Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from around the world, this book brings together renowned international scholars to explore life-course perspectives on women’s imprisonment. Instead of covering only one aspect of women’s carceral experiences, this book offers a broader perspective that encompasses women’s pathways to prison, their prison experiences and the effects of these experiences on their children’s well-being, as well as their subsequent chances of desisting from crime.

Encompassing perspectives from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, the United States, Ukraine and Sri Lanka, this book uncovers the similarities across time and space in women offenders’ life histories and those of their children and examines the differences in women’s experiences and trajectories by shedding light on the moderating effects of particular cultural contexts.

Lives of Incarcerated Women will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of punishment, penology, life-course criminology, women and crime and gender studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners.