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Breaking women : gender, race, and the new politics of imprisonment / Jill A. McCorkel.
LIBRA HV6791 .M383 2013
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- McCorkel, Jill A.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Female offenders--Rehabilitation--United States.
- Female offenders.
- Women prisoners--Services for--United States.
- Women prisoners.
- Corrections--United States.
- Corrections.
- Women prisoners--Services for.
- Female offenders--Rehabilitation.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- xv, 272 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : New York University Press, [2013]
- Summary:
- In Breaking Women, Jill A. McCorkel draws upon four years of research in a major U.S. women's prison to uncover why tougher drug policies have so greatly affected those incarcerated there, and how the very nature of punishment in women's correctional facilities has been deeply altered as a result. Through compelling interviews with prisoners and state personnel, McCorkel reveals that popular "habilitation" drug treatment programs, designed to be responsive to the supposed gendered and culturally specific needs of women offenders, are punitive and degrading. Forcing women to accept a view of themselves as inherently damaged addicts in exchange for an earlier release, these programs often leave prisoners feeling lost and alienated and fail to provide any meaningful therapeutic alternative to mass incarceration. A fascinating yet sobering study, Breaking Women offers a vivid account of the contemporary penal system. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Introduction: searching for red's self
- Getting tough on women: how punishment changed
- Taking over: the private company in the public prison
- From good girls to real criminals: race made visible
- The eyes are watching you: finding the real self
- Diseased women: crack whores, bad mothers, and welfare queens
- Rentin' out your head: navigating claims about the self
- Unruly selves: forms of prisoner resistance
- Conclusion: what if the cure is worse than the disease?
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-261) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780814761489
- 0814761488
- 9780814761496
- 0814761496
- OCLC:
- 819717777
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