Book Review: This is our freedom: Motherhood in the shadow of the American prison system by Geniece Crawford Mondé

Abstract

This is our freedom: Motherhood in the shadow of the American prison system by Geniece Crawford Mondé offers a critical feminist analysis of how identity, marginalisation, and agency exist and play out with women’s intertwining experiences of incarceration and motherhood. Delving into the complexity, nuances, and challenges of their experiences, Mondé eloquently illustrates aspects of women’s pasts, presents, and futures. The book is timely, guided by a conceptual framework of duality at the margins and life course theory that builds on conceptualisations of marginality and agency. This research is situated in the context of transitional organisations, which lead Mondé to raise provocative questions about rehabilitation and the carceral gaze. Overall, this book is grounded in individual women’s lives and experiences, but it also highlights the influence of broader social factors that promote punitiveness over rehabilitation. Mondé offers valuable insight into the often-overlooked lived experiences of women who have the socially conflicting identities of both criminality and motherhood. Mondé divides her book into five chapters, holistically describing women’s experiences with marginalisation and criminalisation. Chapter 1 focuses on childhood experiences, social bonds, and traumatic histories to highlight how events in childhood shape adult experiences of criminality. Chapter 2 discusses pregnancy, in differentiation to motherhood, and challenges the assumption that it is a positive life event by illustrating how it can be a stressor that further marginalises some women and can be a catalyst for offending. Chapter 3 discusses experiences of crime and how some women utilise them to enact agency. In Chapters 4 and 5, Mondé draws the themes together to discuss the duality of marginalised motherhood and the role of rehabilitation in extending the carceral gaze. In this context, duality represents the metaphorical split and balancing of identities to be accepted within the mainstream while remaining true to oneself. The research presented throughout the book is drawn from an interview-based shortterm ethnography that Mondé conducted throughout 2010. Mondé interviewed 70 women who had experienced incarceration and motherhood in three transitional organisations operating in the American northeast: Helping Hands, Mothers Love, and Restoration House. Mondé presents the raw and real stories expressed by these women, letting these experiences guide the research and analysis. Book Review