The Imprisonment of African American Women

This book reviews the disproportionate number of African American women making up the United States’ prison population, looking particularly at how the nation’s prison systems are ill-equipped to meet the basic needs of its ever-growing population. Topics covered include reasons why young African American women are first drawn into criminal behavior; trends connecting incarceration to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; the effects of incarceration on inmates’ families and children; and possible preventive measures or alternatives to imprisonment.

Catherine Fisher Collinsis an associate professor at the State University of New York, Empire State College, in the Department of Community and Human Services. She lives in Buffalo.

Catherine Fisher Collins
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 210
Bibliographic Info: diagrams, tables, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2010
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3384-1
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5611-6
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii

Diagrams      x

Tables      xii

Introduction      1

1. The Development of the American Criminal Justice

System and Its Impact on African American Women      7

2. The Overrepresentation of African American Women in

Criminal Justice      12

3. Pathways to Delinquency and Imprisonment      17

4. The Abuse of African American Women      42

5. Criminal Behavior of African American Women      71

6. Children of Imprisoned African American Women      94

7. Regional Pathways to Imprisonment for African American

Women      109

8. Health Care Pathways and Issues for African American

Women in Prison      149

9. The Final Pathway: The Execution of African American

Women, Past and Present      159

10. Conclusions and Recommendations      173

Bibliography      177

Index      197

Choice Outstanding Academic Title
“recommended for all collections”—Choice; “child care, medical conditions, the children of women prisoners, the treatment of incarcerated women in Third World countries, alternatives to prison and future trends are all discussed”—Criminal Justice Abstracts; “Collins’ indictment of current penal arrangements and the inadequacy of treatment of African-American female offenders (and the detrimental effect of incarceration on their children) places the existence and interaction of race, gender, and class hierarchies at the heart of differential enforcement”—American Studies.