Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Birth Behind Bars: The Carceral Control of Pregnant Women in Prison

Birth Behind Bars: The Carceral Control of Pregnant Women in Prison

Carey, Rebecca M. Rodriguez

Hardcover

CriminologyGeneral Law

ISBN10: 1479815799
ISBN13: 9781479815791
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: Jun 17 2025
Pages: 280
Weight: 1.13
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Pregnant women's experiences in prison

Four percent of incarcerated women--more than three thousand--are pregnant in US prisons each year, yet little information is known about their pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and motherhood experiences. In Birth Behind Bars, Rebecca M. Rodriguez Carey draws on in-depth interviews with women who were once pregnant in prisons in the heart of the Midwest to provide a rare, intimate portrait into the intersection of motherhood and incarceration.

Using a reproductive-justice framework and narrative accounts, Rodriguez Carey shows how the prison system works alongside other carceral systems, such as the medical system and the child welfare system, to regulate and control women. She reveals how their incarceration goes beyond the function of criminal punishment, threatening both maternal and fetal health and the well-being of families. Birth Behind Bars offers an evocative account of how these powerful carceral systems collectively disrupt entire families and communities during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period, including long after women are released from prison.

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