
Marking Time in the Golden State
Women's Imprisonment in California
Cambridge University Press
Published on 8. November 2004
Book
Hardback
218 pages
978-0-521-82558-0 (ISBN)
Description
In recent decades, the nature of criminal punishment has undergone change in the United States. This case study of women serving time in California in the 1960s and 1990s examines key points in this recent history. In this 2005 book, the authors begin with a look at imprisonment at the California Institution for Women in the early 1960s, when the rehabilitative model dominated official discourse. They compare women's experiences in the 1990s, at the California Institution for Women and the Valley State Prison, when the recent 'get tough' era was near its peak. Drawing on archival data, interviews, and surveys, their analysis considers the relationships among official philosophies and practices of imprisonment, women's responses to the prison regime, and relations between women prisoners. The experiences of women prisoners reflected the transformations Americans have witnessed in punishment over recent decades, but they also mirrored the deprivations and restrictions of imprisonment.
Reviews / Votes
"A fascinating account of the changing ways in which women experience and resist imprisonment. By revisiting David Ward and Gene Kassebaum's classic study of women's imprisonment and then comparing it to the experiences of contemporary women in the same penal institution in California, Rosemary Gartner and Candace Kruttschnitt provide a richly textured and original analysis of changes in the nature of punishment that occurred over the second part of the twentieth century. Marking Time in the Golden State should re-energize the flagging field of prison ethnography in the U.S.A. while providing a timely reminder of the gendered nature of punitive practices and beliefs." Mary Bosworth, Wesleyan University "This is a carefully conducted and timely study of the evolving practices and ideologies of womenas imprisonment. It shows that women in prison are no longer too few to counta. It is stimulating, authoritative, and well balanced, and explains how the experience of imprisonment for women in prison has changed in very significant ways over time." Alison Liebling, Cambridge University "Over the last four decades the experience of imprisonment has been mass distributed in the United States on a scale and to a degree of severity unprecedented in the history of democratic societies. During the same time, a once vigorous empirical sociology of the prison has largely slumbered, interrupted only by increasingly dark theoretical visions. This book is our wake up call." Jonathan Simon, University of California, BerkeleyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
16 Tables, unspecified; 3 Line drawings, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
511 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-82558-0 (9780521825580)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Candace Kruttschnitt | Rosemary Gartner
Marking Time in the Golden State
Women's Imprisonment in California
E-Book
05/2005
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€29.49
Available for download
Persons
Content
Introduction: the study unfolds; 1. Women, crime and punishment; 2. Entering the inmate's world: methods; 3. Time after time: women's experiences of imprisonment at the California institution for women in the 1960s and the 1990s; 4. Variations across time and place in women's prison experiences; 5. Negotiating prison life: how women 'do time' in the punitive era of the 1990s; 6. Conclusion: the spectrum of women prisoners' experiences; Appendix. Characteristics of interviewees; References.