Lives of Incarcerated Women

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from around the world, this book brings together renowned international scholars to explore life-course perspectives on women’s imprisonment. Instead of covering only one aspect of women’s carceral experiences, this book offers a broader perspective that encompasses women’s pathways to prison, their prison experiences and the effects of these experiences on their children’s well-being, as well as their subsequent chances of desisting from crime.Encompassing perspectives from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, the United States, Ukraine and Sri Lanka, this book uncovers the similarities across time and space in women offenders’ life histories and those of their children and examines the differences in women’s experiences and trajectories by shedding light on the moderating effects of particular cultural contexts.Lives of Incarcerated Women will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of punishment, penology, life-course criminology, women and crime and gender studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners.

‘This ambitious book provides a unique window into a complex yet largely under-researched topic - the lives of incarcerated women. The collection of papers offers both wide coverage and rich insights. The authors have captured the complexities of the diverse suite of vulnerabilities faced by incarcerated women, illustrating the many hurdles which impact upon further offending and victimization risks. The editors are to be commended for pulling off this substantial olume, which is a must-read for scholars, students, and practitioners with an interest in understanding victimization and offending across the life-course and, most importantly, the unique circumstances of incarcerated women.’ - Paul Mazerolle, Professor of Criminology, Griffith University, Australia‘This much-needed book illuminates the lives of incarcerated women and offers new ways of thinking about risk and resilience. The chapters and the book as a whole fully reflect a life course perspective, highlighting that the women’s challenges and vulnerabilities do not start or end with the incarceration experience itself. The result is a nuanced portrait that captures the play of gender against the broader landscape of particular structural and cultural contingencies, and recognizes the immediacy of the world of personal relationships (e.g., romantic partners, children, police) the women must continually navigate.’ - Peggy C. Giordano, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, USA

Candace Kruttschnitt is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and served as President of the American Society of Criminology. She received her PhD from Yale University and her research has focused on women offenders, the victimization of women and female inmates. She is the author and editor of several books and government reports related to female offending, victimization and imprisonment.Catrien Bijleveld studied psychology and criminal law, both at Leiden University. Her PhD was on the statistical analysis of categorical time series. After working as an assistant professor at Leiden University she moved to the WODC Research and Documentation Center of the Netherlands Ministry of Justice. In 2001, she moved to NSCR in Leiden, and became professor of Criminological Research Methods at the VU University in Amsterdam.