Women Exiting Prison Critical Essays on Gender, Post-Release Support and Survival Routledge Studies in Crime and Society Series

Women?s incarceration is on the rise globally and this has significant intergenerational, economic and humanitarian costs for communities across the world. While there have been efforts to implement reform, particularly in countries such as Canada, UK, US and Australia, the growing evidence suggests women?s prisons and the support structures surrounding them are in crisis.

This collection of critical essays presents groundbreaking research on women?s post-imprisonment policy, practice and experiences. It is the first collection to offer international perspectives on gender, criminalisation, the effects of imprisonment and women-centred approaches to the short and long-term support of women exiting prison. It offers cutting-edge insights into contemporary policy developments and women?s experiences across the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Northern Ireland.

The collection makes two important contributions. First, it marks a departure from an instrumental and individual focus on ?what works? to reduce women?s offending and re-offending behaviour - a prevailing approach within competing collections focused on post-release issues. Second, it presents critical, original research with robust empirical foundations to revive feminist criminological engagement around gender, imprisonment, and most critically, post-release management, support and survival.

The collection will appeal to academics and community-based advocates, activists, lawyers and practitioners engaged in advocacy and service provision for imprisoned women. It is also an important and unique analysis for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying criminological and social science courses particularly those related to gender and crime, imprisonment and correctional policy and qualitative research methods.

Preface, Pat Carlen Introduction: Gendered transcarceral realities, Marie Segrave and Bree Carlton 1. Incarceration, welfare state and labor market nexus: the increasing significance of gender in the prison system, Kristin Bumiller 2. Post-release support for women in England and Wales: The big picutre, Kathleen Kendall 3. Therapeutic correctional spaces, transcarceral interventions: post-release support structures and realities experienced by women in Victoria, Australia, Bree Carlton and Eileen Baldry 4. To thrive or simply survive: parole and the post-release needs of Canadian women exiting prison, Kelly Hannah-Moffat and Nathan Innocente 5. Continuing systemic discrimination: indigenous Australian women exiting prison, Eileen Baldry 6. Post-release reality for women prisoners in Northern Ireland: the challenges of 'resettlement' in a society emerging from conflict, Jacqueline Kerr and Linda Moore 7. A bit neo-liberal, a bit Fabian: interventionist narratives in a diversionary programme for women, Mary Corcoran and Claire Fox 8. Decentring the prison: abolitionist approaches to working with criminalized women, Debbie Kilroy, Phoebe Barton, Suzi Quixley, Amanda George and Emma Russell 9. Resisting gendered carceral landscapes, Cassandra Shaylor and Erica R. Meiners Postscript: A radical vision for system and social change, Bree Carlton and Marie Segrave