A Halfway House for Women

“Gail A. Caputo gives us the revealing and deeply troubling account of the failure of reentry programs to serve the unique needs of women offenders. In the best ethnographic study I have ever read, she adds a new dimension to the debate about gender-specific programs, and illustrates how even well-intentioned reintegration programs remained fundamentally flawed when embedded in a punitive justice system. . . Anyone concerned about mass incarceration, the effectiveness of reentry programs, and crime policy should consider this a must-read.”—Joan Petersilia, Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

“Rich with ethnographic detail, this book offers valuable descriptions of what it is like for women cycling through the criminal justice system. . . . For feminist scholars, these volumes raise hard questions about the role of supposedly gender-sensitive discourses in furthering the oppression of criminalized women.” 

—Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society