Article A Token for Your Thoughts? Perceptions of Tokenism Among Female Corrections Executives Kimberly Collica-Cox 1 and Dorothy M. Schulz 2 Abstract The increasing number of women corrections executives indicates improvement in their oppor- tunities for career advancement. This article examines the perceptions of women in corrections supervisory and management ranks regarding their opportunities for continuing upward mobility, whether they or their peers view them as tokens and whether those views may impact their decisions to pursue promotion up to and including wardens or corrections administrators. Based on surveys and interviews with members of the Association of Women Executives in Corrections, this study found that most women felt promotional opportunities were equally available for men and women. The women did not report feeling the isolation associated with tokenism, but they did report feeling high levels of visibility. Despite facing aspects of tokenism, they were not deterred from seeking advancement, and they noted that each subsequent promotion after the first one presented fewer problems for them and for their organizations. Keywords women corrections executives, promotion, tokenism, wardens, upward mobility Presently, 18% of state corrections agencies are led by women (Collica-Cox & Schulz, 2018). Almost 50 years after women walked through the gates of men’s prisons, there are a sufficient number of women corrections executives to conduct a meaningful study on factors, such as tokenism, that restrict, but do not preclude, their ability to achieve promotion (Collica-Cox & Schulz, 2019b). Tokenism explains how numerical minorities in the workplace impact group dynamics and negatively affect the token, in this case women, who are employed in a traditionally male-dominated environment. With the hiring of the initial prison matron in 1822, corrections became the first criminal justice profession open to women (Belknap, 2007). Since their only interest was working with women in sex-segregated facilities, men had no reason to feel threatened professionally by their presence 1 Criminal Justice and Security, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, PACE University, New York, NY, USA 2 Law, Police Studies and Criminal Justice Administration, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), New York, NY, USA Corresponding Author: Kimberly Collica-Cox, Criminal Justice and Security, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, PACE University, 41 Park Row, 11th Floor/Room 1126, New York, NY 10038, USA. Email: kcollicacox@pace.edu Criminal Justice Review 1-21 ª 2020 Georgia State University Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0734016820902259 journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr