This study extends the risk factors model of background or social history analysis to the lives of incarcerated mothers. Interviews were conducted with a sample of incarcerated mothers. The presence of a number of criminogenic influences such as poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence in the lives of women incarcerated for primarily nonviolent—largely drug-related—offenses and in the lives of their children were identified. The implications of these findings for understanding female criminality and breaking the so-called cycle of crime are discussed.
This study evaluates aspects of newspaper reporting about death penalty cases and capital defendants. In a content analysis of newspaper coverage of a representative sample of 26 death penalty‐eligible defendants who were brought to trial in California, we found that articles tended to cite primarily from law enforcement and prosecutorial sources, focused very heavily on the characteristics of the crime, and omitted or de‐emphasized most other aspects of the case. News coverage generally failed to place the criminal behavior of the defendant in any social historical or contextual framework from which readers (as potential voters and jurors) could grasp the potential mitigating elements of the case. We conclude that newspaper coverage of capital crimes may influence public support for the death penalty, and undermine public appreciation of the role of social contextual factors in crime causation in general. It also may bias the perspective with which potential jurors approach specific capital trials and even contribute to the lack of instructional comprehension that has been found to plague the death sentencing process.
Each of these books explores new terrain among a growing body of literature on the expanding population of incarcerated women. With an estimated 145,000 women in prisons and jails, three out of four of whom are mothers of multiple children, there are more than 175,000 children now living apart from their mothers with whom many were residing before their incarceration (Johnston, 1995). The typical incarcerated woman is a single parent responsible for the care of her children. Most of these women have been incarcerated before. At the current rate, at least two out of three will recidivate and approximately half of their children will also fall into the criminal justice system. Enos helps us understand the consequences of their roles as mothers, while O'Brien provides valuable insights into what it takes for women to reintegrate into their communities and make it in the free world.Enos's Mothering from the inside makes a significant contribution as the first fulllength book to detail and deconstruct experiences faced by mothers in prison. She reports a nearly 75 percent increase in the numbers of incarcerated women since she began her research in 1992, largely a consequence of harsher sentencing policies. Enos provides a thorough, textured analysis of how women in prison understand and practice motherhood. Her research is based on interviews with 31 women in a correctional facility and several months in the role of participant as observer in a parenting program as researcher and program volunteer.Mothering on the inside, like mothering on the outside, is affected by social class, access to resources, family support and cultural factors. Enos cites holes in related research with regard to understanding the influences of race, ethnicity and class and emphasizes how race and ethnicity differentially affect incarcerated mothers' pathways to crime and their caretaking options for their children.
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