Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering

Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering

As the fastest growing prison population worldwide, more and more women are living in cages and most of them are mothers. This alarming trend has huge ramifications for women, children and communities across the globe. Empathy for mothers behind bars and concern for criminalized mothers in the community is in short supply. Mothers are criminalized for their vulnerabilities and for making unpopular but difficult choices under material and ideological conditions not of their own choosing. Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering shines a spotlight on mothers who are, by law or social regulation, criminalized and examines their troubles and triumphs. This book offers a critical and compassionate lens on social (in)justice, mass incarceration, and collective miseries women experience (i.e., economic inequality, gendered violence, devalued care work, lone-parenting etc.). This book is also about mothers? encounters with systems of control, confinement, and criminalization, but also their experiences of care. ?There is no doubt that criminalized mothers are under studied, and this book adds new and important insights to our understanding of this important topic and group of mothers. Moreover, because Minaker and Hogeveen enlarge and complicate our understanding of ?criminal mothers,? i.e., both mothers who are incarcerated and those who are viewed criminally, this book also makes a valuable and timely contribution both to our understanding of criminal mothers specifically and contemporary motherhood generally.? ?Lynn O?Brien Hallstein, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Boston University ?Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering tackles the myriad ways in which mothers are criminalized and how their experiences with various societal institutions impact on their mothering, their being and well-being (or not), and their children. This book privileges the voices of mothers who are typically silent in academic research and in government, agency, media, and popular discourses. The interdisciplinary and international nature of the contributions in this book make it a must-read for anyone interested in women?s studies, mothering studies, crime and deviance, class, political economy, feminist methodology, history, race and ethnicity, or colonialism. Beyond a collection of academic pieces, this book is a call to action for anyone interested in social justice praxis.? ?Jana Grekul, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Alberta Dr. Joanne Minaker is Associate Dean, Academic, in the Faculty of Arts and Science at MacEwan University. A sociologist, qualitative researcher, and ardent mother. Works include the book Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice (2009), co-authored with Bryan Hogeveen, Criminalized Mothers, Criminalized Mothering (2015), as well as numerous articles that call into question marginalizing processes that dehumanize groups. Dr. Bryan Hogeveen received his PhD in Criminology from the University of Toronto. His interdisciplinary work merges his scholarly research and areas of social engagement. His main areas of scholarship intersect at three distinct points: 1) sociological engagement with sport; 2) youth in/and society; and 3) social theory. He is co-author (with Joanne Minaker) of Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice (2009) and the edited collection of essays, Criminalized Mothers, Criminalized Mothering (2015).