law

Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939

beth — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This past May, the birth control pill celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. News outlets all over the country covered the story, yet the early years of the birth control movement were seldom mentioned. A lack of academic research has led to the history of the early birth control movement being plagued by misinformation, myth, and appropriation by the right, particularly regarding the history of the movement’s founder, Margaret Sanger.

Birth Control on Main Street by Cathy Moran Hajo seeks to shed light on the history of a movement that was so successful that contraceptive access is something most Americans, even those on the right, take for granted.

It is the suffrage movement that is seen by feminists as the early movement to idealize, yet as Hajo points out, in reality, the birth control movement led to much more meaningful reforms. The birth control movement more directly allowed women to pursue careers and personal goals, greatly improved the health of countless women, increased women’s longevity, and led to societal sexual enlightenment, further equal rights, and allowed women to enhance their roles as mothers and partners.

While Birth Control on Main Street is about the movement as a whole (covering years 1916 to 1939), Hajo recognized the importance of providing a fact-based analysis of Margaret Sanger’s career to give a proper foundation for the rest of the movement’s history. As associate editor at NYU’s Margaret Sanger Papers Project, Hajo is the perfect expert to provide such an exploration.

What is perhaps most important for women to know about the history of the early birth control movement is that it was begun and maintained almost exclusively by laywomen activists. Men dominated the medical establishment at the time and were unsupportive of reforms that would encourage women to have fewer children. Control of the clinics remained with female activists for the first decades of the movement, despite their strong desire to work with medical professionals.

No comprehensive history of the birth control movement would be complete without a frank discussion of eugenics, and Hajo does a great job exploring both the realities of the eugenics movement itself and the actual ideologies that brought some birth control activists to involve themselves with eugenicists, including Sanger. Despite what some radicals on the right may say, for Sanger and most of her colleagues, the eugenic question of what made a woman “fit” to bear children was a question of environment, not race.

According to Hajo, the notion that early birth control activists were concerned with reducing the black population is highly misleading. In reality, states Hajo, the true shortcoming of the movement was neglect of the black population. Instead, the true study and focus should be on the unwillingness of early clinic activists to work with black communities at all. As is now well known, this was a conflict eventually overcome and the women’s movement became the most inclusive of social movements in U.S. history.

If there is one thing that is unknown about the early birth control movement, it is the actual work that went on inside the clinics. Hajo devotes a large part of the book to exploring the exact work, interactions between activists and patients, interactions between activists and birth professionals, the demographics of patients, the attitudes and ideologies of activists, admission requirements, and conflicts between local and national leaders. Birth Control on Main Street is the perfect read for any enthusiast, as well as any feminist activist who wants to know more about the collected history we share with our foremothers.

Written by: Janice Formichella, September 29th 2010

Muzzling a Movement: The Effects of Anti-Terrorism Law, Money, and Politics on Animal Activism

mandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

By Dara Lovitz

Lantern Books

There isn’t another contemporary nonviolent activist movement that is so routinely dismissed as too radical, mocked as too extreme, and so actively condemned and persecuted across the political spectrum as the animal rights movement. If you believe the media bias when reading reports about animal liberation, “victims” are often corporations and research facilities that abuse and slaughter animals, and the “terrorists” are those seeking a peaceful end to our destructive lifestyles and appetites. Those one-sided attitudes are even more prominent within the legal system, which punishes so-called ecoterrorists for thought crimes without much regard for the First Amendment.

When Dara Lovitz set out to write Muzzling A Movement, she had no idea just how thwarted her own efforts would be. Seeking to interview convicted animal rights activists in federal prison, the United States Department of Justice forbade her to conduct interviews with inmates. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, her work—research and interviews with activists convicted under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA; previously known by the less sensationalist named, Animal Enterprise Protection Act, or AEPA)—could and would facilitate criminal activity. A book project about animal rights activism became one about freedom of speech and the ways animal rights activists and their allies are often silenced, even before they speak.

A lawyer with years of experience and a landmark animal rights trial under her belt, Lovitz writes with authority and candor about the history of anti-terrorism laws and the ways international animal rights coalitions have been especially stifled in the United States since 9/11. Muzzling A Movement offers an overview of legal animal persecution and how modern so-called humane slaughter laws fail to protect ninety-eight percent of slaughtered animals—namely, birds and fish. Lovitz delves deeply into both legal and activist history, and readers emerge with a newfound understanding of just how harmful the “green scare” has been to the efforts of non-violent animal rights activists and supporters.

Although there is a long history of animal advocacy around the globe, Lovitz cites 1977 as the year it became widely publicized in the U.S. following the release of several laboratory animals. In the years that followed, animal liberation activities took place across the country; from releases at university laboratories to mink farm liberations, both connected to and unaffiliated with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), animal rights activists began a series of direct actions that gained widespread attention.

Much of the book centers on one case and several key laws, though this is not without warrant given the legal precedence and the (limited) publicity that has been doled out. In November 1999, a group of U.K.-based activists formed a coalition with the goal of closing down Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe’s largest contract animal testing lab, where an estimated 500 animals died every day at the hands of HLS lab workers. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, or SHAC, spread to a number of countries that outsourced to HLS. Within several years, seven U.S. activists—later known as the SHAC7—were arrested after an aggressive FBI investigation. Six of the original seven were later prosecuted and sentenced to prison time, though their efforts were not in vain; the New York Stock Exchange refused to list HLS on the market in 2004, which the vivisection industry attributed to SHAC’s activism. As of this writing, several of the original SHAC7 remain behind bars.

Despite the book’s small size, Lovitz packs an enormous amount of information onto its pages. I have yet to read another such thorough history of animal rights protection law as it relates to direct action, activism, and government oppression.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, September 7th 2010

Rule of Law, Misrule of Men

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Elaine Scarry

MIT Press

In Rule of Law, Misrule of Men Elaine Scarry, a professor at Harvard, argues that the well being of the populace is the chief reason for a military. A proposition not much debated. She goes on to argue that after 9/11 the Bush administration did not focus on protecting the populace in the U.S., but instead focused on attacking people in other countries. She points out that U.S. military resources are so far beyond other countries (the U.S. spends more than the rest of the world combined on military) that opponents know they can’t use standard military measures, so they must resort to unconventional warfare and actions prohibited by international law. The U.S. doesn’t need to resort to that, but did under Bush. Scarry details multiple violations of international law in the process.

On the homefront, the acts of people should be private and those of government public. Instead the Bush administration reversed that theory by probing into the intimate details of citizens with the Patriot Act while the acts of the government were made private (e.g., secret renditions for torture, lies about yellow cake and weapons of mass destruction, prohibitions on pictures of dead American soldiers.) The Bush administration has been characterized as the most secret. They had a lot to hide.

It was not the Congress who stood up for the American people against these travesties, nor (by and large) did the courts. According to Scarry, the people stood up. Librarians across the country refused to turn in records. Town councils in 406 cities and eight states passed resolutions that they would not follow the Act. Two town councils issued indictments against Bush and Cheney, and promised to arrest them if they came into their jurisdiction. After ninety-two towns asked for impeachment proceedings, thirty-five articles of impeachment were introduced into Congress by Dennis Kucinich and Paul Wexler for both Bush and Cheney.

Rule of Law, Misrule of Men outlines many misdeeds of the Bush administration, but the greatest of these is torture—illegal without exception. The author names those responsible and those few who stood up. The Bush administration crossed the line. Failure to hold them accountable is, in itself, a domestic and international crime.

The actions of Bush put the entire concept of Rule of Law in the United States into question. It is not enough that Obama says he won’t do the same. The Rule of Law requires that the law doesn’t change from one president to another. One lawless president gives permission to others. To uphold the Rule of Law, the Bush administration must be held accountable in a court of law for their war crimes, urges the author. The United Nations, other countries, and international and domestic organizations have taken steps toward such accountability. No action has been forthcoming from the U.S. government, however.

What does all this have to do with women? Violence against women has become recognized internationally as torture since it meets the definition of intentional infliction of a high level of pain and suffering for no legitimate reason. Often, the activities that go on in the home are the same, or worse, than that which goes on in war zones. If torture can be legalized, can violence against women? The word patriotic comes from the same root as patriarchy–patri meaning father. Feminists have long said the root of the problem is patriarchy. So long as that is the organizing principle of society, women cannot achieve equal rights regardless of the Rule of Law.

Written by: Dianne Post, July 25th 2010

The Tiger Next Door

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Camilla Calamandrei

First Run Features

"Experts estimate that there are now more tigers in private captivity in the USA than there are roaming wild in the world."

This is the opening line from The Tiger Next Door, a compelling documentary about the surprisingly widespread practice of breeding, selling, and owning exotic animals in the United States. The film focuses on Dennis Hill, a big cat owner who resides in Indiana. Hill has been keeping tigers and other exotic animals since the early 1990s. The film follows his fight to keep his tigers, cougars, and bears after a government inspection put his facility in question.

The Tiger Next Door is a fascinating, thought-provoking documentary that presents a well-rounded look at the issue of owning exotic animals, raising many complex ethical questions that don't necessarily have a cut-and-dried answer. Should individuals be allowed to own big cats as pets? Just how much should the government regulate this?

Director and producer Camilla Calamandrei makes her stance clear on TheTigerNextDoor.com, with a “Take Action” page urging viewers to call for the ban of exotic animals as pets. Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel. On one hand, I am uncomfortable with the idea of keeping any animal—bird or lion—in a cage; on the other hand, doting pet owners often take exceptional care of their animals, with vet check-ups, treats, affection, and so forth. Is that a better life than living in the harsh wild? Or are we just indulging the humans that own them? What about keeping endangered animals in captivity to help restore their numbers?

Of course, it's a lot easier to care for a bird than a tiger. Questions were raised about the care Hill provided for his tigers, coming to a head in one explosive scene when Joe Taft of The Exotic Feline Rescue Center—who has taken in many of Hill's animals—argued that many of the cats were in poor health when they arrived at the rescue facility. Watching this film, I got the impression that Hill is extraordinarily devoted to his animals, although his own facility certainly had its flaws. I think if Hill is guilty of anything, it might be denial. It seemed that he couldn't bear to admit when he was overwhelmed with too many animals, which I suspect could have contributed to the alleged health issues. I think his downsized facility will make it easier for him to better care for his beloved cats, although he seems determined to add more tigers to his menagerie.

Personally, I feel that individuals should have the right live their lives as they see fit, so long as they are not causing harm. This is where the issue of animal rights comes in–if an animal is being abused or neglected, then obviously their owner is causing harm. Likewise, it is of grave importance that we safeguard humans from the threat that exotic animals pose—precautions must be taken to ensure that they cannot cause people any harm. Hill says in the documentary that he doesn't care if one of his beloved pets kills him—“What better way to die?”—and it's his right to make that choice. But it's critical that we have fair laws in place to regulate the conditions in which dangerous animals are kept to avoid unnecessary tragedies.

Regardless of your stance on keeping big cats as pets, I think The Tiger Next Door makes it clear that further action must be taken to ensure the health and safety of humans and felines alike.

Written by: Beeb Ashcroft, July 5th 2010

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth M. Cuno, Manisha Desai

Syracuse University Press

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia makes available twelve essays that were presented, in earlier forms, at the 2004 symposium of the same title, which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The essays, edited by Kenneth M. Cuno and Manisha Desai, include analysis of eleven nation-states from Morocco to Bangladesh. With thirty-one pages of works cited, this is a valuable reference on an increasingly critical topic. Major themes include the impact of colonialism and postcolonial struggles with national identity; religious politics, and in particular religion’s impact on family law; and international standards, as outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and related conventions, versus nationalist efforts for self-determination without perceived pressures from outside.

The issues dealt with in these essays are complex, and I am wary of oversimplifying any of them. In the discussion of the role of colonialism, one idea that emerges is that colonial patriarchies interact with local patriarchies, creating hybrid forms that become sites of negotiation and contestation. Another idea that recurs is the interplay of religion, local custom, and the state, three venues for regulating behavior and establishing social mores. In practice, as contributor Shelley Feldman points out in her discussion of Bangladesh, this means that constitutional reform alone is insufficient to create change, because it will not (necessarily, or sufficiently) impact local customs and religious laws.

Taken together, the analyses shed light on one another. The reader can see commonalities among the nations in these interrelated regions, as well as critical differences that make each locality’s challenges unique. It becomes apparent that, as the editors point out in the introduction, “neither nationalism nor elite women’s feminism guarantees the ‘liberation’ of women.” Thankfully, these discussions also highlight many ways in which women are actors, participating in many ways, from liberatory habits of daily life to transnational feminist organizations.

Written by: Lisa Rand, May 11th 2010

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Rebecca J. Cook, Simone Cusack

University of Pennsylvania Press

Gender stereotypes are often studies in contradiction. They can be insidious or glaringly apparent; they are hostile, and occasionally operate out of “benign” sexism. The customs and mores of the society, the media that is consumed in that society, the predominant religion of a culture, and the family unit can all commingle in order to perpetuate gender stereotypes. Of course, a society's operative legal system can do this as well, which can do the most harm of all since the weight of law enforces entrenched gender stereotypes, often resulting in gender discrimination.

Women are most often burdened by the practice of stereotyping, since stereotyping is used to justify the subordination of women to men. Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives is an academic book that analyzes the worldwide practice of gender stereotyping and discrimination through the framework of the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), with an additional focus on the obligations of the law and state to avoid stereotyping and discrimination with the force of law.

Authors Rebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack focus on both men and women in their study of stereotyping, and illustrate their points through international court cases in which gender stereotyping affected the verdict. While women are often the injured party, Cook and Cusack point out that harmful stereotypes about men can harm women as well, and vice versa. Stereotypes about men and women in fact are mutually reinforcing and end up as self-fulfilling prophecies. The solution to ridding society, media, law, and culture of stereotyping, the authors note, is by a process of Identification/Naming/Elimination/Remedy. It is necessary to both point to and give a name to the operative stereotype before it can be erased, and before reparations can be made to the injured party.

CEDAW and the protocols issued for the adoption of its ratifying countries are the focus for the book, but scant information is provided about the Convention itself. It is not indicated what countries and governments adopted its platform (presumably member nations of the U.N.), who was on the committee to draft its proposals, and who exactly is enforcing it outside of a nebulous “Women's Committee.” The governments targeted by CEDAW are referred to as “States Parties,” a term which is never clearly defined; from inference, I gathered that it is a combination of government, courts, and human rights treaties bodies. Furthermore, since several countries (Niger, Malaysia, and Israel are noted) have formally expressed reservations about several of CEDAW's articles for religious reasons, one wonders why they agreed to adopt CEDAW at all. CEDAW apparently also does not have the force of law behind it. Offending governments will be issued reports and recommendations, but there appears to be little impetus to follow CEDAW's instruction.

These are critiques of CEDAW, but several critiques may be noted about the book as well. The authors focus on only a handful of international cases that fall under CEDAW's jurisdiction, and no dates are given for any of these cases. Knowing the date might have provided an insight into sex and gender attitudes of the time. Furthermore, numerous commentators and scholars are quoted, but not named or sourced until the bibliography. Certain terms are used, but not defined (the most egregious being the “woman question.”) There are also far too many hypothetical “for examples,” especially for a book that deals in hard legal facts. The tone is dry and academic, but it is free of the subjectivity and injection of hyperbolic personal opinion that can accompany many feminist-related texts.

On the whole, though Gender Stereotyping handles its subject matter fairly well, it is not a terribly interesting read except perhaps to policy wonks and the legally-minded. It's always appreciated when subjects such as these are brought to the forefront for analysis, but I am not sure for what target audience the authors intended it.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, March 30th 2010

Justice for Girls?: Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems of the United States and Canada

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Jane B. Sprott, Anthony N. Doob

University of Chicago Press

In Justice for Girls?, Canadian researchers Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob provide a comprehensive and concise overview on girls and juvenile delinquency in these two North American countries. Sprott and Doob address the misconception, fueled by media reports and newspaper articles circulating in the U.S. and Canada, that girls are committing more crimes, and more violent crimes. The book asserts that contrary to popular belief, “the violent girl crime wave that people have been waiting for since the early 1900s...has simply not happened.”

In uncovering the hype behind sensationalized reports on girls and violence, the authors view juvenile delinquency as a social construction. In researching the number of violent girl crimes throughout the twentieth century, they assert that girls are less likely to commit violent crimes than boys. However, they note that girls make up a large percentage of juvenile delinquents and custody cases due to status offenses, so-called crimes in which girls can be arrested and tried for non-criminal behavior, such as sexual immorality.

Connecting the courts' motivations behind status offenses to women’s political movements, the authors make a convincing argument that girls have often born the brunt of a sociopolitical backlash as a parallel when women's movements are afoot.At these pivotal moments in history, juvenile court systems have tightened their surveillance of girls’ behaviors and criminalized girls’ sexual expression. As a result, Sprott and Doob argue, girls have historically been punished, and continue to be punished, for behavior and actions considered normal and acceptable for boys.

The authors discuss the limitations of their research, acknowledging the absences in their data with regards to race and class. Another absence in the book is a discussion of queer girls as well as trans girls and boys. Since sexual immortality—one of the most common status offenses girls are cited for—is not discussed at length, it is unclear if any of the girls convicted of this offense were/are queer or trans, and how their sexuality and/or gender identity influenced a court’s decision. Moreover, besides examining one case study, the authors do not offer girls’ own voices or their stories. Instead, they allow statistical evidence to speak for the injustices girls face in juvenile justice systems.

As a feminist scholar interested in the intersection of girls’ studies and media studies, I would argue that Sprott's and Doob’s work could benefit any researcher addressing the current hype surrounding girls and violence in contemporary Western societies.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, March 20th 2010

Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department’s Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:18:00 +0000

By William H. Thomas Jr.

University of Wisconsin Press

Even the preface to Unsafe for Democracy makes William H. Thomas Jr.’s political stances abundantly clear, but impressively, his political leanings have no negative effect on either his literary voice or his scholarship. Unsafe for Democracy is a straightforward historical tract, delineating the disturbing specifics of a very specific time in history. Thomas uses only the preface to tie the events of the early twentieth century to the problems America faced in subsequent eras, from the actions of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s secretive, legally questionable “counterintelligence program” to spy on, disrupt and often destroy dissident political organizations in the mid-twentieth century, to those of the Bush Administration; the body of the book allows the reader to draw her own conclusions, a model of thorough research and admirable self-restraint.

Using the Espionage Act of 1917 as its legal base and the general paranoid wartime climate as its ethical base, the United States Justice Department committed innumerable violations of the civil rights of German-Americans, members of the Socialist Party, and many other American citizens under the umbrella of protecting American safety and security during World War I. Thomas skillfully depicts the anger and frustration present in the social climate at that time, and uses it to draw us into stories of the Justice Department’s behavior, each more shocking than the last, and the behavior it inspired in ordinary American citizens. The book ends with the startling chapter “Vigilantism,” describing many shocking incidents not commonly known and the Justice Department’s notable lack of focused response. The details of the book are fascinating and often terrifying.

More than many historical tracts, Unsafe for Democracy demonstrates the value of straightforward storytelling. Thomas makes no attempt to shock his readers or to beat them over the head with parallels to other periods of history or contemporary government. Rather, he tells us what happened, offers his compelling evidence that this was, indeed, the way it happened, and leaves us to frame the value of the story as we see fit. Even if the stories in Unsafe for Democracy were not so chilling, this skill would make the book worthwhile, and the stories themselves are stories that every American should understand in as much depth as possible.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, November 2nd 2009

Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband’s Violent Revenge

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:29:00 +0000

By Caitlin Rother, John Hess

Jossey-Bass

“Stranger than fiction” is the most accurate way to describe the premise for this book about married FBI agents. The wife has a lesbian affair with a crime novel author, and the husband kidnaps and later tries to kill his wife. And yet, it’s a true story! Having never heard of this case before, I could not put the book down and found myself eager to get to the end to see how it all turned out.

The book tells the complex story of an abusive relationship between Gene and Margo Bennett, as well as their personal, professional, and legal troubles. Evidence of Gene’s emotional abuse towards his wife is presented early in the book, and starts to draw the outline of the picture that’s yet to come. He carries out a scam to get money from the F.B.I., and is prosecuted when Margo decides to divorce him and reports the incident. A power struggle starts as he seeks revenge for her betrayal and her affair with Patricia Cornwell, a famous author. He kidnaps her to make her lie in court and clear his name, but is still convicted. When he gets out of jail, he carries out an elaborate and bizarre plan to frame her for murder and attempts to kill her. Ultimately, Gene is found guilty on several charges, including attempted murder, and sentenced to twenty-three years and ten years of probation. The book wraps up by describing the aftermath of the trial and its effect on Margo and her two daughters.

One of the problems with the book is that it’s told primarily through the perspective of Margo, but this is because the author attempted to contact Gene, but he did not agree to participate. The writing itself is awkward at times, which doesn’t help the fact that the story unfolds itself is hard to keep up with. There are so many names and places to keep track of, yet they are sometimes mentioned without a reminder about how we should know who or what the author is referring to.

These problems, however, are minor when compared to the important themes raised in the book. Because Margo was raised to be ashamed of homosexuality and bisexuality, she viewed her relationships with women as innocent experimentation. She even viewed her affair with Patricia Cornwell as separate from any pattern that would make her label herself as a lesbian. The homophobia and bias against homosexuality in the Virginia justice system is also mentioned several times throughout the book.

Gene’s abuse towards Margo, along with her ignorance about what was happening in her marriage, is the perfect example of how abuse works. It seems that no matter how severe the abuse and torment, the blame still falls on the victim. In fact, this situation shows that the more severe the abuse, the more blame a victim might receive. Why didn’t she know better? She was an FBI agent after all... How could she not see the signs in her own relationship? Why did she let it go that far? All of these are questions echoed throughout the book by her peers, and all demonstrate why these stories need to be told. It should go without saying that there is great motivation to disconnect one’s own relationship from the scenarios and “what ifs” that a person hears about, and yet these questions often come up.

At its core, this book is about abuse and sexual repression—two themes that could certainly use more attention and discussion, especially when they reflect a true story and not a work of fiction.

Written by: frau sally benz, July 26th 2009

Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death-Row Survivor

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:55:00 +0000

By Billy Wayne Sinclair, Jodie Sinclair

Arcade Publishing

In 1965, Billy Wayne Sinclair accidentally killed a store clerk with a shot fired aimlessly into the dark after a robbery he had committed. One year later, at the age of twenty-one, he was sentenced to die in the electric chair for his crime, however unintentional. Sinclair initially dealt with his death sentence through denial, swallowing the tranquilizers the guards on death row dispensed to keep the inmates pacified. Thankfully, Sinclair became curious about the system that intended to kill him and the methods it had at its disposal to do so.

In 1972, the Supreme Court decided the case of Furman v. Georgia, effectively striking down the death penalty nationwide. Billy Wayne Sinclair’s sentence was commuted to life without parole. Over the next forty years that Sinclair spent in prison, he became a respected, award-winning writer and jailhouse lawyer. Since winning his freedom in 2006, Sinclair has established himself as a senior paralegal in a Houston law firm. Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death-Row Survivor is Sinclair’s second book. The death penalty being the divisive issue that it is, it’s not likely that Capital Punishment will change many minds. The tales of miscarriages of justice, dirty politics, and DNA exonerations abounding throughout Sinclair’s book are enough to make one’s jaw drop in utter outrage. (Sinclair is fervently anti-death penalty, as might be inferred from past bitter experience.) However, that’s until Sinclair details the despicable crimes that led to the inmates’ death-row sentences in the first place, which generally caused me to lose any trace of pity I might have held. Perhaps Sinclair himself even realizes this, because the instances in which he actually discusses the crimes committed in a particular inmate’s case study are few and far between.

Sinclair is at his best when discussing in graphic detail America's present methods of executing condemned prisoners. Sinclair presents plenty of interesting anecdotes about the American way of death, past and present. For example, when Mary Surratt was hanged as a co-conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, several people held her legs so that her undergarments wouldn’t “immodestly” show in her death throes. The sight of a woman’s underwear was more shocking to the public than the sight of that same woman dying painfully and publicly.

Thanks to several victim-blaming statements early in the book, I was not terribly impressed with Billy Wayne Sinclair's gender sympathies. He regained some ground in a later chapter titled “The Killers of Women” in which he discusses the disparity in the sentences given to those who kill women versus those who kill "real" people. Men who kill women are almost a legal anomaly. Two-thirds of all violent incidents against women in the United States involve a relative or an intimate, and six times as many women are the victims of violence at the hands of intimate partners as by strangers. However, men who kill intimate female partners are rarely if ever charged with first-degree or even second-degree murder. Generally, they plea-bargain down to lesser charges such as manslaughter and can serve even less time than automobile thieves. Capital punishment is rarely handed down in cases involving intimate partner murders. Sinclair makes the compelling argument that the murdered women are not viewed as "crime victims," but simply as victims of "domestic violence." Domestic violence victims, says Sinclair, do not receive the societal benefit of the justice of capital punishment when they are killed by rejected lovers and husbands. Of course, it doesn't help that socially, historically, and legally, women have been viewed as the property of men, to be disposed of as seen fit by her owner.

Female perpetrators of crimes serious enough to warrant the death penalty are extraordinarily rare. As of January 1, 2008, women made up only 1.5 percent of the United States' death row population. Because of this anomaly, and because Sinclair focuses mostly on Texas and Louisiana in his research, and furthermore because of his prior focus on disparate gender issues, I expected Sinclair to bring up the famous case of Karla Faye Tucker's execution in Texas in 1998. However, it merits only a one-line mention in an appendix of statistics. Karla Faye Tucker would have beautifully illustrated the hypocrisy inherent in America's thirst for blood vengeance, so long as that blood comes from the wounds of the public's image of a lower-class black male perpetrator. Tucker, however, was an attractive white female who had converted to fervent Christianity while imprisoned on death row for a brutal ax murder, thus contradicting in almost every way possible the "ideal" capital punishment candidate. Many at the time called for leniency for Tucker, who also begged for her life, but then-governor George Bush would not grant a stay of execution. The lesson here, one may surmise, is that women are treated more delicately and with more sympathy as convicted murderers (out of quaint ideas about the infirmities and inherent passivity and pacifism of women) than they are as the victims of brutality.

I'd liked to have known more about Sinclair's own life on death row, and I did have a few quibbles with his editing and facts, but on the whole I found this to be an exhaustively researched and well-written book, and perhaps enlightening and inspiring to others who have found themselves back outside after years in the penal system. Those who are staunchly and unflinchingly on one side or the other of the capital punishment debate will not likely be swayed to change their position, but there are plenty of facts, case studies, statistics, and anecdotes to make the undecided and the fence-sitters fall to one side.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, July 20th 2009

When Mothers Kill: Interviews from Prison

admin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:48:00 +0000

By Michelle Oberman, Cheryl L. Meyer

New York University Press

Perhaps predictably, _When Mothers Kill: Interviews from Prison_ is not a fun or heartening read; it is a somewhat scholarly book featuring in-depth accounts of women who have murdered their own children. Yet, if you’re interested in law, crime, parent/child relationships, or social psychology and can find a way to emotionally detach while digesting these stories, this is an excellent reference and review of these very specific types of crime.

Moving away from the sensationalized stories covered by the news, When Mothers Kill is an intense and necessary factual review of a variety of maternal filicide cases, featuring anonymized interviews with convicted, incarcerated women. Co-authors Oberman and Meyer are experts on the subject, the team behind 2001’s Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the "Prom Mom", and are professors of law and psychology, respectively. Through their growing body of research, readers can begin to more sympathetically understand women who kill their children, whether the crimes were intentional, accidental, or somewhere in between.

While this book is fact-driven and based on horrific real-life accounts, it quickly becomes a page-turner. In a culture that feels like its veering towards natalism, I found this work of non-fiction an odd, somehow appropriate balance. Understanding motherhood as difficult and complex isn’t savory to many, especially in a society that is quick to blame mothers for events and circumstances far beyond their control. Many of the women in this book come from families of abuse, cycles of neglect, and displaced love (many holding their own conflicting feelings about motherhood), and that should be validated and understood instead of condemned, as we can be so quick to do.

My concern was whether I was interested in these cases as a way to hope for rehabilitation or because I wanted to voyeuristically peer at these women, probably not nearly as removed from me as I’d like to believe. And maybe that’s why this book is important: it reminds us that motherhood is indescribably difficult, that to have survived our own childhoods is sometimes an amazing feat, and to make it out with everyone in one piece is a substantial victory.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 31st 2008

Girls in Trouble with the Law

admin — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

By Laurie Schaffner

Rutgers University Press

“I was like four or six when my babysitter molested me... I would just freeze... Like I thought if I froze it would not have happened.”

This 16-year-old girl’s memory is an all too familiar one for Laurie Schaffner. Her multi-year, qualitative study of girls involved in the juvenile corrections system, Girls in Trouble with the Law, quickly revealed that virtually all of the girls interviewed had witnessed or experienced some form of violence, abuse, or neglect—trauma that can be directly linked to girls’ later lawbreaking, Schaffner argues.

Employing a self-described “feminist sociology,” Schaffner seeks to give voice to a largely-invisible population of detained girls, interspersing their accounts of the abuse in their lives and experiences within the legal system with vastly informative analysis on the various processes at work in these girls’ lives. Schaffner’s interviewees, like all American girls and women, were affected by a hyper-sexualized, consumerist culture thriving on the eroticization of young women. Often living in “empty families” where abuse and neglect were commonplace, the girls also dealt variously with poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia and a lack of quality education and emotional support.

Scaffner also examines the rise in violent crime among girls, an inevitable outcome of living in violent environments according to the girls in the study, but often characterized by others as a violation of conventional norms of femininity. “A dramatic amount of resistance, rebellion, and rage had developed among girls in trouble,” Schaffner writes, concluding that the violence the young women perpetrated was a type of “power of the powerless.”

The immense amount of sadness in these girls’ lives was overwhelming. They had no time, energy or resources for grieving after they had been raped, witnessed the beating of a mother or lost custody of their child. Many of them had much-older boyfriends, were forced to parent their own parents, experienced sexual harassment at school and in their communities and echoed a culturally-constructed attitude of misogyny toward other girls.

What at first glance seemed to be a dense, academic work was actually very readable, incorporating detained girls’ artwork and poetry with Schaffner’s convincing arguments on behalf of troubled young women. Schaffner’s work is honest and focused, and immensely enlightening to those who are not daily faced with the same struggles as these girls on the margins.

Written by: Anne Wilmoth, May 15th 2007