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African American Women and the Prison Industrial Complex

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The collateral damage that takes place when Black women are in prison is huge: they lose their children, their intimate male partners, work, and if they were receiving federal assistance of any kind they lose that as well.

Reentry from prison also presents challenges as many of these women have low skill rates to begin with and time spent behind bars lessens their ability to find meaningful work upon release.

There needs to be a national grass roots movement to address issues discussed above as well as address the sentencing guidelines currently used to lock women up. Many of the crimes Black women go to prison for can be handled differently.

For more, see: Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith, 2013, "Family" Pp. 149-158 in Brunsma, David, Keri Iyall Smith and Brian Gran (ed), Handbook of Sociology and Human Rights. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith, 2012, African American Families Today: Myths and Realities. Rowman & Littlefield.

Ryan S. King, 2008, Expanding the Vote: State Felony Disenfranchisement Reform, 1997-2008.  click here

Chris Hedges, 2013, "The Shame of America's Gulag."

Silja J. A. Talvi,  Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System

Tara Herivel and Paul Wright (Editors), 2009, Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration. New Press.


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Sociologist interested in Social Stratification (race, class & gender issues)
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