In the past 30 years, the number of incarcerated women in the United States has increased at a faster rate than that of men. This article outlines the ideologies and mechanisms of the ''Prison Nation'' and calls on social workers to conceptualize the effects of mass incarceration of women as an urgent social justice issue. We call for feminist social workers to adopt an anti-oppressive orientation to justice-involved women, build social work responses around national reform measures, and advocate for decarceration and restorative justice as a paradigm for responding to women's involvement in systems which criminalize them.

This study expands limited existing knowledge of the characteristics of violent crimes for which women in state prisons are incarcerated. An analysis was conducted utilizing survey data collected from female state prisoners by the U.S. Department of Justice for the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities, 2004. The randomly selected, national sample consisted of 866 female state prisoners. Results suggest that the majority of the violent offenses occurred within the context of a relationship with the victim, most often in a domestic setting, and were influenced by the presence or absence of co-defendants. In addition, the use of weapons was infrequent and often defensive. Implications for practice in violence prevention, prison-based, and reentry services are discussed.

This chapter introduces readers to the carceral state, which is defined as a system of punishment that includes all parts of the criminal legal system. This chapter showcases how to apply the anti-oppressive and feminist social work approach for analysis of the system of power that is the current criminal legal system in the United States. The chapter helps readers make connections between the carceral state, its sociopolitical context, and how individuals and communities are disproportionately impacted. Specifically explained is how the history of multiple oppressions, particularly white supremacy and economic inequalities, have constructed the sociopolitical context of today’s criminal legal system.

Chapter 13 summarizes what has gone in the previous chapters and issues a call to social workers to adopt an anti-oppressive stance in transforming the carceral system that moves us toward its abolition. It reminds the reader of the carceral state’s significant tentacles. It identifies where and how social workers can resist the carceral state’s encroachment in their work toward building more just and community-driven responses. It calls on anti-oppressive social workers to build alliances with people with lived experience of the carceral state, providing leadership and expertise in this project and joining with other abolitionist social workers. It appeals to social workers to actively examine their complicity in the carceral state—to ask themselves what role they play in sustaining the carceral state.

This chapter describes the long reach of criminalization and incarceration into the lives of children and their families, an impact little considered in the processes of carceral punishment. The chapter discusses some avenues for working with family members to maintain connections during incarceration and restore disrupted relationships. The chapter also examines the right to parent and resilience in families impacted by the carceral state. Anti-oppressive social workers support investing in vulnerable communities to expand educational and employment opportunities for youth and adults and to ensure access to quality medical, mental health, and substance use services that address significant drivers of criminalization.