Women's Imprisonment A Study in Social Control

First published in 1983, Women’s Imprisonment explores the meanings of women’s imprisonment and, in particular, the wider meanings of the ‘moment’ of prison. Based on officially sponsored research in Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only women’s prison, the book makes extensive use of interviews with sheriffs, policemen, and social workers, as well as observation in the prisons, the courts, and the lodging-houses. The author quotes from interviews with women recidivist prisoners, the judges who send them to prison, and the agencies which assist them in between their periods of imprisonment. In doing so, questions are raised about the meanings of imprisonment and the penal disciplining of women at the time of original publication. The book also examines the changing and various meanings of imprisonment in general and the invisible nature of the social control of women in particular.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part One: The Denial of Women's Imprionment; 1: The Meanings of Women's Imprisonment in Scotland; Part Two: Women, Domesticity and Criminal Justice; 2: Family Life; 3: Women, Family and the Courts; 4: Women, Family and Imprisonment; Part Three: The Moment of Prison; 5: Papa's Discipline: Disciplinary Modes in the Scottish Women's Prison; Part Four: The Women that Nobody Wants; 6: The Dismissive Society; 7: Down, Out, Alcoholic and in Prison; 8: Down, Out, Disordered and Still in Prison; 9: The Meanings of Women's Imprisonment in Scotland: Implications and Questions for Penal Politics; Appendix A; Appendix B; Appendix C; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Pat Carlen