The Criminalisation and imprisonment of Black Women

Abstract

Black women suffer the double disadvantage of being stereotyped according to race and gender, readily labelled as deviant in the community and over-represented in prison. They now represent 18% of the rising female prison population, yet little is known of their experience. Ruth Chiqwada, post-graduate student at LSE and part-time Lecturer in Criminology, interviewed ten Black women ex-prisoners concerning their treatment in the penal system and concludes that they are criminalised because of their lifestyle and by racist, class-biased attitudes.