Prison Born
Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow
- Publisher
- University of Regina Press
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2024
- Category
- Gender & the Law, Women's Studies, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Studies
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781779400079
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $32.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781779400086
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $89.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781779400109
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $32.95
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Description
A scathing critique of the colonial legal system’s denial of children’s rights
One afternoon in 2016, law professor Robin Hansen receives a call. On the other end of the line is “Jacquie”—a pregnant Indigenous woman, nine weeks from her due date and terrified for the welfare of her unborn son. Jacquie has been sentenced to a custodial prison sentence and her son will be automatically separated from her immediately after his birth.
As Hansen works to help Jacquie with her appeal, she uncovers the legal system’s inherent discrimination against mothers in custody and the children born to them. Using Access to Information requests along with extensive research, Hansen examines the legal rights of these women—the majority of whom are Indigenous—and finds that Jacquie and her son are by no means alone: automatic mother-infant separation without due process remains the norm in most jurisdictions in Canada.
Prison Born calls attention to the colonial and gendered assumptions that continue to underpin the legal system—assumptions that so frequently lead to the violation of the rights and denial of personhood for children and their mothers.
About the author
Robin F. Hansen teaches law at the University of Saskatchewan. Her work has been published in journals, including the Modern Law Review, Global Jurist, and the Journal of Legal Education. She lives in Saskatoon.
Editorial Reviews
“A penetrating critique of judicial insensitivity towards the concerns surrounding Indigenous incarceration.” —David Milward, author of Aboriginal Justice and the Charter