Female behaviour in prison can be influenced through a number of factors. Isolation, confinement, completely another life are to name but a few. All of the incarcerated women have their own stories how they got to jail. Some of them might have never experienced positive relations in the society, but this could be found in prison.
There are a few types of relationships built by female offenders in jail. On the one hand, friendship, mimic family roles in prison subculture can ease serving their sentence and they could also be encouraged by guards. Yet on the other hand, sexual relationships can be both beneficial and disadvantageous for women and mostly it depends on the nature of the relationships. Indeed, there is a risk for inmates because of distrust, changes in behaviour, jealousy and manipulative nature of relations. In most situations after woman's release from jail once the tight links are not being maintained. Nevertheless, prison families give a feeling of belonging to some society that is so needed during imprisonment (Bennett, L.).
Female are influenced by the closed environment and, thus, those who have had no homosexual relationships before incarceration very often get involved in them being in prison. The reasons for this vary a lot: economic manipulation, genuine feelings, and attempt to avoid loneliness, curiosity and violence. For the vast majority who are in homosexual relationships economic motivation and a need in a companion play the most important role. The latter one helps ease psychological discomfort as the female suffer from the isolation even stronger than men, although, it can be rather situational or even suppressed homosexuality. Economic manipulation is usually used by those who do not have any money but can receive presents from their companions (Pardue, A., Arrigo, B. A., Murphy D. S.).
There have been attempts of the wardens to separate studs and femmes, but they were stopped after the media started investigation looking for the reasons of breaking inmates' civil rights. In my view, such separating could be advantageous to incarcerated females in order to prevent the diseases and violence as the relationships in prison can be threatening and harmful if they are coercive.
In general the relationships in prison can be beneficial for female inmates as well as detrimental. If they are not based on manipulative actions, compliance or coercion the relations can provide protection, safety, let someone to be a part of a mimic family and avoid the feeling of loneliness.
References
Bennett, L. Managing Sexual Relationships in a Female Prison. Bandyup Women's Prison, WA. http://www.aic.gov.au/events/aic%20upcoming%20events /2000/~/media/conferences/womencorrections/bennett.ashx;
Greer, K. R. (December 1, 2010). The Changing Nature of Interpersonal Relationships in a Women's Prison. The Prison Journal. http://www.wcl.american.edu/endsilence /documents/interpersonalrelationshipsinwomensprisons.pdf;
Inside a Maximum Security Women's Prison. (March 23, 2004). http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=607554&page=2#.UH5jUFHIcuc;
Pardue, A., Arrigo, B. A., Murphy D. S. (June 8, 2011). Sex and Sexuality in Women's Prisons: A Preliminary Typological Investigation. http://tpj.sagepub.com /content/91/3/279.full.pdf+html;
Virginia Women's Prison Segregated Lesbians in 'Butch Wing' (June 10, 2009). …