Book Review: Feminism, Violence Against Women, and Law Reform: Decolonial Lessons from Ecuador by Silvana Tapia Tapia

systems of the region. There is a clear synergy between the chapter and others that expose the prison industrial complex for its exploitative capitalist endeavours. In her chapter on drug rehabilitation programmes in Venezuela, Caroline Parker (Chapter 10) highlights how the promise of producing the ready-for-work ‘certified and re-educated ex-addict’ (p. 214) is undercut by the capture of those completing the programme within a limited and under-waged labour market. Parker speaks of a ‘vernacular professionalization’ (ibid.) to represent this duality. Indeed, Sally Engle Merry’s concept of vernacularization is present throughout the collection of essays (even where it may not be explicitly mentioned), where scholars speak of localized adaptations to governance, cultural categories, or forms of solidarity. So, what can be done about the troubling prison worlds, beyond troubling the normative understanding of Latin American prison worlds? Many approaches that advocate for progressive change in low-resource carceral contexts centre on human rights arguments allied to UN minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners, such as the Mandela Rules. Jennifer Pierce (Chapter 5) contends that such an overt focus on material changes in conditions may not be what prisoners actually want. She explains that in the Dominican Republic, prisoners were more concerned with fair treatment and rated methods of recourse to abuse of authority as more critical than the prison conditions. While international prison reform intentions may be positive, an occidentalist denial of difference across contexts may prevent the realization of real-world change. Loïc Wacquant’s chapter offers perhaps the most overtly solution-based reading of the situation. The text relates to a presentation given to Gendarmeria de Chile, Division of Human Rights, and represents the desire for change imbued throughout the book. The theoretical focus and direct delivery may initially seem incongruous with the collection, yet it raises the issue central to the book—are we asking the right questions? Furthermore, who should be providing the answers?