ABSTRACT
Facing multiple oppressions, incarcerated mothers are often judged to be guilty of crimes that they may not have committed as well as being neglectful and inadequate mothers. Mothers and their families have suffered the brunt of an overreliance on the criminal justice system to resolve a spate of problems with sociological and psychological roots. Women, in general, and mothers, in particular, have been swept up in the phenomenon of mass incarceration. Rates of incarceration for women have increased dramatically and 70% of women in prison are mothers. Often poor, these women are more often single parents with few resources on which their families can rely in their absence which can result in efforts to terminate their parental rights. Simply viewed as ‘bad mothers’ making poor choices, little attention is paid to the disturbing connection between the high rates of incarceration of mothers and incidents of intra-family violence. Mothers in prison have frequently been the subject of domestic or sexual violence prior to their incarceration. Despite the embrace of domestic abuse as a feminist issue, inadequate attention is paid to the ways in which intimate partner and family violence are related to the high rates of incarceration of women and how race, poverty and gender interlock to help disrupt the families of poor women of colour. This chapter explores the multitude of barriers faced by mothers in prison and the intersection of multiple oppressions that contribute to failing to see these women as good mothers deserving of non-punitive responses to the myriad barriers they face as mothers and support without judgement. It suggests ways in which feminism could more fully and explicitly embrace these women and their efforts to keep their families intact.
