Women’s Imprisonment and the Case for Abolition

This collection provides an important and timely contribution to current thinking regarding the use (and misuse) of incarceration throughout the world. 10 years after the death of Ashley Smith in Canada and the Corston Report in Britain, the authors provide valuable insights and analyses of the state of related reform efforts in both jurisdictions. This book urges readers to critically re-examine the norming and global reliance on the use of prisons and punishment and will hopefully inspire a future of decolonizing and decarceration, in favour of investment in and commitment to social, economic, racial and gender equality. - Senator Kim Pate, Senate of Canada, former Executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies This is a book that demands our immediate attention. Across the world women are pipelined from lives of poverty, trauma, mental illness and marginalisation to lives of prison incarceration. Every writer in this impressive collection reports on the abject failure that penal solutions offer to women in trouble. Reform is not an option. The only solution is to abolish female imprisonment and to confront the economic and political issues which promote social injustice. - Professor Penny Green, Queen Mary University of London As the population of women in prison around the world continues to surge, Women's Imprisonment and the Case for Abolition is a timely intervention. Drawing on the experience with failed penal reform efforts in the wake of Corston, both in the UK and beyond, the book provides solid evidence of the need to think outside the bars. Readers are presented with nuanced arguments and avenues for anti-carceral advocacy, grounded in thorough research across jurisdictions and disciplines. ã = Professor Debra Parkes, Chair in Feminist Legal Studies, The University of British Columbia