Product Description

The rate of women entering prison has increased nearly 400 percent since 1980, with African American women constituting the largest percentage of this population. However, despite their extremely disproportional representation in correctional institutions, little attention has been paid to their experiences within the criminal justice system.

Inner Lives provides readers the rare opportunity to intimately connect with African American women prisoners. By presenting the women's stories in their own voices, Paula C. Johnson captures the reality of those who are in the system, and those who are working to help them. Johnson offers a nuanced and compelling portrait of this fastest-growing prison population by blending legal history, ethnography, sociology, and criminology. These striking and vivid narratives are accompanied by equally compelling arguments by Johnson on how to reform our nation's laws and social policies, in order to eradicate existing inequalities. Her thorough and insightful analysis of the historical and legal background of contemporary criminal law doctrine, sentencing theories, and correctional policies sets the stage for understanding the current system.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2028361 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 339 pages

From Booklist
Johnson, a law professor, offers a look at the lives of women who have been rendered virtually invisible by their race, sex, and incarceration, noting that two-thirds of new inmates are black women. Johnson begins with a historical overview and analysis of criminal law and sentencing reform with the rise in the U.S. prison population and closes with recommendations for reform. But the most compelling part of the book is the middle section, which includes interviews with women who are or have been incarcerated. By including photographs, Johnson gives these women visibility and voice as they relate their lives, their crimes, and their efforts to remain connected to families and communities. This is a powerful look at the forces that drove these women to crime--most murdered abusive husbands and boyfriends or committed drug-related offenses--as well as their efforts to maintain ties to their children and their growing self-awareness. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Johnson illuminates how the race and gender of African American women affect how they are treated in the American criminal justice system."
-"The Women's Review of Books"
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