Book Review: Women doing life: Gender, punishment, and the struggle for identity

• Published date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016817696133
• Date: 01 December 2017
• Author: Eric Allen
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

assimilate, others have a tough attitude toward immigration and subsequently force local author-

ities to strictly enforce immigration laws. The authors conclude their analysis by providing several

important ways to address immigration issues in the country. These recommendations are

provided in Chapter 7 of this book.

Overall, this is a nicely written book that offers critical assessment of the role of law enforcement

in immigration issues. The book is thorough and provides important new information on the subject

matter. This is a graduate-level book, and I will definitely recommend it to instructors teaching

courses on critical issues in policing- and immigration-related courses.

Lempert, L. B. (2016).

Women doing life: Gender, punishment, and the struggle for identity. New York: New York University Press.

320 pp. $27.00 (paper), ISBN: 9781479827053.

Reviewed by: Eric Allen, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016817696133

‘‘[A]bsent from contemporary work is an understanding of the personal experiences of

life-imprisoned women as they consciously attempt to live meaningfully as human beings within

never-ending confinement. It is my intention that this book will fill that void and reduce the hyper-

invisibility of these women’’ (p. 7). In Women Doing Life: Gender, Punishment, and the Struggle for

Identity, Lora Bex Lempert confronts the extreme circumstances life-serving women (i.e., ‘‘lifers’’)

face in a broken prison system that views them as ancillary to men. This book explores how women

manage stigmatized identities, create strategies for engaging in responsible conduct, and construct

meaningful lives within prison. Through analyses of focus groups, life-course interviews, and

solicited diaries, Lempert argues female lifers overcome powerless roles by transforming themselves

as powerful agents with meaningful lives, exercise power and resistance strategies, routinely attempt

to create order and control, and navigate prison’s incessant pressures of erosion that otherwise

diminish hope for a free and agentic life. Offering a sobering glimpse into the lives of 72 incar-

cerated women, Lempert provides evidence of the consequences of criminal justice policies that

were designed for men, by men, and the failure to address the deeply embedded nature and salience

of gender in an era of mass incarceration. These consequences, including extreme instances of

violence and abuse from correctional officers, have enduring effects for these women, their fami-

lies—particularly their children—and communities. Lempert concludes by offering suggestions to

improve the system.

Lempert’s initial chapters highlight the disadvantaged conditions and households her respondents

experienced, often as ‘‘victims’’ before becoming ‘‘offenders,’’ and the transition to life in prison.

Endemic of her respondents’ experiences, Carmela, an African American woman, age 37, reported a

traumatic history growing up, emotionally deprived of parental and community support and experi-

encing racism and sexual assault. Feeling outcasted, Carmela self-medicated through illicit drug use

and sexual experimentation, jumped from one abusive relationship to another, and was coerced into

crime by significant others. She fell into patterns of offending and, ultimately, the accumulation of

events resulted in her committing murder. To generalize, the author succinctly states, ‘‘hurt people

hurt people’’ (p. 38).

In the next set of chapters, Lempert outlines a six-stage model through which women traverse the

new reality of prison life, reframing themselves as active agents living meaningful lives in the

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