Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of WomenÂ’s Reproduction in America (Alternative Criminology) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: prison health, fetal homicide laws, many incarcerated women, United States, Bad Mothers, Back-Alley Butchers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Author and sociologist Flavin (Class, Race, Gender and Crime) turns with typical vigor and abundant research to the subject of women's reproductive rights. Taking a historical perspective, Flavin outlines a set of progressive arguments focusing on abortion and family planning, the parental rights of incarcerated women, and "structural barriers posed by our drug laws and child welfare policies that disproportionately and adversely affect poor and minority women." Flavin's text faces tough issues head on from a viewpoint somewhere to the left of liberal, and her passion for women's rights makes a powerful narrative engine. Bolstered by quotes and firsthand accounts, Flavin delivers eye-opening reports on topics including abortion rights, infant abandonment and battered women, detailing little-noticed or taken-for-granted policies that restrict and remand women. Written in a flowing academic style, Flavin's attention to historical detail and unfailing moral compass make her progressive reexamination of women's rights thorough and convincing.
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Review

"Bolstered by quotes and firsthand accounts, Flavin delivers eye-opening reports on topics including abortion rights, infant abandonment and battered women, detailing little-noticed or taken-for-granted policies that restrict and remand women. Written in a flowing academic style, Flavin's attention to historical detail and unfailing moral compass make her progressive reexamination of women's rights thorough and convincing."
- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a beautifully written and well researched book that makes an original and important contribution to the emerging social science literature on reproductive politics. I strongly recommend it."
- Carole Joffe, author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade

"Our Bodies, Our Crimes is one of the most compelling books I've read in recent years. Flavin's writing is exquisite and her documentation is careful and thorough. Whether informing the reader about reproductive freedom, battered women, or incarcerated women, she does so even-handedly and ably captures the complexities and depravities that real women and girls encounter every day in this country. Flavin draws on high profile cases, unknown cases, laws, policies, history, criminology research and much more to explain how her cases are decided by race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her book will help students, legal professionals, gender and legal scholars, and lay people to understand the common themes and threads of violence against women and girls and the sexism, racism, and classism in labeling girls and women deviant and criminals."
- Joanne Belknap, author of The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice

"Illuminates the dark corners of a public polity that holds pregnant women accountable for all aspects and outcomes of their reproduction without offering the compassion, education, or control necessary to produce happy endings — or beginnings."
- Jennifer Reich, author of Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System

"In Our Bodies, Our Crimes, Jeanne Flavin traces the life-and-death power that the little-examined patriarchal assumptions informing our common life can have—especially among poor, nonwhite women. Flavin... supplies a sobering primer on the laws and social constraints that keep women from fully controlling their bodies. The case studies she surveys in Our Bodies, Our Crimes make it painfully clear that the freedom to decide how and when to reproduce is, for a huge swath of American women, just as important as the much more fervidly discussed question of how and when women can choose not to reproduce."

, Bookforum

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press; 1St Edition edition (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814727549
• ISBN-13: 978-0814727546
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #349,040 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #31 in	Books > Science > Medicine > Reproductive & Sexual > Reproduction
  #43 in	Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > Abortion & Birth Control
  #61 in	Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Civil Rights

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly well researched, September 9, 2009

By	Kristen M. Wares "bookworm" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This intelligent, well researched book is unafraid of being passionate, and brings the reader into the difficult, multifaceted topics it covers. An important read for anyone interested in feminist criminology, sociology, social work or public health. Wonderful book!