The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 8(2)
A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women.
By Erin George.
Edited by Robert Johnson with Afterword by Joycelyn Pollock.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202)
(ISBN: 978-0-19973475-7, $29.95, Barnes & Noble)
As far as is known, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a
Prison for Women, is the first book of its kind in the world: An
ethnography of life in a women's prison by a woman who has
been sentenced to, what the book's editor Robert Johnson calls,
"death by incarceration." The author is serving a 603 year
sentence in the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of
Corrections, presently in the Fluvanna Correctional Center for
women, for the murder of her husband. In that she is a middle
class person and a first-time offender, George is a) an unlikely
felon and b) serving a relatively rare sentence application.
A Woman Doing Life may be imagined as the female
companion volume or counterpart to Life Without Parole:
Living in Prison Today by Victor Hassine (2009), the widely
acclaimed book which describes a life sentence in prison from
a man's perspective. In fact, Erin George read and used
Hassine's book as inspiration for her writing and as a model for
guiding her thoughts.
The casual observer may believe that the harsh
circumstances of time served in jail, sentencing, and
incarceration; along with the foreboding environment of a
prison which houses women with sentences extending to the
end of their natural lives; would argue against an author's
ability to focus and to concentrate on the production of
insightful and artistic prose. Yet, in recording her thoughts,
feelings, and perspectives, Erin George proves to be an astute
observer, a perceptive and logical thinker, and a gifted writer.
Not least among the worthwhile attributes of this
volume, is the author's unique ability to communicate the
circumstantial pathos of incarceration for herself and for other
inmates both in the Rappahannock Regional Jail and in the
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. In a very real way,
incarceration for Erin George spurred her on to organize her
thoughts, find her mission, and to get on with life. She began
to write, to study writing, and to tutor other inmates in their
writing of poetry and prose, and in their language skills.
Notable about Erin George's work is that she focuses
upon functioning on a day by day basis within the only
environment of which she is certain and within the time span of
the rest of her life. While she questions the morality of a
culture and correctional system which would sentence a person
to death in prison, she attempts to meet and befriend new
people, to build the relationships already begun, to avoid
trouble, and to win small freedoms and discover redeeming
interactions with others within the closed walls and society of
the prison.
The author is dedicated to helping other women find
themselves through writing thoughts, events, and happenings
while imprisoned. This is illustrated by the contents of Chapter
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The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 8(2)
10 (Pp., 141 to 153) in which Erin George has asked other
women inmates to write essays to help her more fully convey a
picture of women's lives while incarcerated and the troubles,
stumbling blocks, and promises encountered in prison
experience.
Some of the experiences and conditions she shares will
surprise even those who study in or teach correctional courses.
For one thought-provoking example, George tells of the
incredibly poor quality of the garments issued to her by the
state prison system of Virginia. Receiving two pair of
undergarments as her initial allotment, the first pair fell apart
before the end of her first day; and the second were as long
lived. This episode was only one of many experiences and
observations in prison which caused the author to raise the
question: Are those who provide garments and services in the
21st Century still following the habit of those in the 19th
Century who became rich by providing the prison inmates with
fewer goods, less food, and fewer services than those for which
the state was paying them?
academy, and gives a valuable apologetics regarding the
credibility of the author's observations and conclusions.
It is suggested that A Woman Doing Life could be used
in the college classroom, as a companion to a primary
textbook. Thus the student may glimpse the faces of hope,
loss, and fear -- the basic human attitudes or emotions which
prison life tends to intensify.
Edward J. Schauer
Prairie View A&M University
The book itself is well set off, as if with parentheses, by
the excellent introduction and afterward by two accomplished
writers and recognized correctional experts: First, Robert
Johnson, editor of this volume as well as of the 2011 fifth
edition and posthumous issue of Victor Hassine's Life Without
Parole, has introduced and summarized A Woman Doing Life
in a short, pithy, and intellectually stimulating essay. Second,
Joycelyn Pollock, a researcher and scholar who has frequently
published on the subjects of women and corrections, adds
much insight in the afterward as to how the organization and
information of this volume fits in the twin literatures of
corrections and feminism. She explains how the book may be
used as a companion textbook supporting courses in the
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