Entry Lessons

Through oral histories, interviews, embedded observation, and research, the daily struggles of women returning to life after incarceration and concrete solutions to the seemingly hopeless issue.At the end of 2019 in the United States, women comprised the fastest growing population within the criminal justice system. Despite this fact, their journey through this system has not received extensive attention; it is only beginning to be documented. As a result, the impact of womens incarceration and reentryboth on their own lives and in the lives of their children and their familiesis neither well understood nor effectively confronted.Anthropologist Jorja Leap argues that all aspects of these womens journey must be illuminated to fully grasp the issues. Leap explores first the traumas girls and women suffer, then the particular challenges faced by women in the criminal justice system, in incarceration, and throughout the reentry process. Leap...