Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States

Rickie Solinger

University of California Press, 2010 - Social Science - 458 pages

Interrupted Life is a gripping collection of writings by and about imprisoned women in the United States, a country that jails a larger percentage of its population than any other nation in the world. This eye-opening work brings together scores of voices from both inside and outside the prison system including incarcerated and previously incarcerated women, their advocates and allies, abolitionists, academics, and other analysts. In vivid, often highly personal essays, poems, stories, reports, and manifestos, they offer an unprecedented view of the realities of women's experiences as they try to sustain relations with children and family on the outside, struggle for healthcare, fight to define and achieve basic rights, deal with irrational sentencing systems, remake life after prison; and more. Together, these powerful writings are an intense and visceral examination of life behind bars for women, and, taken together, they underscore the failures of imagination and policy that have too often underwritten our current prison system.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• DEFINING THE PROBLEM: 7
• 1 Unpacking the Crisis: 11
• 2 Glossary of Terms: 26
• 3 The Long Shadow of Prison: 28
• 4 Unpeeling the Mask: 35
• 5 Children of Incarcerated Parents: 37
• 6 United Nations Report on Violence against Women in US Prisons: 45
• 7 Being in Prison: 57
• 8 Wearing Blues: 61
• BEING A MOTHER FROM INSIDE: 63
• 9 Get on the Bus: 67
• 10 Do I Have to Stand for This?: 71
• 11 Out of Sight NOT Out of Mind: 73
• 12 The Impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act on Children of Incarcerated Parents: 77
• 13 ASFA TPR My Life My Children My Motherhood: 83
• 14 The Birthing Program in Washington State: 86
• 15 Pregnancy Motherhood and Loss in Prison: 89
• 16 What the Parenting Program at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women Has Meant to Me: 94
• 17 The Storybook Project at Bedford Hills: 98
• 18 A Trilogy of Journeys: 103
• INTIMACY SEXUALITY AND GENDER IDENTITY INSIDE: 107
• 19 Untitled: 111
• 20 Analyzing Prison Sex: 112
• 21 Who Said Women Cant Get Along?: 121
• 22 Sorry: 125
• 23 The Chase: 128
• 24 Why?: 129
• 25 Gender Sexualitty and Family Kinship Networks: 131
• 26 Getting Free: 145
• 27 My Name Is June Martinez: 150
• 28 King County WA Gender Identity Regulations: 153
• 29 Mother: 156
• 30 Daddy Black Man: 157
• 31 Watershed: 159
• CREATING AND MAINTAING INTELLECTUAL SPIRITUAL AND CREATIVE LIFE INSIDE: 161
• 32 Lit by Each Others Light: 165
• 33 Tuesday SOUL: 178
• 34 I lived that book: 180
• 35 Changing Minds: 188
• 36 Imagining the Self and Other: 196
• 37 My Art: 205
• 38 My Window: 206
• 39 They Talked: 207
• 40 I Never Knew: 209
• 41 Wise Women: 211
• 42 Women of Wisdom: 216
• 43 Chain of Command: 220
• STRUGGLING FOR HEALTH CARE: 223
• 44 Hep C Pap Smears and Basic Care: 227
• 45 A Dazzling Tale of Two Teeth: 236
• 46 Womens Rights Dont Stop at the Jailhouse Door: 242
• 47 The Death of Luisa Montalvo: 246
• 48 Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities: 252
• 49 A Plea for Rosemary: 254
• 50 The Thing Called Love Virus: 256
• 51 Bill of Rights for Incarcerated Girls: 257
• 52 Working to Improve Health Care for Incarcerated Women: 259
• 53 Women in Prison Project: 264
• SERVING TIME SENTENCED AND UNSENTENCED: 271
• 54 Reading Gender in September 11 Detentions: 275
• 55 Victim or Criminal: 282
• A Disgrace: 287
• 57 Did you see no potential in me?: 294
• 58 Dignity Denied: 301
• 59 The LongtimersInsiders Activist Group at Tutwiler Prison for Women: 306
• 60 The Forgotten Population: 310
• STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS: 313
• 61 Incarcerated Young Mothers Bill of Rights: 317
• 62 Slaving in Prison: 321
• 63 Freedom Gon Come: 326
• 64 Reducing the Number of People in Californias Womens Prisons: 328
• 65 The GenderResponsive Prison Expansion Movement: 332
• 66 Free Battered Women: 338
• 67 Lifes Imprint: 341
• 68 Testimony of Kemba Smith before the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights: 342
• 69 Keeping Families Connected: 346
• 70 Prick Poison: 352
• 71 The PrisonIndustrial Complex of Indigenous California: 355
• 72 A Prison Journal: 361
• BEING OUT: 363
• 73 A Former Battered Woman Celebrating Life After: 367
• 74 Life on the Outsideof What?: 374
• 75 California and the Welfare and Food Stamps Ban: 377
• 76 Employment Resolution: 379
• 77 Only with Time: 381
• 78 Child of a Convicted Felon: 385
• 79 Mothering after Imprisonment: 388
• 80 Being about It: 392
• 81 The First Time Is a Mistake: 398
• 82 What Life Has Been Like for Me Since Being on the Outside: 400
• 83 Alternatives: 402
• 84 Violent Interruptions: 406
• 85 Prison Abolition in Practice: 412
• 86 Booking It beyond the Big House: 419
• 87 Being Out of Prison: 426
• Contributors: 429
• Index: 435

About the author

Rickie Solinger is the author of Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America and Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Rose v. Wade, among other books. She is the editor of Abortion Wars (UC Press). Paula C. Johnson is Professor of Law at Syracuse University College of Law and the author of Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women in Prison. Attorney Martha L. Raimon has directed the Incarcerated Mothers Law Project at the Women's Prison Association and is now Senior Associate at Center for the Study of Social Policy. Tina Reynolds is Co-founder and Chair of Women on the Rise Telling Her Story (WORTH) and adjunct lecturer at York College/CUNY. Ruby C. Tapia is Associate Professor of Comparative Studies and Women's Studies at The Ohio State University and the author of Breeding Ghosts: Race, Death, and the Maternal in Visual Culture.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States
• Editor: Rickie Solinger
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2010
• ISBN: 0520252497, 9780520252493
• Length: 458 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; Social Science / Criminology; Social Science / Gender Studies; Social Science / Penology; Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Science / Women's Studies