Book Review: This is our freedom: Motherhood in the shadow of the American prison system by Geniece Crawford Mondé
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/26338076231169549 |
| Author | Talia Wright-Bardohl |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Review
Geniece Crawford Mondé, This is our freedom: Motherhood in the shadow of the
American prison system. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2022; 208
pp. ISBN 9780520380714, $85.00 USD (hbk); ISBN 9780520380738, $34.95
(Pbk)
Reviewed by: Talia Wright-Bardohl , University of Auckland, New Zealand
Date received: 20 March 2023; accepted: 29 March 2023
This is our freedom: Motherhood in the shadow of the American prison system by Geniece
Crawford Mondé offers a critical feminist analysis of how identity, marginalisation, and
agency exist and play out with women’s intertwining experiences of incarceration and mother-
hood. Delving into the complexity, nuances, and challenges of their experiences, Mondé elo-
quently illustrates aspects of women’s pasts, presents, and futures. The book is timely, guided
by a conceptual framework of duality at the margins and life course theory that builds on con-
ceptualisations of marginality and agency. This research is situated in the context of transitional
organisations, which lead Mondé to raise provocative questions about rehabilitation and the
carceral gaze. Overall, this book is grounded in individual women’s lives and experiences,
but it also highlights the influence of broader social factors that promote punitiveness over
rehabilitation. Mondé offers valuable insight into the often-overlooked lived experiences of
women who have the socially conflicting identities of both criminality and motherhood.
Mondé divides her book into five chapters, holistically describing women’s experiences
with marginalisation and criminalisation. Chapter 1 focuses on childhood experiences, social
bonds, and traumatic histories to highlight how events in childhood shape adult experiences
of criminality. Chapter 2 discusses pregnancy, in differentiation to motherhood, and challenges
the assumption that it is a positive life event by illustrating how it can be a stressor that further
marginalises some women and can be a catalyst for offending. Chapter 3 discusses experiences
of crime and how some women utilise them to enact agency. In Chapters 4 and 5, Mondé draws
the themes together to discuss the duality of marginalised motherhood and the role of rehabili-
tation in extending the carceral gaze. In this context, duality represents the metaphorical split
and balancing of identities to be accepted within the mainstream while remaining true to
oneself. The research presented throughout the book is drawn from an interview-based short-
term ethnography that Mondé conducted throughout 2010. Mondé interviewed 70 women who
had experienced incarceration and motherhood in three transitional organisations operating in
the American northeast: Helping Hands, Mothers Love, and Restoration House. Mondé pre-
sents the raw and real stories expressed by these women, letting these experiences guide the
research and analysis.
Book Review
Journal of Criminology
2023, Vol. 56(2-3) 368–371
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/26338076231169549
journals.sagepub.com/home/anj
To continue reading
Request your trial