As the fastest growing prison population worldwide, more and more women are living in cages and most of them are mothers. This alarm- ing trend has huge ramifications for women, children and communities across the globe. Empathy for mothers behind bars and concern for criminalized mothers in the community is in short supply. Mothers are criminalized for their vulnerabilities and for making unpopular but difficult choices under material and ideological conditions not of their own choosing. Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering shines a spot- light on mothers who are, by law or social regulation, criminalized and examines their troubles and triumphs. This book offers a critical and compassionate lens on social (in)justice, mass incarceration, and collective miseries women experience (i.e., economic inequality, gendered violence, devalued care work, lone-parenting etc.). This book is also about mothers’ encounters with systems of control, confinement, and criminalization, but also their experiences of care.

Dr. Joanne Minaker is Associate Dean, Academic, in the Faculty of Arts and Science at MacEwan University. A sociologist, qualitative researcher, and ardent mother. Works include the book Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice (2009), co-authored with Bryan Hogeveen, Criminalized Mothers, Criminalized Mothering (2015), as well as numerous articles that call into question marginalizing processes that dehumanize groups.

Joanne Minaker's profile page

Bryan Hogeveen's profile page