An indispensable guide to the feminist case for prison abolition
How
does the criminal justice system affect women’s lives? Do prisons
keep women safe? Should feminists rely on policing and the law to
achieve women’s liberation?
The
mainstream feminist movement has proposed “locking up the bad men,”
and called on prisons, the legal system, and the state to protect
women from misogynist violence. This carceral approach to feminism,
activist and scholar Gwenola Ricordeau argues, does not make women
safer: it harms women, including victims of violence, and in
particular people of color, poor people, and LGBTQ people.
In
this scintillating, comprehensive study, Ricordeau draws from two
decades as an abolitionist activist and scholar of the penal justice
system to describe how the criminal justice system hurts women.
Considering the position of survivors of violence, criminalized
women, and women with criminalized relatives, Ricordeau charts a new
path to emancipation without incarceration.
With
a new foreword by Silvia Federici.
Translated
from the French by Tom Roberge and Emma Ramadan.