A Woman Doing Life Notes from a Prison for Women Erin George - Book Report/Review Example

“A woman doing life s from a prison for Women” Erin George “A Woman doing Life s from a Prison for Women” isa book by Erin George. The author tells the story about prisoners from the perspectives of women. She was inspired by a similar book “Life without Parole: Living in prison Today” by Victor Hassine. The book is a reflection of the lives of females in prison based on her experiences. The author is serving a sentence of many years in a prison in Virginia (Erin 2). The story also focuses on the stories of other imprisoned females. This paper offers an overview of the book and a detailed critique of the information presented in it. Summary/Overview The purpose of the book is giving a real picture of the life faced by imprisoned females. The author has focused on the physical issues and psychological challenges faced by the females in prison (Erin 141). Through the book, she has given a chance to forgotten and dismissed individual in the society to give their views. The story starts with heartbreaking and tragic experiences of inmates and ends with the inspiring experiences how the females managed to cope with the situation in the prison. The author’s intention also includes changing the reader’s views about the female inmates. She does this by showing the humanity side of the prisoners as they try to deal with their current challenges and what they have lost by being in prison. The book is important because it gives the readers a clear picture of the justice system in the country. It also makes the audience aware of the events in prison and the real experiences of the females in prison. Through the book, the author questions the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. This is seen through the narration of her reasons for being in prison. According to her, she was jailed for killing her husband. However, she claims to be innocent just like some of other inmates. This reflects how the many people are suffering in prisons for the mistake they never committed. She claimed that she had nothing to do with all the evidences provided against her in court. The author has conducted his research in the book through personal observation. She also collected the information presented in the book by asking her fellow inmates to write essays about their experiences in prison. She is committed to helping other women in the prison to express their thoughts. This is found in Chapter 10 where the author asks other women to write about their challenges. The experiences surprises the audience on the correctional strategies used in the prison. Through the experiences, the author condemns correction strategies used in prisons. She thinks that the strategies only focus on making the prisoners suffer rather than correcting their behaviors. For instance, this is seen through examples such as the issuing of poor quality and inadequate garments to prisoners (Erin 143). According to her experience, the author was given only two pairs of poor quality undergarments by the Virginia prison. The first pair fell apart on the first day. Other example of the poor services offered to prisoners includes the types of foods. She claims that correction departments offer cheap foods with little nutritional values. According to her, inmates rarely take a balanced diet because correction department focus on providing foods that are easy and cheap to prepare which consists of only carbohydrates such as rice and potatoes instead of the nutritional importance of the foods (Erin 151). She thinks that prison conditions have not improved like many people in the society think. According to her, the services provided in the 21st Century prisons are similar to those in the 19th century. She claims that in the 19th century, some of the employees in the correction department became rich by providing the inmates with fewer goods and poor quality services so that they could save the rest for themselves. According to her, the inmates do not access all the services and goods paid for by the state. Apart from the physical tortures experienced by the female prisoners, the author also focuses on the psychological tortures. She believes that prisoners should be treated as humans because they also have psychological needs despite the crime the committed. They are also affected by the reactions from their friends and families, and violence in prison. She tries to make people in the society more open-minded by putting them in the shoes of the inmates. The society has been rigid in their views about prisoners. Many people have been influenced to believe that prisoners deserve to suffer for the mistakes they made and that they are responsible for their difficult lives in prison. However, through this story, the authors makes the readers identify with prisoners in emotional ways. The author uses the macro level structure. For instance, she focuses on the effects of the corrupt criminal justice system and the correction strategies used in prisons on the lives of the inmates. The independent variables in this book include the correction strategies and the criminal justice system while the dependent variable in the book includes the lives and experiences of the inmates. Based on the story, the variable are relevant in sociological theories such as the Elliott’s Integrated Theory. The theory holds that strain destroys the social connections leading to a stronger bonds among peers and learning of criminal values. This applies to the lives of the female prisoners. The poor condition in prisons is an example of a socially disorganized society because it increases the risk of perceived strain. The strain weakens the bonds between the inmates and the society. This increases their chances of rejecting conventional values and engaging in deviant behaviors instead of correcting them. This increases the chances of engaging in criminal behaviors in and outside the prison. According to the book, a good correction strategy should focus on eliminating strain in prisons. The author’s main insights and conclusion is that prisoners should be treated in a fair way because they are also humans. In addition, the criminal justice system should be more effective in order to prevent innocent people like Erin from suffering in prisons. The author’s search increases my understanding of the lives of female prisoners. This book is unique because unlike other stories, it focuses on females. In addition, the story is told from the perspective of prisoners rather than the societal perspective. Critique The presentation is good criminal book can be read by anyone. The information has been presented as ethnography. This writing style not only captures the audience attention effectively, but it also makes it easy for people from any education background and reading levels to read. The information has been presented in simple and clear ways in the book. The arguments in the book have been presented in excellent ways making it one of the best criminal books. The worthwhile quality of this literature is the author’s unique ability to present arguments using pathos. I agree with the author about the corrupt justice system because many people are in prison for the crime they did not commit. However, the evidence provided to support this argument was not strong enough. The author supports this argument with her own experiences. At the beginning of the book, the author portrays Erin as an innocent victim of the ineffective justice system (Erin 6). However, her innocence is not effectively proved in the story. For instance, the readers only know that she is innocent based on her claims. It is a common thing for many prisoners to claim they are innocent even if they are guilty. It is difficult for one to believe the author’s innocence by only analyzing only side of the story. The most convincing argument in the book was about the suffering of the female inmates. This was convincing because the author did not only focus on her side of the story, but also other inmates experiences. Some of the experiences of the inmates agree with my knowledge of the life in prison. It is true that even though the conditions of the current prisons have to improve, the services provided in them still do not meet the psychological and physical needs of prisoners. Even though, I was already aware of the subjects presented, the book explains the events in hilarious and moving ways. As I started reading the book, I did not expect to find more than what I already knew about prison life based on the societal stereotype about prison. However, after reading the book I realized I was wrong. The stories of the women made me understand prison and the justice system better. An effective methodology has also been used in the book. The information presented is limited to personal observations of the author and interviews. This method contributes to the strength of information provided in the books. Personal observation increases the credibility and reliability of the information presented. This is because the authors’ has provided the audience with the direct access to social issues in the female prisons. The direct reporting of other inmates experiences through interview also gives reliable information. This is important because the methodology makes the audience to trust the author and her arguments. The story is a reflection of correctional perspective of prisoners with emphasis on the inmate social structure. However, the author has not used theoretical perspective in this book. This make the book limited since theories help in supporting explanations. The author should have related the argument with relevant theories such as deprivation theories that explain the consequence of inaccessibility of services and lack of autonomy by prisoners. According to this theory, deprivation as part of correctional strategies may threaten the prisoner’s safety and health. This is proved through the physical and psychological effects of deprivation of the inmates according to their experiences. The author is against the deprivation as correctional strategy. She believes that it makes the inmates vulnerable while in the prison while reducing their ability to function normally in the outside world. One of the questions unanswered in the book includes whether or not providing inmates with everything they need will correct their behaviors both inside and outside the prison. The other question includes whether or not giving the inmates some freedom will correct their behaviors. In order to improve the research, I would include an explanation of the issues presented using relevant theories. This will help in making the arguments more credible and convincing. Application The information presented in the book is related to my own life experiences in various ways. The book focuses on the effects of luck of freedom and deprivation. While I was child, my parents restricted me from playing and interacting with my friends because our neighborhood was not good. I felt isolated most of the time especially since my parents were always busy at work. This has affected my social behaviors until recently. I always isolate myself because I find it difficult to interact with other people. Whenever I meet new people, I always suffer from anxiety and nervousness because I was deprived of social life when I was a child. The inmates are experiencing similar effects of deprivation in prison. The deprivation of social relationships with people from the outside world and autonomy could affect their lives outside the prison since it negatively impacts on their social health. It would also hinder their abilities to make decisions on their own while outside prison. The situation implies that deprivation is not an effective correctional strategy. It also makes it difficult for prisoners to adapt to the prison life apart from dehumanizing them. The effects of this correctional strategy can best be explained using the Deprivation Theory. Even though deprivation is necessary in the prison, inmates should be allowed some degree of control over their lives. Conclusion Erin’s book is a reflection of the life in American prisons. Through the book, she has criticized the correctional strategies used in imprisons. Among the strategies criticized in the book include deprivation of prisoner’s need. For instance, the author and other inmates claim to be deprived of basic needs such as good clothing and nutritious foods. According to the book, this correctional measure focuses on making the prisoners suffer instead of correcting their behaviors. The author also condemns the corrupt justice system which has made innocent individuals to be imprisoned and the inmates to suffer. The author has supported this claim through her own experiences. She claims that the corrupt criminal justice contributed to her imprisonment despite her innocence. In addition, it has led to the poor living standards of inmates. Even though, the government has allocated enough resources for prisons, it is difficult for prisoners to enjoy them since they end up in the pockets of greedy individuals. They reduce the amounts of resources such as foods and clothes allocated to prisoners’ so that they can use them for their own benefits. Works Cited George Erin. A woman doing life: Notes from a Prison for women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Read More