Women in Trouble

Book excerpt: Based on interviews with 24 women incarcerated in a Canadian provincial prison for a range of offenses, this book examines the experiences of these women and the factors that influenced their criminal behaviour. The first chapter addresses the issue of how to situate women's law violations and discusses the theoretical framework of the study. Four of the women's stories are introduced to explore the benefits of beginning with women's own accounts of their troubles with the law. The author notes that her approach combines socialist feminism and standpoint feminism. While socialist feminism incorporates an analysis of the structural features that impact women's lives (capitalism, patriarchy, and racism), standpoint feminism provides a way of approaching how those structures are worked out in women's everyday experiences. The chapter concludes with a discussion of why abuse has been chosen as the primary factor for understanding the lives of the women in the prison. The second chapter focuses on the women's histories of abuse. The discussion is divided into two parts : childhood experiences and experiences as adults. Each part uses the women's stories to reveal the various forms that abuse has taken. Chapter Three considers the ways in which the women's law violations connect with their abuse experiences, followed by a chapter that concentrates on the women's experiences of prison. Using the women's own accounts as a guide, the author examines whether or not the experience of prison enables the women to resolve their troubles. Prison can be interpreted as a reinforcement, and deepening, of the oppression that has pervaded their lives. Many, however, report that the corrections system has provided resources and direction for addressing their problems.