Women Exiting Prison Critical Essays on Gender, Post-Release Support and Survival

This excellent and overdue collection illuminates the much misunderstood and seldom examined issues impacting on women leaving prison. The book debunks the myth of rehabilitation and examines the realities of women facing the challenges of intersecting social and economic disadvantages alongside injustice and oppression. The collection, focusing on the struggles of women attempting to exit prison and survive outside, is essential reading for all those interested in women, prison and justice. Jude McCulloch, Professor of Criminology and the Head of the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash Univeristy, Australia. Women Exiting Prison draws together cutting-edge research by internationally renowned authors. It calls for a new framework of understanding that entails a renewed commitment to decarceration and a reframing of the concept of 'responsibility' when applied to women who are already marginalised, living in poverty and victims of abuse. It exhorts researchers not to continue to service the 'reintegration industries' by colluding with the promotion of narrowly-focused 'programmes' and instead to expose the unacceptable social and economic conditions that so predictably produce the women who constitute the majority of the female prison population in all countries. The editors are to be congratulated on producing a collection that really does say something new and stands out in a crowded market. Anne Worrall, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Criminological Research, University of Keele This engaging collection of essays is a welcome contribution to feminist criminology and to our understanding of the impact of prison on women. Drawing together scholars from around the world, the editors have produced a high calibre publication that moves ahead many debates about punishment and prisoner re-entry. Evenly balanced between empirical and theoretical debate, the essays seek to ameliorate and challenge current practice. This link to activism and the evident commitment contributors have to the community of women affected by the criminal justice policies offers a renewed and compelling vision of radical criminology at a time when much of the field has seemingly drifted from political engagement. Mary Bosworth, Reader in Criminology at the University of Oxford and Professor of Criminology at Monash University.