Critical reflections on women, family, crime and justice. Isla Masson, Lucy Baldwin & Natalie Booth (Eds.) Bristol: Policy Press. 2021. 248pp. £85.00 (hbk); £26.99 (pbk); £26.99 (ebk) ISBN: 978–1447358688; 978–1447358695; 978–1447358671

Abstract

There are books that one wishes they had read earlier on in life, to help shape and mould career paths and perceptions of the world. This important and original book is one of them. It is essential reading for anyone working in the field of criminal justice or interested in learning more about the adverse consequences of imprisonment on individuals and their families – in this case on women, the book's being ‘by, for and about women’ (p.xi). An edited collection of essays by feminist researchers, activists, practitioners and people with experience of prison, this ambitious volume draws on research from the Women, Family, Crime and Justice research network, launched in April 2018, on practice and on the lived experience of criminalised women. Its wide breadth includes a look at such topics as the adverse impact of short sentences; social and cultural practices that weave violence into South Asian women's lives; trauma-specific therapeutic approaches for sex workers; the key role of schools in supporting children of the incarcerated; and feminist research. What exactly does ‘feminist research’ entail? Co-editor and author Lucy Baldwin points to the difficulties in defining the concept historically. A fundamental principle of feminist research, she argues, is reflectivity – constant examination of the context in which knowledge is co-produced, with emphasis on the researcher-researched relationship. In this way, research on criminalised women is informed by women's experiences, works to redress the imbalance of power, and allows researchers’ feelings, actions, motives and vulnerabilities to be part of the equation. Feminist research pays attention to the research process itself so that it promotes and helps implement social change by fostering agency, engagement, visibility and social inclusion of research participants – all seminal considerations given that criminalised women are rarely given a voice.

The book, which aims to be a ‘platform for critical discussions’ (p.4), features pathways forward for developing and implementing effective support policies, reaching a greater number of women with this support and fostering tangible systemic change within the criminal justice system (CJS) itself. It vividly conveys the multiple aspects of what being on the wrong side of the gender gap actually means. It goes beyond the statistical data that highlight the disproportionate sentences given to women for minor offences to lay bare the structural influences and social injustices often underpinning an individual's going into prison. There is emphasis on language and its role in exacerbating stigma (note, for example, the Ministry of Justice's references to ‘female offenders’); on cyclical violence and trauma; and on power paradigms. The latter are examined not only in the CJS but also within academic communities investigating women's experiences with punishment. A series of compelling reflection points at the end of each chapter stir the reader to contemplate further.

It bemoans the paucity of actual progress implemented for women in the heavily male-dominated CJS despite an abundance of research on women's experience with punishment and the social circumstances they often have to navigate. In her foreword, Jenny Earle highlights just how long it has taken the CJS to acknowledge gender differences in incarceration – ignoring the stigma and shame so rife among women prisoners; the ways relationships can serve as protective elements for men yet create a major ‘criminogenic risk factor’ for many women; inadequate emphasis on the trauma of separation from children; and general experiences of previous trauma prior to conviction. The authors do acknowledge certain positive developments such as the 2019 Lord Farmer Report recommendations (Farmer, 2019) to see family ties as a cross-cutting priority and rollout of the new gender-specific Offender Management Model (we might note that stigmatising word again, systematised in the name) in women's prisons. The community is recognising their individual needs, with key workers in theory providing ‘bespoke’ support to individual prisoners. Yet the authors highlight the gap between stated objectives and tangible benefits, the latter all the more crucial with the long-term female prison population slated to increase by an estimated 10,000 due to the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers (written submission from the Ministry of Justice: Reducing the number of women in custody (nd). Available at: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/37074/pdf/ [Accessed 6 April 2022]). Hence the current multi-site expansion of the women's prison estate in England and Wales. Does it take an anticipated spike in the number of women in prison for the CJS to fully acknowledge and prioritise gender differences within the estate?

An actual criminalisation board game has been developed as a tool to illustrate what women experiencing punishment often have to navigate. If at first glance the idea seems to trivialise the issues and challenges that those on the wrong side of the gender gap often face, it actually proves a very apt metaphor – laying out the terrain that women must navigate in community punishment and probation supervision. It is an intricate game to be played, watching every move, bearing a greater burden of proof vis-à-vis feminine respectability and ‘appropriate gendered characteristics of desistance’, managing trauma in ‘acceptable’ ways, losing weight as a tangible sign of transformation and reform, building up social capital through mothering and homemaking as evidence of a transformation from ‘deviant’ to demure. In short, proving themselves worthy as individuals in which to invest to access prison-based interventions and support networks. There is emphasis on the inherent biases of certain criminal justice practitioners, who open or shut doors of opportunity for women in the CJS according to ways in which this ‘worthiness’ is construed. It is not that men are exempt from similar burdens of proof, it is that women must go to greater lengths to demonstrate appropriate gendered desistance.

Many of the social and emotional circumstances associated with women's experiences in the CJS outlined in this volume – difficulties in maintaining housing, poverty, the trauma of forcible separation from children and concomitant custody issues, substance abuse and addiction – can be found across jurisdictions, offsetting to a certain degree the book's UK-centricity. It points the finger at patriarchal systems and the core principles of neo-liberalism, the latter predominating across Europe, even in corporatist and social democratic countries like Germany, Sweden and Denmark, with the UK described as ‘the most favourable “micro-climate” for neo-liberalism in Western Europe’ (Schmidt & Thatcher, 2014, p.345). Another constant across many European countries is the stereotypes and double standards to which women are exposed when they are parents in conflict with the law, from Heidensohn's (1989) double deviance theory whereby women are punished both for their alleged crime and for their deviance from gender expectations and norms to common stereotypes and presumptions such as that ‘one or a few women can sometimes create more problems than a thousand male prisoners’ (Kowalski 2009, p.88).ⁱ Women in England and Wales, as in many other countries, tend to be imprisoned for less serious non-violent offences. Prison harms children when a parent is incarcerated, even when custodial sentences are very short, as Isla Masson points out in her contribution to this volume. Disruptions in children's relationships affect the quality of early attachments, a key predictor of an individual's social and emotional functioning later in life. Prison authorities and decision makers should better understand how their decisions, regulations and policies with respect to family contact impact children's psychological, emotional and social development, thus impacting society at large.

Positive solutions and recommendations for change include, among others, staff specification and values, whereby the recruitment of prison officers includes criteria such as ‘implicit knowledge’, skills and understanding inherent to the individual's experience that cannot be learned; shifts in framing to encompass values such as love; the role of laughter as a therapeutic technique in managing trauma; ‘relational association’ and shared vulnerability as linchpins for relationship building, the latter cited here in reference to healing processes for sex workers; the importance of supporting mothers (and fathers) to communicate with their child about their imprisonment. The book inveighs against the ‘McDonaldization’ of family support services that maximise efficiency and cost effectiveness at the expense of the empathy, thought and skill so fundamental to relationship building. And it highlights glaring gaps in community support, including support for children with mothers in the CJS, notably through schools. Currently there is no single body in the UK responsible for providing support to mothers/fathers in prison or alternative carers during imprisonment, nor is information about children with parents in prison shared across agencies or schools. These are stumbling blocks for gleaning information about caregiving arrangements and standards of care for children with a parent in prison – an estimated 312,000 children annually in the UK, some 17,000 impacted by the imprisonment of their mother (Kincaid, Roberts & Kane, 2019). The schools gap is even more pronounced in most other countries across Europe, with an estimated 2.1 million children impacted across the continent (Children of Prisoners Europe, 2022), since the UK has pioneered innovative support schemes to make walls more permeable between prisons and schools. The authors point to the need for national agencies and local authorities to provide resources and training to schools, the impetus currently being civil society organisations.

These are all important points to be taken on board in enhancing advocacy and support for women and their families. But let us pause for a moment to reflect. As mentioned, this book has been described as being ‘by, about and for women’. But how strategic is this approach if the change that you are seeking to usher in has to come about, at least in part, via action by the male-dominated power structures? Does the premise of the publication's being only ‘for women’ not alienate the very stakeholders whom the authors wish to influence?

The book closes with a powerful essay which drives home the urgent need for genuine feminist research that goes beyond ticking boxes and tokenism. In ‘Service users being used: thoughts to the research community’, Michaela Booth and Paula Harriott contend that people with experience of prison are actually being ‘used’ during the development of research and policies. Researchers advance their careers and earn salaries as they carry out their research, the authors maintain, yet actually marginalise research participants, who remain anonymous under the guise of protection and ethical imperatives – in fact, mirroring society's exclusion of these individuals in the process. They articulate ways to truly implement social reform and change by capitalising on processes integral to research to foster social inclusion and reform along the way. In her research on maternal imprisonment, Lucy Baldwin saw this as an imperative and helped to steer research participants to volunteer positions that ultimately found some of them gainful employment. Booth and Harriott cite the importance of raising participants’ awareness and understanding of how systems work and how these systems impact their lives, how participants, too, can become recognised experts with lived experience, involved in every step of the research, from co-production of knowledge to publication to launch of the research and subsequent follow-up, honing their skills so that they, too, can join the labour market. In this way ‘knowledge equity’ is enhanced and structural social reform promoted. Education is liberation, the authors stress, quoting Freire (1970). It is apt that the book ends with this essay, as it embodies hope and the promise of change as more and more women gain agency, better equipped to rise up out of victimhood.