This book explores how Bangladeshi women from poor and undereducated/semi-educated backgrounds who have crossed the Indo-Bangladesh border find themselves in prisons serving sentences under the Foreigners Act, 1946. Drawing on original fieldwork, this book explores these women’s understanding of borders and state sovereignty and how the women - from conservative rural and semi-rural backgrounds which impose a strict moral code - adjust to the socio-cultural context of an Indian prison, where being an inmate is "dishonourable" in their community. This book examines the implicit challenge in these women’s action and decisions to these codes of honour, to accepted social norms of their religion and community, and ultimately, the dominantly patriarchal system that marks South Asian society. Further, it focuses on the negotiations that the Bangladeshi women make with the social and political borders they encounter in the process of crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border without requisite documents needed by the state for entry into a "foreign" land; how they cope with the daily challenges of living during their imprisonment in a correctional home; and their feelings about their impending return to Bangladesh. Women who are apprehended and criminalised for crossing borders must negotiate with not only the normative understanding of borders which is inherently masculine in nature, but also the gender biased lens through which female mobility is viewed: therefore, they not only cross political borders but also social borders. This book maps the associations between women’s experiences of mobility and incarceration, and their linkages with social and political borders and the fraught experiences of being in a ‘foreign’ territorial space. It will be important reading for criminologists, sociologists, and those engaged in penology, women’s studies and migration studies.

A journey into the experiences of incarcerated women in rural areas, revealing how location can reinforce gendered violence Incarceration is all too often depicted as an urban problem, a male problem, a problem that disproportionately affects people of color. This book, however, takes readers to the heart of the struggles of the outlaw women of the rural West, considering how poverty and gendered violence overlap to keep women literally and figuratively imprisoned. Outlaw Women examines the forces that shape women’s experiences of incarceration and release from prison in the remote, predominantly white communities that many Americans still think of as “the Western frontier.” Drawing on dozens of interviews with women in the state of Wyoming who were incarcerated or on parole, the authors provide an in-depth examination of women’s perceptions of their lives before, during, and after imprisonment. Considering cultural mores specific to the rural West, the authors identify the forces that consistently trap women in cycles of crime and violence in these regions: felony-related discrimination, the geographic isolation that traps women in abusive relationships, and cultural stigmas surrounding addiction, poverty, and precarious interpersonal relationships. Following incarceration, women in these areas face additional, region-specific obstacles as they attempt to reintegrate into society, including limited social services, significant gender wage gaps, and even severe weather conditions that restrict travel. The book ultimately concludes with new, evidence-based recommendations for addressing the challenges these women face.

This book draws together the work of a new community of scholars with a growing interest in carceral geography: the geographical study of practices of imprisonment and detention. It combines work by geographers on 'mainstream' penal establishments where people are incarcerated by the prevailing legal system, with geographers' recent work on migrant detention centres, where irregular migrants and 'refused' asylum seekers are detained, ostensibly pending decisions on admittance or repatriation. Working in these contexts, the book's contributors investigate the geographical location and spatialities of institutions, the nature of spaces of incarceration and detention and experiences inside them, governmentality and prisoner agency, cultural geographies of penal spaces, and mobility in the carceral context. In dialogue with emergent and topical agendas in geography around mobility, space and agency, and in relation to international policy challenges such as the (dis)functionality of imprisonment and the search for alternatives to detention, this book presents a timely addition to emergent interdisciplinary scholarship that will prompt dialogue among those working in geography, criminology and prison sociology.

Mobilities research is now centre stage in the social sciences with wide-ranging work that considers the politics underscoring the movements of people and objects, critically examining a world that is ever on the move. At first glance, the words ‘carceral’ and ‘mobilities’ seem to sit uneasily together. This book challenges the assumption that carceral life is characterised by a lack of movement. Carceral Mobilities brings together contributions that speak to contemporary debates across carceral studies and mobilities research, offering fresh insights to both areas by identifying and unpicking the manifold mobilities that shape, and are shaped by, carceral regimes. It features four sections that move the reader through the varying typologies of motion underscoring carceral life: tension; circulation; distribution; and transition. Each mobilities-led section seeks to explore the politics encapsulated in specific regimes of carceral movement. With contributions from leading scholars, and a range of international examples, this book provides an authoritative voice on carceral mobilities from a variety of perspectives, including criminology, sociology, history, cultural theory, human geography, and urban planning. This book offers a first port of call for those examining spaces of detention, asylum, imprisonment, and containment, who are increasingly interested in questions of movement in relation to the management, control, and confinement of populations.

This handbook aims to assist legislators, policymakers, prison managers, staff and non-governmental organizations in implementing international standards and norms related to the gender-specific needs of women prisoners, in particular the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Offenders and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders ('the Bangkok Rules'). It further aims to increase awareness about the profile of female offenders and to suggest ways in which to reduce their unnecessary imprisonment, including by rationalizing legislation and criminal justice policies, and by providing a wide range of alternatives to prison at all stages of the criminal justice process. The handbook forms part of a series of tools developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to support countries in implementing the rule of law and the development of criminal justice reform.

Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Over the last thirty years, the U.S. penal population increased from around 300,000 to more than two million, with more than half a million prisoners returning to their home communities each year. What are the social costs to the communities from which this vast incarcerated population comes? And what happens to these communities when former prisoners return as free men and women in need of social and economic support? In Imprisoning America, an interdisciplinary group of leading researchers in economics, criminal justice, psychology, sociology, and social work goes beyond a narrow focus on crime to examine the connections between incarceration and family formation, labor markets, political participation, and community well-being. The book opens with a consideration of the impact of incarceration on families. Using a national survey of young parents, Bruce Western and colleagues show the enduring corrosive effects of incarceration on marriage and cohabitation, even after a prison sentence has been served. Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, and Rechelle Parnal use in-depth life histories of low-income men in Philadelphia and Charleston, to study how incarceration not only damages but sometimes strengthens relations between fathers and their children. Imprisoning America then turns to how mass incarceration affects local communities and society at large. Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza use survey data and interviews with thirty former felons to explore the political ramifications of disenfranchising inmates and former felons. Harry Holzer, Stephen Raphael, and Michael Stoll examine how poor labor market opportunities for former prisoners are shaped by employers’ (sometimes unreliable) background checks. Jeremy Travis concludes that corrections policy must extend beyond incarceration to help former prisoners reconnect with their families, communities, and the labor market. He recommends greater collaboration between prison officials and officials in child and family welfare services, educational and job training programs, and mental and public health agencies. Imprisoning America vividly illustrates that the experience of incarceration itself—and not just the criminal involvement of inmates—negatively affects diverse aspects of social membership. By contributing to the social exclusion of an already marginalized population, mass incarceration may actually increase crime rates, and threaten the public safety it was designed to secure. A rigorous portrayal of the pitfalls of getting tough on crime, Imprisoning America highlights the pressing need for new policies to support ex-prisoners and the families and communities to which they return.

In the first detailed, empirical exploration of the effects of mass incarceration on poor places, Imprisoning Communities demonstrates that in high doses incarceration contributes to the very social problems it is intended to solve: it breaks up family and social networks; deprives siblings, spouses, and parents of emotional and financial support; and threatens the economic and political infrastructure of already struggling neighborhoods. Especially at risk are children who, research shows, are more likely to commit a crime if a father or brother has been to prison. Clear makes the counterintuitive point that when incarceration concentrates at high levels, crime rates will go up. Removal, in other words, has exactly the opposite of its intended effect: it destabilizes the community, thus further reducing public safety.

In the era of mass incarceration, over 600,000 people are released from federal or state prison each year, with many returning to chaotic living environments rife with violence. In these circumstances, how do former prisoners navigate reentering society? In Homeward, sociologist Bruce Western examines the tumultuous first year after release from prison. Drawing from in-depth interviews with over one hundred individuals, he describes the lives of the formerly incarcerated and demonstrates how poverty, racial inequality, and failures of social support trap many in a cycle of vulnerability despite their efforts to rejoin society. Western and his research team conducted comprehensive interviews with men and women released from the Massachusetts state prison system who returned to neighborhoods around Boston. Western finds that for most, leaving prison is associated with acute material hardship. In the first year after prison, most respondents could not afford their own housing and relied on family support and government programs, with half living in deep poverty. Many struggled with chronic pain, mental illnesses, or addiction—the most important predictor of recidivism. Most respondents were also unemployed. Some older white men found union jobs in the construction industry through their social networks, but many others, particularly those who were black or Latino, were unable to obtain full-time work due to few social connections to good jobs, discrimination, and lack of credentials. Violence was common in their lives, and often preceded their incarceration. In contrast to the stereotype of tough criminals preying upon helpless citizens, Western shows that many former prisoners were themselves subject to lifetimes of violence and abuse and encountered more violence after leaving prison, blurring the line between victims and perpetrators. Western concludes that boosting the social integration of former prisoners is key to both ameliorating deep disadvantage and strengthening public safety. He advocates policies that increase assistance to those in their first year after prison, including guaranteed housing and health care, drug treatment, and transitional employment. By foregrounding the stories of people struggling against the odds to exit the criminal justice system, Homeward shows how overhauling the process of prisoner reentry and rethinking the foundations of justice policy could address the harms of mass incarceration.

After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.