NCJ Number
197190
Editor(s)
Josefina Figueira-McDonough Ph.D.,
Rosemary C. Sarri Ph.D.
Date Published
2002
Length
456 pages
Annotation
This book examines the oppression experienced by poor women and their families under both the welfare and criminal justice systems and offers recommendations for reforming these systems for the benefit of marginalized women and their children.
Abstract
The chapters in the first section of the book critically examine the public systems of control that affect poor women. They also describe how resistance to oppression, achieved through informal family networks, is distorted by attributing to poor women deviance from the dominant family ethic. In the second section of the book, the chapters address various forms of entrapment of women in poverty by institutions and policies apparently in place to help them. One chapter proposes that both welfare and corrections institutions are different ways of controlling a consequence of contemporary economic restructuring, namely, surplus labor. The more punitive processes of dealing with poor women either channel them to low-paid and insecure work or remove them altogether from the labor market. The book's third section focuses on the vulnerability of poor women with respect to age (the elderly and adolescents) and substance abuse. The fourth section of the book addresses the challenges experienced by incarcerated women. The three chapters of this section consider reproduction and motherhood among poor and imprisoned women, the conditions for children and their incarcerated mothers, and women's recidivism and reintegration. The fifth section of the book critiques ongoing injustices in the welfare system as it impacts women; considers the social and economic neglect of poor women, the violence they experience in prison, and some of the legal remedies being pursued to correct these conditions; and proposes new directions for the women's movement in addressing the needs of women in poverty. The concluding chapter proposes steps for translating resistance into action among poor women and the various groups committed to various aspects of social resistance, along with experts who can alert society to institutional, legal, economic, and political means to enhance the achievement of poor women's goals. Chapter tables and references and a subject index