Fragile Moralities and Dangerous Sexualities

Dr Alana Barton, Centre for Studies in Crime and Social Justice, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, UK.

• Contents: Introduction; Women behaving badly: feminist theory and the social control of women; ’Wayward girls and wicked women’: the history and development of the semi-penal institution; Domestic discipline: semi-penal institutionalisation in the nineteenth century; Between the church and the state: semi-penal institutionalisation in the twentieth century; Vernon Lodge: the probation hostel for women as a semi-penal institution?; Conclusion; Appendix: methodology; Bibliography; Index.

’Alana Barton’s book is an important and scholarly analysis of the role and operation of semi-penal institutions for women, identifying the mechanisms through which they seek to regulate deviant women’s behaviour. Equally important are the insights it offers into how historically women, in turn, have resisted or subverted these disciplinary regimes.’ Professor Gill McIvor, University of Stirling, UK ’This book makes a major and scholarly contribution to the literature on women and community penalties. Barton’s scrupulous reading of historical records, allied to her sensitive and empathic interviews with contemporary offenders, adds a new and significant dimension to this literature. She not only points to the corrosive role of community penalties in disciplining women probationers but also highlights the strategies of resistance the women developed to subvert the patriarchal discourses underpinning everyday probation practices. It is a book that deserves to be read by the widest possible audience.’ Professor Joe Sim, Liverpool John Moores University, UK ’...Barton’s book puts places like Vernon Lodge on the criminological map and should stimulate important further research.’ The Howard Journal '[Barton's] focus is the "semipenal" institution, an important and rather overlooked institution where social control is perhaps undocumented...The argument is made original, interesting, and robust through the careful and appropriate selection of quotations from interviews with key workers...and from key documents and archives relating to the running and management of the institution. This is original fieldwork, and there is evidence of painstaking and systematic analysis of documentary materials and interview data...this book has much to commend it...' Criminal Justice Review