Book review: Úna Barr, Desisting Sisters: Gender, Power and Desistance in the Criminal (In)Justice System
| Author | Cristina Vasilescu |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220319881596 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
116 European Journal of Probation 11(2)
This book does so many things well that it may serve an array of purposes. In the
place of a conclusion for this review, I will highlight some of these.
Firstly, the student in sociology (or criminology) may, due to the instructive way in
which it presents both historical and contemporary debates, read the book as an advanced
introduction.
Secondly, I can highly recommend the book to my junior researcher colleagues in
sociology, social work and psychology who are interested in the social and societal
mechanisms of recidivism and rehabilitation: The way in which the authors combine
spirited freshness with a matured sense of reality to rethink rehabilitation is a valuable
masterclass in how to produce relevant and responsive research.
Third and finally (but not least), I am convinced that practitioners – those working in
probation service in particular – will find the book inspiring and supportive: One defi-
nitely senses the deep respect for and knowledge of the endemic problems of rehabilita-
tive work that only someone with actual hands-on experience can describe as candidly as
Burke, Collett and McNeill.
References
Burke L and Collett S (2015) Delivering Rehabilitation: The Politics, Governance and Control of
Probation. London: Routledge.
Cohen S (1985) Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification. Cambridge:
Polity Press: Cambridge.
McNeill F (2012) Four forms of ‘offender’ rehabilitation: Towards an interdisciplinary perspec-
tive. Legal and Criminological Psychology 17: 18–36.
Úna Barr, Desisting Sisters: Gender, Power and Desistance in the Criminal (In)Justice System, Palgrave
Critical Criminological Perspectives: United Kingdom, 2019; 270 pp.: ISBN: 978-3-030-14275-9,
€44,92 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Cristina Vasilescu, University of Girona, Spain
Desisting Sisters: Gender, Power and Desistance in the Criminal (In)Justice System is
a most welcome book in contemporary criminology. Úna Barr reflects in it her doctoral
research, a feminist study on desistance experiences of a small group of Northshire
(UK)-based women. It is a feminist contribution for many reasons. The book contains a
gendered and critical re-analysis of traditional perspectives on desistance. It also makes
criminalised women visible through the criticism of previous androcentric analysis on
desistance (Daly and Chesnely-Lind, 1988; Facio, 1991; Gelsthorpe, 1990). To do so,
Úna Barr uses an intersectional feminist methodology: “subjective, transdisciplinary,
non-hierarchical and empowering” (Simpson, 1989: 609). It breaks with the “unidirec-
tional knowledge” based on the subject-object divide (Oakley, 1981) and the author
strives to produce “situated knowledge” (Haraway, 1995; Wylie in Hesse-Biber, 2012)
in terms of gender, ethnic identity, age, and class, among other circumstances of the
women in her study (pp. 232–233).
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