Researching Female Prisoners - Documentary

I watched the 2009 documentary Female Felons (season 4, episode 1), by Lock Down to get an understanding of the conditions they lived in, the reasons for their convictions and their appearances. The documentary follows the female inmates of Maryland Correctional Institute for Women. In this prison the very high risk offenders, who are highly dangerous and violent, are mixed with the low risk offenders, which causes conflict.

Female Prisoners
GRIGSBY, S., 2014. When the War on Women Meets the War on Drugs [14 October 2015]. Available from:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/21/1347205/-when-the-war-on-women-meets-the-war-on-drugs

The documentary focuses on certain inmates to hear their stories of why they are in the prison. One woman was sentenced to 5 years for attempting to sell crack and it is her third conviction  because of her crack addiction. Another inmate got hooked on pain killers, so when her prescription ran out she found drugs from other places and started replying on more dangerous drugs, such as heroine and cocaine. She turned to crime to support her addition and she was convicted of first degree burglary and given an 8 year sentence. Another example is a woman who was given a life sentence after killing a man during an attempted robbery at his home and she was also convicted of carrying a first degree hand gun. She was a drug addict at the time of her conviction.

I noticed that most of the women that were in this prison were uneducated and had abused drugs in the past or are still trying to stop their addiction; these drugs include heroine and cocaine. I want my character to have had a heroine addiction in the past and to therefore have the appearance of a drug addict. I will look into the effects that taking this drug would have on someone and incorporate that into my character's makeup and hair styling.

You are allowed to wear makeup in Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, however after a while I don't think my inmates really care about what the other women think they look like and most of the women wore no makeup at all. There was only one woman I saw in the documentary that had a full face of makeup on and she had been in the prison for over 30 years, however most of the women either had very little mascara on or some lip balm on their lips. The women don't take much time or care on their hair and their hair is either completely down or it has been scraped back into a low, sometimes messy, low ponytail. All the inmates wear very oversized jumpers and trousers that are a jersey material. There are no patterns or logos on the clothing, it is all just one plain colour, usually light grey.

Resources:
Lock Down - Female Felons, 2009[TV]. National Geographic Channel. 14 June 2009.