Review of Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex.

Eriksson, Anna

Julia Sudbury (cal.), Global Lockdown: Race, Gender and the Prison-Industrial Complex. New York, London: Routledge, 2005; ISBN 0-415-95057-0.

THIS BOOK WRESTLES WITH HIGHLY COMPLEX, DIFFICULT, AND EMOTIONALLY CHARGED topics, but does so in a highly readable and accessible manner. It is a laudable contribution to prison writings, particularly since it promotes the voices of women prisoners themselves from around the world. Women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population worldwide and most are imprisoned for economic and drug-related crime, behaviors that are often the way women cope with a life of violence, marginalization, and socioeconomic deprivation. Women's imprisonment is simultaneously shaped by local and global factors, such as the U.S.-led war on drugs, the worldwide movement of peoples across borders, legally or illegally, the push for neoliberal social policies and free trade, and increasingly punitive law-and-order agendas. Importantly, however, such influences are clearly structured along the lines of gender, race, and class, which often means that those most affected are the least able to cope. Statistics that look only at the gender breakdown of prisoners miss out on the important variables of race and class. Thus, they severely underestimate the impact of this global increase in punitiveness on women of color, indigenous women, and the economically disadvantaged.

In her "Introduction," Sudbury (2005: xix) notes that "this volume seeks to liberate women prisoners from the criminologists and learn what other academic disciplines as well as activists and former prisoners have to tell us about the prison boom and its impact on women of color." This approach makes the collection an immensely important contribution to research and writings on prisons and decidedly increases the scope of the reading audience to include the whole spectrum of the social sciences, as well as practitioners within the legal and criminal justice system. That prisoners own voices are promoted is noteworthy because prison cultures silence and disempower women. As the authors discuss throughout the book, it is crucial for women prisoners to gain a voice that is publicly heard and recognized.

Instead of looking at individual factors behind women's offending and the tendency to pathologize, Global Lockdown examines the structural factors--cultural, economic, social, and political--that dictate why the state responds with punishment to survival strategies by women. Moreover, "this volume seeks to establish a new body of research that combines insights into the political economy of prisons with a rigorous feminist analysis of gender, race, class, and nation" (Ibid.: xvii).

The book consists of 20 chapters in three sections. Part One is "Criminalizing Survival." Asale Angel-Ajani explores the criminalization of immigrants in Italy, arguing that the majority of women immigrants from South America and sub-Saharan Africa become labeled as potential criminals. There is an "increasing culture of suspicion, hostility, and criminalization of immigrants, particularly African women, in Italy" (Angel-Ajani, 2005: 5). In Chapter 2, Lisa Neve, a female prisoner in Canada given an indeterminate sentence due to being labeled "a dangerous offender," tells another story of the consequences of labeling. She was sentenced to prison for what she might do in the future, rather than what she had done. Lisa begins her story in unsentimental terms, discussing a life of social deprivation, mental illness, participation in sex work for financial reasons, abuse of alcohol and drugs as coping strategies, and spells in hostile institutions from an early age. The second part is written by Kim Pate, the woman activist who became engaged in Lisa's story and worked for her appeal, which eventually led to Lisa's release in 1999. Pate (2005: 32) argues that too little attention is paid to the structural roots of criminalized behaviors. Factors such as "sexism, racism, heterosexism, and class biases intersect to provide a discriminatory lens through which women like Lisa are viewed and judged" (Ibid.: 25). This issue is echoed throughout the book. Kim Pate notes: "Lisa's classification as a dangerous offender contains important lessons about the construction of young women's violence" (Ibid.: 29). When women display assertive, aggressive behavior similar to that of men as a means of survival in harsh social environments, it is judged as a "problem" requiring "correction." This permits significantly more intrusive and punitive responses than those experienced by male prisoners in similar circumstances.

Kamala Kempadoo (2005: 40) explores current discourses regarding the trafficking of women around the world, arguing that concerns over trafficking no longer prioritize the human rights of the women involved, but rather law enforcement and immigration control: "trafficked victims are more often than not treated as illegal immigrants under such priorities and arrested, detained, and deported." As such, the underlying causes of trafficking are ignored and only the effects are dealt with through increasingly harsh legislation. Stormy Ogden, an indigenous woman and former prisoner, writes about the overrepresentation of Native Americans throughout California's criminal justice system. For her, it is essential for prison scholars and activists to understand the colonial roots of the prison-industrial complex and to make visible the stories of Native prisoners. Moreover, she demonstrates that the prison-industrial complex interweaves government agencies with business interests that seek to make a profit from imprisoning the poor and people of color (Ogden, 2005: 63). In a similar vein, Robbie Kina, an Australian indigenous women and domestic violence survivor, tells her story. In her experience, the criminal justice system is badly equipped to respond to domestic violence cases, and it is even worse when dealing with indigenous people due to a lack of understanding and respect for the indigenous culture. This contributes to the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in prisons in all Australian states.

Beth Richie focuses on the experiences of young, African-American lesbians within the criminal justice system. She calls for an expansion of anti-prison rhetoric to include the impact of gender violence and queer sexuality in relation to treatment within prison systems, including teachers, counselors, police, social services, and the full force of the criminal justice process. Most striking here are the stories of young women's lives of abuse, violence, and survival. We hear strong but weary voices of women, 14 to 16 years of age, who invariably become criminalized.

Writing on Pakistan, Shahnaz Khan discusses the impact on women of the zina laws, which criminalize sex outside of marriage. Introduced in 1979, the zina laws were supposed to establish a just and moral society. Critics argue, however, that "these laws allow families to draw upon the power of the state to help regulate the morality and sexuality of 'their' women and reclaim family honor" (Khan, 2005: 88). Women are jailed for going against the wishes of their families. Sometimes, they are forced into marriages to bring financial gain to the family. Khan argues that "families with little means to cope with increasing inflation and chronic unemployment often find that their daughter's sexuality is a valuable asset, a commodity commanding a high price" (Ibid.: 89). Consequently, the zina laws adversely and disproportionately affect the lower classes.

The book's second part is "Women in the Global Prison." In the book's shortest chapter, just three pages, Kemba Smith produces the most powerful read. For a nonviolent drug offense, she received a prison sentence of 24 and one-half years. Her story is moving and heartbreaking, but, above all, it is full of strength. Chapters like this make Global Lockdown necessary reading for anyone who harbors the slightest suspicion that the U.S. war on drugs and its mandatory sentencing laws are substantial mistakes. Next, Bohrman and Murakawa investigate the growth of immigration and crime control in the context of welfare state retrenchment, paying particular attention to how race, gender, class, and nationality shape policy changes in the U.S. In common with the authors of earlier contributions, they propose that immigration and immigrants themselves have become subject to a process of criminalization and labeling--not just as "criminals," but also as "terrorists," a label used by the state to justify increasingly oppressive and punitive measures.

Christina Jose Kampfner examines the imprisonment of women in Mexico. This reveals many similarities to women's imprisonment around the world, adversely affecting the poor, uneducated, and marginalized. The war on drugs, she argues, has ensured a massive increase in the imprisonment of women. Juanita Diaz-Cotto explores the impact of the war on drugs on Latinas in the U.S. and Europe, while Manuela Ivone Pereira da Cunha considers the role of women in the drug trade in Portugal and the oppressive crime control measures created in response to the drug war. Julia Sudbury analyzes the background and current treatment of women who smuggle drugs into Britain. One in five women in Britain's prisons is a foreign national, with half from Jamaica. The dramatic increase in the women's prison population in Britain, she notes, is due to four factors: the racialized feminization of poverty under neoliberal globalization, the racialized "tough on crime" agenda, the transnational war on drugs, and the transatlantic spread and consolidation of the prison-industrial complex in Britain.

From Britain, the journey goes to Nigeria, where Biko Agozino highlights the centrality of race, gender, and colonization in the process of women's criminalization. Elham Bayour explores the experiences of female political prisoners in Palestine, where gender and nationality are inextricably linked. A striking difference from most other stories in this book is the strength and resilience of Palestinian women in the face of the physical, sexual, and mental abuse and torture inflicted by military and the prison personnel. As one 75-year-old former political prisoner said, "You know, sometimes I felt guilty because I missed my daughters while in prison, but it is very hard to balance your fight for your country and your family responsibilities" (Bayour, 2005: 205). Linda Evans investigates the U.S. role as a global police state and its impact on women of color, especially those from the global South. Again, terrorism and immigration are central themes within the analysis.

Part Three is entitled "From Criminalization to Resistance." Ruth Wilson Gil more considers an oppositional grass-roots group that has emerged in California, the Mothers Reclaiming Our Children (Mothers ROC). She proposes that crises, such as those produced by the imprisonment of women under California's harsh mandatory minimum-sentencing laws, can present opportunities for organizing and acts of resistance. She also notes that opposition groups are forced to organize within a space delimited by gender, race, class, and violence. Lisa Vetten and Kailish Bhana explore the incarceration of survivors of domestic violence in post-apartheid South Africa. At the core of discussions is the criminalization of women's survival strategies, this time in highly abusive relationships. This case study focuses on a group that has challenged the imprisonment of survivors of domestic violence. The Justice for Women Campaign emphasizes the significance of race, class, and gender for the state's response--or lack of response--to survivors of domestic violence. Melissa Upreti explores the journey of criminalization, resistance, and decriminalization in relation to reproductive rights in Nepal, a country in which until 2002 abortion was a crime punishable by imprisonment. She argues that gender discrimination is a global phenomenon and that much can be gained through international collaboration between grass-roots, national, and international organizations.

In the final essay, Debbie Kilroy discusses the situation faced by female prisoners in Queensland, Australia, and the work of the advocacy group Sisters Inside. Unlike many other prison reform organizations speaking on behalf of prisoners, this organization provides a platform for women inside to speak for themselves. I consider this a strength of the entire book.

A particularly appealing feature of Global Lockdown is its scope. It unequivocally demonstrates the global factors that define and decide the imprisonment of women in a wide range of countries. More important, the book's stories and analyses evoked anger, sadness, and often a smile in admiration for the women whose stories are inspiring and heart wrenching. Above all, it made me want to do something about women's imprisonment, as well as about the appalling situations in which many women prisoners find themselves due to state policies that unfairly target women of color, indigenous women, and the socio-economically deprived and disadvantaged. Any work that elicits such reactions on the important topic of women's imprisonment surely deserves the widest possible audience. This book should form a compulsory part of any undergraduate or postgraduate curriculum, whether within criminology, sociology, politics, human geography, anthropology, or feminist studies. In terms of future research within the field, Sudbury has described the challenge ahead. She states: "more and more women, especially women of color and third-world women, are 'compelled to crime' by a combination of gender violence, global inequities, and a paucity of alternatives"; moreover, it is "imperative that we identify and address the structural roots of women's criminalized survival strategies" and of the "state's response to these actions" (Sudbury, 2005: 180-181). The gauntlet has been thrown down.

ANNA ERIKSSON (e-mail: a.eriksson@qub.ac.uk) is a Ph.D. Candidate and sessional tutor at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Queen's University, Belfast.