Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism

293 Pages·2023·2.044 MB·English

by  Leigh Goodmark

Imperfect Victims
// // /
Gender and Justice
Edited by Claire M. Renzetti
This University of California Press series explores how the experiences of offend-
ing, victimization, and justice are profoundly influenced by the intersections of
gender with other markers of social location. Cross-cultural and comparative,
series volumes publish the best new scholarship that seeks to challenge assump-
tions, highlight inequalities, and transform practice and policy.
1. The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India,
by Srimati Basu
2. Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance, and Wraparound Incarceration, by Jerry
Flores
3. In Search of Safety: Confronting Inequality in Women’s Imprisonment,
by Barbara Owen, James Wells, and Joycelyn Pollock
4. Abusive Endings: Separation and Divorce Violence against Women,
by Walter S. DeKeseredy, Molly Dragiewicz, and Martin D. Schwartz
5. Journeys: Resiliency and Growth for Survivors of Intimate Partner Abuse,
by Susan L. Miller
6. The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption, by Nikki Jones
7. Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to
Intimate Partner Violence, by Leigh Goodmark
8. Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition
Feminism, by Leigh Goodmark
// // /
Imperfect Victims
criminalized survivors and the
Promise of abolition feminism
Leigh Goodmark
university of c alifornia Press
// // /
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2023 by Leigh Goodmark
CataloginginPublication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.
isbn 9780520391109 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 9780520391123 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn 9780520391130 (ebook)
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
// // /
For Rudeara, Tressie, Jody, Renee, Keri, Desalashia,
Dixie, Ashley, Tanisha, Eraina, and all of you who, for
your own safety, I can’t name here. You trusted me
with your stories. I hope I did them justice.
// // /
There are no criminals here at Riker’s Island Correctional
Institution for Women (New York), only victims. Most of the
women (over 95%) are black and Puerto Rican. Many were
abused children. Most have been abused by men and all have
been abused by “the system.”
Assata Shakur, “Women in Prison: How It Is with Us”
// // /
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1. The Criminalization of Survival 1
2. Youth 25
3. Arrest and Prosecution 44
4. Punishment and Sentencing 92
5. Reconsideration and Clemency 142
6. Abolition Feminism 171
Notes 197
Bibliography 225
Index 269
// // /
// // /
Preface
In 2018, I co-facilitated a support group for women serving life sentences
at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. My students and I
represented several of the women in the group who were eligible for parole
and had been working with them to write their life stories for their parole
packets. Looking for a new group project, we coalesced around writing
a book—the women would write their stories, and I would frame their
narratives using law and social science research. Although some at the
prison were open to the idea, the Maryland Department of Public Safety
and Correctional Services vetoed the project. The women then asked me
to tell their stories myself. This book is the result of that request.
I have been telling the stories of victims of gender-based violence in
various forms for more than twenty-five years: as a lawyer, in legislative
advocacy, and as a scholar. But until 2013 my work with criminalized sur-
vivors was largely academic. The exception: in 2006, I read about Dixie
Shanahan, a woman subjected to unspeakable abuse who killed her hus-
band, Scott, after he threatened to murder her and their unborn child.
I learned about Dixie through news articles, obtained the transcripts of
her trial, and tried to figure out how anyone could believe that incarcerat-
ing Dixie after the nineteen years of abuse she had already endured could
ix
// // /