Women Doing Life: Gender, Punishment and the Struggle for Identity by Lora Bex Lempert, New York University Press

One third of the world’s imprisoned women are in the United States, and Women Doing Life shines a spotlight on the experiences of 72 women serving life sentences in Michigan.  Through in-depth interviews, Lempert brings these marginalized women back into the center of the public arena, drawing attention to their complicated, contradictory, and yet compelling lives.  Documenting that most had reported traumatic childhoods, Lempert reveals that many were victims before they were offenders, and a critical analysis of her participants’ life histories illuminates broader social trends that affect all women in contemporary America.  This is a study of the ways women grow and create meaningful lives in the most restrictive of environments.