Women’s Experiences in the Revolving Door of the Criminal Justice System: Implications for Their Imagined Futures

Abstract

Despite the notable expansion in research on mass incarceration and reentry, we know relatively little about how women who have spent a good portion of their lives enmeshed in the criminal justice system view these experiences and how these experiences might shape their imagined future lives. We address this gap by examining the narratives of 16 black and 35 white persistent offenders imprisoned in Pennsylvania. Our findings suggest that black women report more negative criminal justice experiences than white women and that, regardless of the nature of these encounters, white women tend to have more optimist outlooks for their futures. This suggests that the racialization of structural advantages and disadvantages may compound the women’s salient criminal justice encounters. The implication of these findings for procedural justice, reentry and desistance research are discussed.