The Incarceration of Women: Punishing Bodies, Breaking Spirits(Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology)

This unique book adopts a rich theoretical, empirical and political perspective to explore the gendered incarceration of women and girls and the marginalization of their needs and rights within predominantly male penal systems. Focusing on a decade's research inside prisons in Northern Ireland, Moore and Scraton integrate in-depth interviews, focus groups, regime observation and documentary analysis to examine issues of equality, discipline, mental health, self-harm, abuse and suicide. The independent, primary research engages in controversies regarding the deaths of women in custody, a hunger strike concerning the status of politically-affiliated women prisoners, media revelations of sexual exploitation of women prisoners by male prison guards, and the use of punitive strip-searches and punishment cells for vulnerable women. Telling the story of female incarceration through the voices and experiences of women, this book provides a rare insight into the destructive and debilitating impact of prison regimes, advancing feminist analysis of women's incarceration and the criminalization of women. Moore and Scraton's study raises questions over the potential and limitations of gender specific policies, the silencing of prisoners' voices and agency, the significance of critical research in voicing prisoners' resistance and the possibilities of decarceration through adopting an abolitionist agenda.

Table of Contents:
Foreword 1. Histories of female incarceration 2. Agency, Violence and Regulation in the Incarceration of Women 3. Researching Prison: Women's Voices 4. Women's imprisonment, conflict and transition 5. Inside a Deteriorating Regime 6. Self Harm and Suicide 7. Tale of Two Inquests 8. Hydebank Wood: The Prison Within 9. Women in Prison, the Pain of Confinement and Decarceration

About the Author :
Linda Moore is Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy at the University of Ulster, UK. Phil Scraton is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Childhood, Transition and Social Justice Initiative at Queen's University, Belfast, UK. His recent books include Power, Conflict and Criminalisation, Hillsborough: The Truth and The Violence of Incarceration.

Review :
'The deplorable state of life in women's prisons too often rests in the shadows of discussions focused entirely on men's incarceration. In this extraordinary piece of investigative research, Phil Scraton and Linda Moore elevate that status to red-alert levels, revealing the overlooked conditions of imprisoned women as part of an urgent, top-to-bottom criminological and human rights crisis.' - Patricia J. Williams, Columnist, The Nation Magazine and Professor of Law, Columbia University School of Law, USA 'A startlingly dark and profoundly disturbing analysis of women's experiences of violence, neglect and resistance in prison in the North of Ireland. Uniquely situated within the legacy of paramilitary imprisonment and transition from political conflict, it speaks to concerns regarding the structural determining contexts of institutional violence and injustice in women's prisons globally.' - Bree Carlton, Monash University, Australia 'Linda Moore and Phil Scraton's book awakens our sensibilities and unlocks our minds to appreciate the massive harms prisons impose on a growing population of women. This important book draws upon the researchers' political engaged ethnography of life inside a women's prison as well as deeply detailed transnational and historical analysis of penal regimes for women. The authors bear witness to forms of 'institutionalized' abuse, intimidation, and neglect that create intolerable conditions for incarcerated women and make the strong case for an urgent and fundamental rethinking of use of punishment in modern societies.' - Kristin Bumiller, Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA 'The Incarceration of Women: Punishing Bodies, Breaking Spirits is an historical, biographical and empirical account of the devastating institutional experiences which have besieged the lives of incarcerated women in Northern Ireland over decades. The powerful combination of methodological rigor, deliberate contextualisation, unambiguous narratives and an even-handed analysis has produced one of the most thorough and candid ethnographical works on women in prison of our time. Not only do Scraton and Moore reveal and stand against the harmful, oppressive conditions and disturbing realities of women's imprisonment, they also stand up for a more humane, more ethical 'criminology' in the process.' - Lillian Artz, Gender, Health and Justice Research Unit, University of Cape Town, South Africa