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98 Prison J. 3 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl98 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Social Media Usage and Reprints and permissions: Incarcerated WIom en: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOl: 10.1177/0032885517743436 A Pilot Study A Piot S udyjournals.sagepub.com/homeltpj $SAGE Julie Perkins', April Rand', and Allison Sheafferl Abstract The purpose of this pilot study was to explore social media usage among incarcerated women in a modified therapeutic community. An author- developed social media questionnaire was administered to 89 incarcerated women. Participants reported high levels of social media usage, and many had used social media to engage in criminal behavior. Although most of the women identified seeing pictures of friends actively using substances on social media as a trigger for relapse, they still planned to reactive their social media accounts upon release. The role and power of social media in these women's lives must be understood and planned for in prison-based treatment programs. Keywords social media, incarcerated women, substance abuse, modified therapeutic community Introduction Although incarcerated women constitute 7% of the U.S. prison population (Carson, 2016), their numbers grew by more than 700% between 1980 and 2014, from a 26,378 in 1980 to 215,332 in 2014 (The Sentencing Project, 2015). This growth in the female prison population has largely been the result 'University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA Corresponding Author: April Rand, University of Arkansas School of Social Work, SCSWI06, 525 Old Main, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA. Email: amrand@uark.edu