“Trying to Get Free”: A Theoretical Centering of Black Women’s Post-Carceral Narratives of Systemic Unfreedom

Abstract

This article examines how Black justice involved mothers navigate the enduring unfreedom of post-imprisonment life. Drawing upon the analytical framework of Black Feminist Criminology (BFC), this paper argues that centering women’s narratives of unfreedom provides a context for understanding and critiquing systemic and structural oppression. Interviews with thirty-three Black formerly incarcerated mothers from two transitional organizations in New York and Massachusetts reveals how women a) Identify instances of structural oppression at the hands of the legal system and the labor market and b) Deploy individual responses that reframe their marginal status by subverting expectations of their roles as mothers and as participants within transitional organizations. Substantively, this study holds implications for identifying how unfreedom persists and is concretized through institutions that regulate women’s post-imprisonment journeys. Theoretically, this paper addresses how a Black women-centered framework, such as BFC, captures the complex and intersectional nature of (un)freedom in marginalized women’s lives.