Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex

The recent explosion in women's imprisonment in the US--a 2,800 percent increase from 1970 to 2001--and around the world has received little critical analysis. Women of color, immigrants, and indigenous women, in particular, have been targeted by "tough on crime" policies and the global war on drugs, making them the majority inside prison walls while still the minority outside of them. The symbiotic relationship between private prison corporations and the state criminal justice system has also led to harsher sentencing and enforcement, causing prison overcrowding and creating a demand for more prison construction. This collection of essays provides a new analysis of women's imprisonment, shifting the focus from women's behavior to the role of the state, corporations, and the media in fueling prison expansion. The contributors argue that the rise in women's criminalization worldwide is shaped by global factors, from free trade agreements and neoliberal restructuring to multinational corporate expansion.While much analysis has focused on imprisoned men, scholars have neglected to look at the way race, gender, class and nation affect the criminalization of women of color. The essays engage in such controversial topics as "drug mules", immigrant trafficking, and the war on terror.