Disdained Mothers & Despised Others: The Politics & Impact of Welfare Reform, Vol. 25:1, 1998

The articles in this special issue provide a general critical analysis of the political, social, and labor market effects of “welfare reform.” In particular, a useful essay on the impact of welfare policies on Asian immigrants fills a big void; another addresses the high incidence of domestic violence in the lives of welfare recipients; and […]

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Dorie Klein and June Kress

Any Woman’s Blues: A Critical Overview of Women, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System In this essay, originally published in 1976, Dorie Klein and June Kress summarize contemporary research on women’s crime and patriarchal justice. women, crime rates, women’s liberation Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2 (2013): 162-191

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Erica R. Meiners

Trouble with the Child in the Carceral State This article examines how the child frames transactions within the US carceral state. Part one defines the frameworks of prison abolition that shape this analysis. Part two identifies the flexibility of the contemporary category of the child using three examples of current tropes of the child within […]

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Gisela Espinosa Damián

The Fruitful and Conflictive Relationship between Feminist Movements and the Mexican Left This article describes the Mexican feminist movement over the last four decades as a multifaceted entity situated on the periphery of a multi-centered patriarchy. Espinosa’s analysis emphasizes the popular and indigenous feminist currents, which are omitted from a historiography of Mexican feminism that […]

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Karen Musalo & Blaine Bookey

Crimes without Punishment: An Update on Violence against Women and Impunity in Guatemala The authors provide an overview of the prevalence and patterns of violence against women in Guatemala, which has one of the highest rates of femicide, or gender-motivated killing of women, in the world. They examine barriers to effective implementation of the laws […]

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Kelly (Hannah) Moffat

Creating Choices or Repeating History: Canadian Female Offenders and Correctional Reform This article examines the conclusions of a recent Task Force on women in Canadian prisons. The Task Force helped to illuminate the plight of women, especially Native offenders (who represent a disproportionate number of incarcerated women in Canada). Although the Task Force recommendations for […]

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Sexuality, Criminalization, and Social Control Action Research, Vol. 37:1, 2010

Clare Sears, Andreanna Clay, Jessica Fields, and Alexis Martinez, eds. This issue of Social Justice examines aspects of the sexual politics of criminalization in the context of a three-decade long strategy for increasingly managing social problems through penal measures. To date, scholars have critically considered race in studies of criminalization, examining the severe and disproportionate […]

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Vol. 46-4 – Punishment and History

Punishment and History edited by Ashley T. Rubin This special issue appraises the role of history in the study of punishment, illuminating its utility and limitations for understanding penal change. Rather than seeking the origins of mass incarceration, as others have done, this issue examines how penal history might provide lessons for understanding punishment as a social […]

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