Resisting Carceral Violence

This book explores the dramatic evolution of a feminist movement that mobilised to challenge a women's prison system in crisis. Through in-depth historical research conducted in the Australian state of Victoria that spans the 1980s and 1990s, the authors uncover how incarcerated women have worked productively with feminist activists and community coalitions to expose, critique and resist the conditions and harms of their confinement. Resisting Carceral Violence tells the story of how activiststhrough a combination of creative direct actions, reformist lobbying and legal challengesforged an anti-carceral feminist movement that traversed the prison walls. This powerful history provides vital lessons for service providers, social justice advocates and campaigners, academics and students concerned with the violence of incarceration. It calls for a willingness to look beyond the prison and instead embrace creative solutions to broader structural inequalities and social harm.

Explores the relationship between penal reform and abolition praxis Creates a radical framework for understanding how reform processes can assist the abolitionist project of dismantling penal systems and punishment Generates a theory and method of feminist abolitionism that can inform activist scholarship and practice

Autorentext

Bree Carlton is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia. Her research explores strategies for preventing and resisting against prison generated violence and harm. Bree authored Imprisoning Resistance (Federation Press 2007) and is co-editor of Women Exiting Prison (Routledge 2013).

Emma K. Russell is a Lecturer in Crime, Justice and Legal Studies in the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University, Australia. Her work has been published in various journals, including Theoretical Criminology, Critical Criminology and Crime Media Culture.

Inhalt
Part 1: Carceral Violence and Official Responses.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Resisting Carceral Violence from the Inside Out.- 3. Official Responses to Carceral Violence and the Limits of Reform.- Part 2: Anti-Carceral Geographies of Resistance.- 4. Women Against Prison: Anti-Carceral Feminist Critiques of Prison.- 5. The Fairlea Wring Outs: Confronting the Prison Wall.- 6. The 'Save Fairlea' Vigil: Abolitionist Imaginings and Unexpected Outcomes.- Part 3: Consolidation and Expansion.- 7. The Privatisation Era.- 8. Conclusion.