Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison

This book by Megan Comfort profiles the lives of women who have husbands, fiancees, and boyfriends behind bars.  The author spent time with women who were visiting men at San Quentin State Prison.

“Tangling with the prison’s intrusive scrutiny and rigid rules turns these women into ‘quasi-inmates,’ eroding the boundary between home and prison and altering their sense of intimacy, love, and justice.  Yet Comfort also finds that with social welfare weakened, prisons are the most powerful public institutions available to women struggling to overcome untreated social ills and sustain relationships with marginalized men. As a result, they express great ambivalence about the prison and the control it exerts over their daily lives.” (The University of Chicago Press)

Check out the book here