Imprisonment of African American Women

Catherine Fisher Collinsis an associate professor at the State University of New York, Empire State College, in the Department of Community and Human Services. She lives in Buffalo.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Diagrams     Tables      Introduction      1. The Development of the American Criminal JusticeSystem and Its Impact on African American Women      2. The Overrepresentation of African American WomenCriminal Justice      3. Pathways to Delinquency and Imprisonment      4. The Abuse of African American Women      5. Criminal Behavior of African American Women      6. Children of Imprisoned African American Women      7. Regional Pathways to Imprisonment for African AmericanWomen      8. Health Care Pathways and Issues for African AmericanWomen in Prison      9. The Final Pathway: The Execution of African AmericanWomen, Past and Present      10. Conclusions and Recommendations      Bibliography      Index

“recommended for all collections”—Choice; “child care, medical conditions, the children of women prisoners, the treatment of incarcerated women in Third World countries, alternatives to prison and future trends are all discussed”—Criminal Justice Abstracts; “Collins’ indictment of current penal arrangements and the inadequacy of treatment of African-American female offenders (and the detrimental effect of incarceration on their children) places the existence and interaction of race, gender, and class hierarchies at the heart of differential enforcement”—American Studies.