these pseudo families
can be anywhere from 15-20 inmates and various roles (mother, father, sister, brother,
grandparents) are present. According to Women in Prison, males in prison usually reside in
gangs, while females start families and give membership to it out for closeness and support.
According to Selling (1931), there are permanent, stable families that exist and secondary
families that exist for shorter time periods while in prison.
According to Zaitzow and Thomas (2003), pseudo families are also known as “state
families” and are usually more common in medium security prisons and aren’t too present in
minimum security.
Why join a pseudo family?
According to Bedard (2009), females join because they need emotional or economic
support along with protection. It is usually economic to obtain canteen or contraband that isn’t
allowed in prison. Females need to cope with loneliness and are in need in companionship and
it is this need for non-sexual relationships that create these pseudo families. Being incarcerated
magnifies the loss of not being with their children and these pseudo families provide a support
system to talk with and get advice and to learn survival techniques (Bedard, 2009). According to
Silvia (2014), these pseudo families are created due to the lack of visitation from the female’s

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bio family. These families form close bonds, are helpful and supportive, help with psychological
discomfort and help the females survive in prison. According to Fleisher and Krienert (2006),
they form because of boredom, forced association and lack of privacy.
According to Zaitzow and Thomas (2003), pseudo families are substitutes for their
families on the outside. Females usually want to: feel accepted, loved, to love someone, not be
alone and to be able to share problems. According to Benedict (2009), women are afraid of
being vulnerable when they enter prison due to the forced interaction with strangers and
therefore join pseudo families to build companionships to combat these vulnerable feelings.
According to Bedard (2008), pseudo families are not found in male facilities as males tend to
join gangs, which include formal (real) and informal (location, race and activity). According to
Silvia (2014), 2 to 69% of all females in prison participate in these pseudo families and up to
94% of them participate in homosexual acts.
Roles of a Pseudo Family
According to Benedict (2009), the adopted family roles can be more traditional (wife,
mother, daughter, and sister) and those roles are paired with a male role (stud or a butch).
According to Silvia (2014), the role breakdown in pseudo families are: 2% male, 2% both, 45%
female (of which: 31% sister, 13% mom and 18% daughter) and 51% are neither. The daughters
and nieces are considered to be more vulnerable, while brothers and nephews are considered
more masculine with the most masculine roles being fathers and uncles. According to Bedard
(2009), there is a mother character, who is usually older or more experienced in a prison setting
and provides advice and listens to the rest of the family. For an example of this, we can look at
Kohan’s Orange is The New Black, where we see the head of the kitchen, Red being the head of

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the family, because she provides advice to all the girls in the prison. Then there is Gloria who is
the Mexican mother of the prison and takes over the kitchen in order to provide for her family.
In season two of the show, Vee takes over as the black mother and leads a black revolution for
the prison and her role is later replaced by Taystee in season 3. Benedict (2009), points out
that there are squares who are non-criminals that want to gain the respect of others, while
being considered a “good Christian woman”. A “cool” is a professional offender who wants to
manipulate the prison life for prestige, power or wealth. While a “life” maintains loyalty to the
inmate society and stands up to authority, which is the basis of the pseudo families.
According to Bedard (2009), there are husbands who are usually manlier and provide
protection to the family, sometimes in exchange for sex. According to Fleisher & Krienert
(2006), the very feminine females are considered femmes in most consensual relationships and
the females (according to the authors the lesbians or Africans) who are manlier and exhibit
more male behaviors are considered to be the studs, broads and butches of these relationships.
Using Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, the main butch would be Big Boo, who usually offers
the most protection to the girls in the facility in exchange for sexual favors, while Nicky is one of
the more favorable lesbians. These two women even have a sexual escapade game to see who
can bang the most chicks during season two of the show. Male prison roles are a different story
all together. According to Benedict (2009), a wolf is an aggressive sexual partner, while a
punk/fag is the submissive sexual partner.
According to Greer (2000), these pseudo families establish the lost familial roles and the
social structures of them allow marriages and divorces to occur. It should be noted, however
that all of these roles that are distributed are all temporary. Inmates then adjust to prison by

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establishing a homosexual alliance with a compatible marriage partner. Usually they adopt the
overly assumed sex roles and conform their appearance based off these assumptions as a way
to reconstruct a “substitute universe” to adapt to the loss of roles performed in the real world.
According to Bowker (1981), female pseudo families have parents, children,
grandparents, aunts and cousins. Silvia (2014) also mentions roles such as: husband, wives,
sisters, brothers, daughters and sons. According to Fleisher & Krienert (2006), male inmates
turn to homosexual relationships to cope with their situations. The male inmate provides
protection and the male wife obtains goods for the man.
Conflict
According to Silvia (2014), in pseudo families it is common that the dad of the family
brings the food to the family and because of this dynamic of protection and economic gain,
rivalries occur quite often. These pseudo families are difficult for prison staff to manage as
there is no relationship info given to them. According to Fleisher & Krienert (2006), canteen
punks and box whores avoid beatings and gain economic benefits due to their homosexual
behaviors, but a problem occurs because they are considered to be coerced and are only
consenting to the actin to gain goods or protection. Most of the incarcerated women have been
desensitized to sexual coercion and therefore may not perceive a distinction between coercive
and other sex forms. Usually there is retaliatory sexual assault that occurs when there is a
sexual attack against someone to act as a reprisal for a non-sexual wrong against a friend of the
attacker.
According to Fleisher & Krienert (2006), when there is a male wife in prison it usually
causes jealousy and conflict amongst the other inmates. Due to this dynamic, the following

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actions are common: propositioning (no threats present), player (force and threats common),
gorillas, booty bandits, asshole bandits, and bandits (attempt to sodomize other men). These
situations cause chronic anxiety, depression, suicidal intentions and self-isolation. The victim
then has the dilemma of reporting the aggressor, because if he does he is given the label
“snitch” and is open to reprisals of sexual aggressions, with the alternative to this being
protective custody which limits all activities, forcing the victim to take it out on their own and
fight or submit to the abuse.
According to Kelley (2014), brings up the violence caused by the gangs in the male
prison. The Mexican Mafia controls gambling and prostitution in prison while the Aryan
Brotherhood is responsible for 18% of murders in prison. Basically, if you cross one of these
gangs, it doesn’t end well. According to Zaitzow & Thomas (2003), pseudo families are used to
establish a social order to provide support for resistance against other women who may try to
harm or cheat a member of the family and the sexual intimacy is consensual in these situations.
An example of this comes from Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, when the black
pseudo family under Vee attack Red for not going along with Vee’s idea of using the
greenhouse to help smuggle in drugs. This can further be shown, when Alex threatens to rape
Pennsatucky after she continues to bad mouth Piper for getting the nod into the WAC. Even
more can be said of this when Suzanne beats up Poussey for getting drunk and bad mouthing
Vee. Also, when Sophia’s ex-wife stops providing rides for Gloria’s son, she becomes a pariah
(psychological abuse) and her saloon loses business and for her actions she is beaten by two
other inmates in the shower. Big Boo helps Pennsatucky enact revenge over CO Coates for
raping her in the van.

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According to Muscat (2008), the women bring what they learned from their real families
into the pseudo family, this includes: violence, abuse and victimization. This is shown in Kohan’s
Orange is the New Black, has Gloria was involved in domestic violence before she became
incarcerated and was arrested for committing food stamps fraud and she brings this dynamic
into the pseudo family she is in. Vee before prison was a drug dealer and carries this dynamic
in with her as she starts dealing heroin in the prison.
According to Greer (2000), the more inequalities that exist in the economic status of the
prison, the more likely there will be power differentials as more money usually means more
power. This is why it is common to find canteen/commissary whores who have sex to improve
their economic standing. In Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, Vee and the black pseudo family
start an illegal underground cigarette dealership and begin to sell them in exchange for goods
and start exchanging them for sexual favors from other inmates. It is due to this cigarette
business that the black pseudo family starts gaining power and say in the prison.
Greer (2000), also points out that even in these pseudo families, they suffer from the
perception that no one can be trusted, because they are usually manipulated and there is
mistrust throughout the families. To prove this point, looking at Kohan’s Orange is the New
Black, after Red cuts off Tricia for drugs (causing her to go to the SHU), Nicky goes behind Red’s
back to the guards and tells them about the smuggling business that Red is in and how she
manages to get everything into the prison. When Red loses her head cooking job, she wants to
get her job back and sabotages the kitchen which results in a grease fire and causes her former
“family”, Norma and Murphy, to defriend her and reject all contact with her.
Using the Power and Control Women to Evaluate Pseudo Families

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According to Muscat (2008), pseudo families force a victim into giving the abuser all
their money or possessions at the shop (economic abuse). Victim loses all power and stature in
prison if they stop talking to the family (emotional abuse). They are taunted and made to feel
shame, guilt while enhancing the feelings of being alone, isolated and dependent on someone
else (psychological abuse). Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, explores this when Piper is
granted furlough and the other inmates start abusing her and start name calling her because
they feel like she is being granted special privileges because of her relationship with the
warden. According to Muscat (2008), pseudo families can threaten to have a victim moved from
the prison, cause them to lose their release date or get them in trouble (using coercion and
threats). For example, using Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, Tricia doesn’t want to let her
girlfriend Mercy get out of prison and tries her hardest to get her release date pushed back, but
in the end decides not to go through with the plans to do so.
According to Muscat (2008), pseudo families tend to use each other to intimidate other
members of the prison in order to get what they want (intimidation, using others). Using
Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, we see Big Boo, Taystee and other members of the pseudo
family giving Piper advice and a weapons (screw driver) to go after Pennsatucky, which results
in her beating up Pennsatucky in the courtyard. According to Muscat (2008), usually in the
sexual relationships in these prisons the abuser is usually the more masculine one, because
they want to be the focal point of the relationship (Privilege). The person who usually
introduces someone new into the family tends to want to become the owner of the person and
becomes jealous of any partners the person has in a program, who they talk to, and who comes
to their aid (emotional abuse).

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For example, using Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, Nicky continues to hide her drug
stash from her family and once Red finds out that this is the case, disowns her from the family
causing her to be out on her own and causes her to want to find a way to get back into the
family, in this scenario it was Red who adopted her into the family and because of this has full
control over her situation. After Red has been kicked out as the head of the kitchen and loses all
her economic and social status, she is adopted in a new pseudo family unit with the older ladies
of the prison. Vee is disowned from her own family and is no longer seen as a parenting figure
after she becomes paranoid after losing her heroin stash which causes her to be friendless and
alone and results in her escaping from the prison via the greenhouse.
Manipulation is commonplace in Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, especially for
Suzanne (who is mentally handicapped) and she is easily taken advantage of by Vee who
befriends her and begins to establish her rise to power with the black family of the prison.
After Vee assaults Red, she tries to force Suzanne into taking the blame for her actions.
Stages of abuse
According to Muscat (2008), there is the tension building phase. In this phase, there is
usually verbal alterations, disrespect, no communication, jealousy and controlling behavior
frequently occurs. Then there is the acute battery incident. In this phase, there is kicking,
punching, biting, strangulation, sodomy, sexual assaults, throwing the victim against objects
and throwing objects at the victim. Then finally there is the honeymoon phase. Here they
usually apologize for the actions that have taken place and usually engage in sexual behaviors.
Piper

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Kohan’s Orange is the New Black, shows the stages of domestic violence in a relationship
really well using the characters Alex and Piper. Season 1 shows them in a relationship before they
ended up in prison together and then picks up when they are both in prison with Piper being with
a man named Larry. Their relationship starts out hostile as Piper thinks it was Alex who had put
her in prison by naming her for her help in the drug operation on the outside. Alex then lies about
this and says that she never did this (minimizing, denying and blaming) and they become friendly
together. During this time, Alex and Nicky start flirting. Piper and Alex share a semi-sexualized
dance at one of the prison functions and this ends up getting Piper sent to SHU, and upon her
release from it proceeds to having sex with Alex. They have some problems agreeing on
Pennsatucky being in the psych ward, but it is because of Piper’s bravery in this situation that
Alex becomes more attracted to Piper.
Things begin to go downhill as Larry informs Piper that Alex did in fact name her in the
case, which causes Piper to become angry at Alex again. Piper decides to choose Larry, but after
Larry and Alex talk, Larry breaks up with Piper and Piper tries to go back to Alex, who ends up
pushing her away and wants nothing to do with her. During this time, Alex has sex with Nicky.
The first season, shows that Piper wants to be the center of the relationship, Alex denies all of
her involvement in putting Piper in prison, Alex and Piper both have been dishonest in their
relationship with each other, Piper with Larry and Alex with Nicky, there have been hostile
incidences between them involving lots of yelling and avoiding each other with some name
calling, this all resides in stage one of the domestic violence circle, because of the jealousy aspect
going on with their four-way relationship, there is no communication in the beginning and again
towards the end of it and there is disrespect being shown.

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In season two, Alex and Piper start off in Chicago testifying against their old drug boss
Kubra, in which they both agree to perjure their testimony, but Alex ends up telling the truth,
causing Piper to shout angrily at Alex and distrust her yet again. Once Piper is granted furlough,
she finds out that Larry has been sleeping with her old best friend, Polly, and this causes her to
seek comfort in Alex who informs her that Kubra was not convicted and that she testified the
way she did in order to save Piper from being killed. Again, this season makes it known that Piper
is easily manipulated in her love relationships and again falls in the first stage of the domestic
violence circle, this time with verbal altercations going on.
In season three, Alex returns to Litchfield and the two reconcile. Alex is then confronted
with the news that Piper ratted on her to the Parole Officer(Piper wanted control of the situation
and wasn’t ok with Alex being on the outside without her, using isolation) and this causes the
two to fight. During a theater class, the two reconcile. Piper then begins flirting with Stella (she
just has to have a love triangle), and a nude Stella eventually makes out with Piper in the
bathroom (complete dishonesty/cheating). Alex observing these interactions confronts them in
Piper’s bunk. After seeing Piper fire Flaca for starting an uprising in the used panties business,
Alex becomes repulsed by Piper and quits the business and the relationship, which causes Piper
to backlash against her and starts degrading her and showing off her new economic status (using
emotional abuse, using male privilege, using economic abuse). Piper tries holding Stella’s hand
at the movie, but it is revealed that she is getting out soon. She then learns that Stella was the
one stealing the profits from the panty business and retaliates by framing her for having
dangerous contraband (using others), which leaves Piper all alone for the first time in the
complicated relationships that reside in the show.

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