The prisons don´t only represent the architectural, administrative and functional elements of the penal system, but they also are important ecosystem contexts of socialization and education and reeducation, especially for interned people. In this paperwe present an approach to the Spanish prison reality from a gender and social educational perspective. We will highlight espacially the systemconfiguration, in order to knowhowitworks, its organization and classification. For that reasonwe will analyze the different types of centers according to established life schemes, focusing on the conception of time and the impact of life in prison. This investigation is part of a national study conducted with women prisoners (Ref. EDU2009-13408).The research methodology were both quantitative and qualitative in a sample of 538 valid questionnaires and 61 semi-structured interviews, noting that spaces are constituted as living entities that can influence in prison life in a positive way to promote a context, a time anda socio educational opportunity or they may be used as mechanisms of segregation, movement control, and as mechanism of power to implement "internal separation".Thecondemns times, along with the space, affect the experience and attitudes thatdetermine howtodealwith her reality and their preparation of their free life come back, so they have tobe taken into account for the implementation of programs from the multiple realities of the protagonists. They have to be effective, comprehensive, to prevent recidivism and so on.Furthermore, the paper left opened lines of intervention and unsolved issues that stand as challenges and outstanding issues for the administration, the society, the prisoners and social education.