Marking Time in the Golden State

"A fascinating account of the changing ways in which women experience and resist imprisonment. By revisiting David Ward and Gene Kassebaum's classic study of women's imprisonment and then comparing it to the experiences of contemporary women in the same penal institution in California, Rosemary Gartner and Candace Kruttschnitt provide a richly textured and original analysis of changes in the nature of punishment that occurred over the second part of the twentieth century. Marking Time in the Golden State should re-energize the flagging field of prison ethnography in the U.S.A. while providing a timely reminder of the gendered nature of punitive practices and beliefs." Mary Bosworth, Wesleyan University

• Introduction: the study unfolds; 1. Women, crime and punishment; 2. Entering the inmate's world: methods; 3. Time after time: women's experiences of imprisonment at the California institution for women in the 1960s and the 1990s; 4. Variations across time and place in women's prison experiences; 5. Negotiating prison life: how women 'do time' in the punitive era of the 1990s; 6. Conclusion: the spectrum of women prisoners' experiences; Appendix. Characteristics of interviewees; References.