Jailcare: Finding the Safety Net for Women behind Bars

by Carolyn Sufrin

Thousands of pregnant women pass through our nation’s jails every year. What happens to them as they carry their pregnancies in a space of punishment? In this time when the public safety net is frayed, incarceration has become a central and racialized strategy for managing the poor. Using her ethnographic fieldwork and clinical work as an ob-gyn in a women’s jail, Carolyn Sufrin explores how jail has, paradoxically, become a place where women can find care. Focusing on the experiences of incarcerated pregnant women as well as on the practices of the jail guards and health providers who care for them, Jailcare describes the contradictory ways that care and maternal identity emerge within a punitive space presumed to be devoid of care. Sufrin argues that jail is not simply a disciplinary institution that serves to punish. Rather, when understood in the context of the poverty, addiction, violence, and racial oppression that characterize these women’s lives and their reproduction, jail can become a safety net for women on the margins of society.

Genres: Nonfiction, Medicine, Medical

327 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 23, 2017

Reviews

[Jason Danely · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories of the women in Jailcare are heart-breaking, but they are not written as passive victims, but as women making ethical choices in a world of chaos. These are women who will go to jail for care, for hope, for love, and Sufrin has a uniquely insider perspective on the ways guards and staff try to extend small favors of care as well. The institution (especially a carceral one) is usually the villian in the story but here it has a much more ambiguous and contradictory role and carer and confiner.
This book is a model of ethnographic writing, perfect for students and those who are not anthropologists. It is incredibly sensitive and compelling writing that makes a strong case for the need to better protect and care for poor and addicted mothers caught in the cycle.

[Kayci Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely LOVED the methodological perspectives granted by Sufrin’s experience both as a jail physician and a researcher. This adds a unique perspective that contributed richly to the readers understandings of medical care in the criminal justice system. Sufrin provides insights to the experiences of female health in a system created for males, especially pregnant women, the injustices they experience, and the paradoxical nature of receiving care whilst incarcerated. An expert blend of criminological and medical insights, I would highly recommend this read to those seeking to understand female incarceration and the nuances of the criminal justice system.

[Viewpoints Radio · Rating 5 out of 5]

After working for years as an OB/GYN for inmates at San Francisco Jail, author Carolyn Sufrin wanted to tell the story of the women she helped. She talks about what health care for pregnant women in jails and prisons looks like, and the changes she hopes to see in the system. Learn more on Viewpoints Radio now: https://viewpointsradio.wordpress.com...

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little densely academic, and I would have liked more of the qualitative accounts from her interviews and observations, but an insightful look at how jailcare simultaneously provides and substitutes for meaningful care in other spaces. Important reading for those who care about mass incarceration and the ways in which the carceral state has replaced the caring state.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really really important information and themes. Really really excruciatingly boring