No safe haven
Subtitle: stories of women in prison
By: Lori B. Girshick.
Series: The Northeastern series on gender, crime, and law
Publisher: Northeastern University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 201
Subjects: Black Mountain Correctional Center for Women (Black Mountain,N.C.); Women prisoners -- North Carolina -- Interviews; Women prisoners -- North Carolina -- Social conditions
Description: This work draws on the life stories of forty women inmates at a minimum security prison in North Carolina. It explores their lives before imprisonment, enabling the reader to understand their incarceration within the context of childhood and adolescent experiences, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, low education levels, and poor work histories. Lori B. Girshick relates the prisoners' views of doing time, the criminal justice system, and their own rehabilitation.

She also interviews family members, friends, and social service providers to show how support networks function or fail. Girshick argues convincingly that the treatment of women in society creates circumstances that lead some of them to break the law, and she makes specific recommendations for policies that address the need for social change and for community programs designed to deter crime.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.