ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the some studies and the participants who were part of our research with federally sentenced women between 2002 and 2012 and contextualizes this research within the systems and structures that shape their experiences. It explains the systemic and structural conditions that shape women's experiences on the path into federal corrections while incarcerated, and the challenges faced on the return to community. The chapter provides information about the participants within insights gleaned from the work of the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) and its in-depth examinations of the federal correctional system in Canada. The Correctional Investigator Canada reported that at the time of their arrest, almost two-thirds of women offenders were single caregivers. Aboriginal women report rates of violence at approximately double that of non-Aboriginal women.
