C. Appleton, Life after Life Imprisonment
| Author | Nicola Padfield |
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474510396969 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
for incarceration for status offences, youth courts continue to discriminate against
girls in their use of administration of justice offences (e.g. violations of the terms
community-based sentences that impose curfews or require youths to follow the
rules of their parents).
The authors conclude their study by addressing the effects of legal changes over
the past few decades. In Canada, the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act has produced
a significant decline in the use of youth courts and custody (without any increase in
reported youth crime). Its restrictions on the use of custody as a response to the
violation of community-based sentences have resulted in a decline (if not elimina-
tion) of ‘protective incarceration’ of girls. The United States, however, has
embarked on a high incarceration policy, especially for adults and boys. This
has come at a high financial and human cost but produced no apparent results
in terms of social safety.
Within this context, the question becomes whether girls (and boys) who can no
longer be incarcerated for non-criminal status offences are instead being placed in
secure child welfare or mental health facilities? The enactment of legislation in
some jurisdictions to allow for confinement of juvenile prostitutes (inevitably
girls) is a particularly obvious instance of continuation of ‘protective incarceration’
of girls. While such responses to problems like adolescent prostitution are not
strictly criminal law, from the perspective of the girls detained, their confinement
under child welfare laws may seem very similar to being found guilty of ‘sexual
immorality’ and placed in custody as was common in the first part of the previous
century. Have some adolescents in effect been transferred into a non-criminal but
equally coercive and ineffective ‘welfare’ system? This is a complex question that
can only be addressed through a study of laws and policies at the state or provincial
level. It is a subject about which there is a paucity of national (or even local) data,
so it is understandable that the authors did not consider this question in detail,
though it might have been worthy of brief discussion in the conclusion.
This book offers an important contribution to research about the treatment of
girls and women in the North American justice system. It considers issues at a
‘macro’ and national level, and does not attempt to analyze local, state, or provin-
cial laws or programs that affect or are directed at girls, let alone describe the
experiences of individual girls. Thus, like all good scholarship, it raises further
questions that need to be addressed.
Nicholas Bala
Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada
C. Appleton, Life after Life Imprisonment, Oxford University Press, 2010; 252 pp. including
index: 9780199582716, £50
This is a wonderful book. It contributes enormously to the literature (what we
understand) about the supervision of life sentence prisoners, and puts a focus on
498 Punishment & Society 13(4)
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