Women who are placed in prison usually have a much more problematic situation compared to men concerning addiction, housing, economy, work and social relations. Many suffer from anxiety and depression. *Women in prison have a greater need to talk about traumatic child experiences, being exposed to violence by men and having their children placed in foster care. They also have deep feelings of quilt and shame in relation to not being bale to live up to the conventional expectation of the role of motherhood. Shame seems s to be an emotion that has always been present in their life career. The staff often experience feelings of fear anxiety, frustration, disgust and depression and more seldom happiness, hope and satisfaction. An objectification and dissociation from the inmates is not unusual. Often the "feeling rules" that exists in the staff and inmate culture are discussed after dramatic escapes or riots. It should be noted though that women in prison in Sweden never have organised riots or violent escapes. it is according to Crawley (2004) much more interesting to examine these emotional experiences "when everything is as usual". What emotions are allowed to be expressed, when and under what circumstances? The purpose of this paper is to discuss the front stage "feeling rules" of the inmate and staff culture and how these rules becomes hindrance for creating deeper relations to "the other" and relations which are built on mutual respect, humanism and that can lead to a more rehabilitation oriented attitude from both inmates and staff.