As part of a larger study examining transformative learning in an educational program for incarcerated women, this article is an ethnodramatic representation of one participant’s life history. Analyzed through a critical lens, using a holistic-content narrative analysis method, Jasmine’s story illuminates the cultural, social, personal, and legal systems of oppression that she survived and that contributed to her path to incarceration. Re-presenting her story in her words through performative text allows Jasmine to invite the audience into her world—forcing us to critically examine our definitions of criminal behavior, our perceptions of culpability, and our use of a penal system to “rehabilitate” women whose life experiences and struggles mirror hers.
AlleyneV. (2006). Locked up means locked out: Women, addiction and incarceration. Women & Therapy, 29, 181-194. doi:10.1300/J015v29n03_10
2.
American Bar Association and the National Bar Association. (2001). Justice by gender: The lack of appropriate prevention, diversion and treatment alternatives for girls in the justice system. Washington, DC: Author.
3.
AnzaldúaG. (1999). Borderlands/la frontera: The new mestiza (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.
4.
BelknapJ. (2007). The invisible woman: Gender, crime, and justice (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
BrownM. (2006). Gender, ethnicity, and offending over the life course: Women’s pathways to prison in the Aloha state. Critical Criminology, 14, 137-158. doi:10.1007/s10612-006-9001-5
7.
Bush-BasketteS. R. (1998). The war on drugs as a war against Black women. In MillerS. L. (Ed.), Crime control and women: Feminist implications of criminal justice policy (pp. 113-129). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
CannonA. (2012). Making the data perform: An ethnodramatic analysis. Qualitative Inquiry, 18, 583-594. doi:10.1177/1077800412450153
10.
ChancerL. S. (1998). Gender, class, and race in three high-profile crimes: The cases of New Bedford, Central Park, and Bensonhurst. In MillerS. L. (Ed.), Crime control and women: Feminist implications of criminal justice policy (pp. 72-94). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
11.
Chesney-LindM. (2002). Criminalizing victimization: The unintended consequences of pro-arrest policies for girls and women. Criminology & Public Policy, 2, 81-90.
12.
Chesney-LindM.PaskoL. (2004). The female offender: Girls, women, and crime (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
13.
Chesney-LindM.PaskoL.LaidlerK. J. (2004). Drugs, violence and women’s crime. In Chesney-LindM.PaskoL. (Eds.), The female offender: Girls, women and crime (2nd ed., pp. 117-138). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
14.
ChristianJ.ThomasS. S. (2009). Examining the intersections of race, gender, and mass imprisonment. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 7, 69-84. doi:10.1080/15377930802711797
15.
CrenshawK. W. (2012). From private violence to mass incarceration: Thinking intersectionally about women, race, and social control. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1418-1472.
16.
DalyK. (1994). Gender, crime, and punishment. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
17.
DannerM. J. E. (1996). Gender inequality and criminalization: A socialist feminist perspective on the legal control of women. In SchwartzM. D.MilovanovicD. (Eds.), Race, gender, and class in criminology (pp. 29-48). New York, NY: Garland Publishing.
18.
DeHartD. D. (2008). Pathways to prison: Impact of victimization in the lives of incarcerated women. Violence Against Women, 14, 1362-1381. doi:10.1177/1077801208327018
19.
DelgadoR. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2411-2441. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1289308
20.
DelgadoR.StefancicJ. (Eds.). (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press.
21.
DuleyK. (2006). Un-domesticating violence: Criminalizing survivors and U.S. mass incarceration. Women & Therapy, 29, 75-96. doi:10.1300/J015v29n03_05
22.
GilfusM. E. (1992). From victims to survivors to offenders: Women’s routes of entry and immersion into street crime. Women & Criminal Justice, 4, 63-89. doi:10.1300/J012v04n01_04
LipsitzG. (2012). “In an avalanche every snowflake pleads not guilty”: The collateral consequences of mass incarceration and impediments to women’s fair housing rights. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1746-1809.
27.
LoganE. (2004). The wrong race, committing crime, doing drugs, and maladjusted for motherhood: The nation’s fury over crack babies. In SchramP. J.Koons-WittB. (Eds.), Gendered (in)justice: Theory and practice in feminist criminology (pp. 245-269). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
28.
MaeveM. K. (2000). Speaking unavoidable truths: Understanding early childhood sexual and physical violence among women in prison. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 21, 473-497. doi:10.1080/01612840050044230
29.
McDaniels-WilsonC.BelknapJ. (2008). The extensive sexual violation and sexual abuse histories of incarcerated women. Violence Against Women, 14, 1090-1127. doi:10.1177/1077801208323160
30.
MienczakowskiJ. (1995). The theater of ethnography: The reconstruction of ethnography into theater with emancipatory potential. Qualitative Inquiry, 1, 360-375. doi:10.1177/107780049500100306
31.
MienczakowskiJ. (1997). Theatre of change. Research in Drama Education, 2, 159-172. doi:10.1080/1356978970020202
32.
NandaJ. (2012). Blind discretion: Girls of color & delinquency in the juvenile justice system. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1502-1539.
33.
OcenP. A. (2012). The new racially restrictive covenant: Race, welfare, and the policing of Black women in subsidized housing. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1540-1582.
34.
PetterutiA.WalshN. (2008). Moving target: A decade of resistance to the prison industrial complex. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute.
35.
PimlottS.SarriR. C. (2002). The forgotten group: Women in prisons and jails. In Figueira-McDonoughJ.SarriR. C. (Eds.), Women at the margins: Neglect, punishment, and resistance (pp. 55-85). Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.
36.
RajA.RoseJ.DeckerM. R.RosengardC.HebertM. R.SteinM.ClarkeJ. G. (2008). Prevalence and patterns of sexual assault across the life span among incarcerated women. Violence Against Women, 14, 528-541. doi:10.1177/1077801208315528
37.
RichieB. E. (1996). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered Black women. New York, NY: Routledge.
38.
RichieB. E. (2002). The social impact of mass incarceration on women. In MauerM.Chesney-LindM. (Eds.), Invisible punishment: The collateral consequences of mass imprisonment (pp. 136-149). New York, NY: The New Press.
39.
RobertsD. E. (2012). Prison, foster care, and the systemic punishment of Black mothers. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1474-1500.
SalisburyE. J.Van VoorhisP. (2009). Gendered pathways: A quantitative investigation of women probationers’ pathways to incarceration. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36, 541-566. doi:10.1177/0093854809334076
42.
SanghaJ. K.SladeB.MirchandaniK.MaitraS.ShanH. (2012). An ethnodrama on work-related learning in precarious jobs: Racialization and resistance. Qualitative Inquiry, 18, 286-296. doi:10.1177/1077800411431555
43.
ShermanF. T. (2012). Justice for girls: Are we making progress?UCLA Law Review, 59, 1584-1628.
44.
SimpsonS. S.YahnerJ. L.DuganL. (2008). Understanding women’s pathways to jail: Analysing the lives of incarcerated women. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 41, 84-108. doi:10.1375/acri.41.1.84
45.
UrbinaM. G. (2008). A comprehensive study of female offenders: Life before, during, and after incarceration. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
46.
Ward RandolphA.WeemsM. E. (2010). Speak truth and shame the devil: An ethnodrama in response to racism in the academy. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 310-313. doi:10.1177/1077800409358864
47.
WattersonK. (1996). Women in prison: Inside the concrete womb. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
