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Offending Women: Power, Punishment, and the Regulation of Desire
Offending Women is an eye-opening journey into the lived reality of prison for women in the United States today. Lynne Haney looks at incarcerated mothers, housed together with their children, who are serving terms in alternative, community-based prisons-a type of facility that is becoming increasingly widespread. Incorporating vivid, sometimes shocking observations of daily life, she probes the dynamics of power over women's minds and bodies that play out in two such institutions in California. She finds that these “alternative” prisons, contrary to their aims, often end up disempowering women, transforming their social vulnerabilities into personal pathologies, and pushing them into a state of disentitlement. Uncovering the complex gendered underpinning of methods of control and intervention used in the criminal justice system today, Offending Women links that system to broader discussions on contemporary government and state power, asks why these strategies have arisen at this particular moment in time, and considers what forms of citizenship they have given rise to.
- GenresFeminism
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 15, 2022
Pretty interesting, now I need to write two papers on this
April 29, 2010
In Offending Women, ethnographer and sociologist Lynne Haney takes readers on a journey into “a world that few people would otherwise have access to”: the everyday reality of the lives of incarcerated women. She introduces readers to incarcerated mothers who are housed together with their children and serving terms in community-based prisons, a type of facility that is becoming increasingly widespread in the US. Haney uncovers the complex layers of control and contestation in these institutions, as well as the relationship of dominance and power that characterize them. The book analyzes the practices, programmatic narratives, and effects of two state prisons in the US, and offers ethnographic and theoretical insights into how programs like these work. Haney's primary aim is to explain how the treatment of imprisoned women has changed over the past decade.
Haney finds that these “alternative” prisons, contrary to their stated goals, often disempower women by transforming their social vulnerabilities into personal pathologies. She exposes the complex gendered underpinnings of methods of control and intervention used in the criminal justice system and links that system to broader discussions of contemporary government and state power by asking why these strategies have emerged and what forms of citizenship they have given rise to. While the intentions of the state were to "empower" and "enhance self-reliance," Haney suggests they instead push women into a state of disentitlement.
Offending Women uncovers two fundamental ways in which states of disentitlement operate: through the narrowing of woman’s needs and the regulation of women’s desires. Enriched with vivid images and details on incarcerated women’s lives, this book reminds us of incarcerated women's social realities. All of them faced poverty and experienced neglect, abandonment, and restricted access to social support. The fact that they not only survived histories of abuse, but managed to keep their familial bonds intact is outstanding. Offending Women acknowledges and honors these women's survival in a social system that promotes their demise.
Review by Olivera Simic
Haney finds that these “alternative” prisons, contrary to their stated goals, often disempower women by transforming their social vulnerabilities into personal pathologies. She exposes the complex gendered underpinnings of methods of control and intervention used in the criminal justice system and links that system to broader discussions of contemporary government and state power by asking why these strategies have emerged and what forms of citizenship they have given rise to. While the intentions of the state were to "empower" and "enhance self-reliance," Haney suggests they instead push women into a state of disentitlement.
Offending Women uncovers two fundamental ways in which states of disentitlement operate: through the narrowing of woman’s needs and the regulation of women’s desires. Enriched with vivid images and details on incarcerated women’s lives, this book reminds us of incarcerated women's social realities. All of them faced poverty and experienced neglect, abandonment, and restricted access to social support. The fact that they not only survived histories of abuse, but managed to keep their familial bonds intact is outstanding. Offending Women acknowledges and honors these women's survival in a social system that promotes their demise.
Review by Olivera Simic
May 13, 2011
read the first chapter via free download and now can't wait to get my hands on the rest. it's a study of a "hybrid" correctional institution for teen moms and their babies. fascinating so far, beautifully written, and demonstrates the kind of analytical complexity i appreciate in ethnographic work.
finally got my hands on the actual book--almost can't put it down. it's novel gripping. except maybe the chapter on the reorganization of the state in the 90s and its implications for state level corrections. but even that was fascinating to me., in part because it explained so much about many institutions, but also haney's writing is so lucid.
the ethnography itself is heartbreaking and well analyzed. this is a must read for anyone interested in women, race, poverty, and therapeutic culture.
the most class telling, least heartbreaking moment: the struggle in the facility between the inmates' demands for top ramen and the staff's insistence that these women from south central LA should learn to love luna bars.
finally got my hands on the actual book--almost can't put it down. it's novel gripping. except maybe the chapter on the reorganization of the state in the 90s and its implications for state level corrections. but even that was fascinating to me., in part because it explained so much about many institutions, but also haney's writing is so lucid.
the ethnography itself is heartbreaking and well analyzed. this is a must read for anyone interested in women, race, poverty, and therapeutic culture.
the most class telling, least heartbreaking moment: the struggle in the facility between the inmates' demands for top ramen and the staff's insistence that these women from south central LA should learn to love luna bars.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews