Abstract
Tanya, a 15-year-old, poor, Black girl, delivers a baby in the bathroom stall at school, places the newborn in her backpack, and puts the backpack into the dumpster behind her Chicago high school. While the media and the public struggled to understand Tanya’s actions, they could not fathom the idea that Tanya believed she had no other recourse. There had been no interventions and no one accounted for the years where she had been “repeatedly raped by her uncle, under her boyfriend’s constant surveillance, and terrified of her family or community’s response” (p. 6). Instead, Tanya is immediately criminalized. Using difficult cases similar to Tanya’s, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation calls attention to the plight of Black women as their social location (i.e., race, class, gender, sexuality) leaves them socially stigmatized, and increasingly susceptible to male violence and criminalization. Hence, in an effort to increase public awareness and provoke social change, Richie, who is both an academic and activist, “offers us a way to broaden our understanding of violence against women of color and to problematize the evolution of anti-violence work in the United States” (p. 18).
In six comprehensive chapters, Richie draws from the work of scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) and Patricia Hill Collins (2008), as well as components of Black feminist theory in an effort to reverse conservative ideologies, and end violence against women—particularly Black women—by presenting “a Black feminist analysis of male violence” (p. 127).
As Arrested Justice seeks to advance antiviolence efforts of ending violence towards “all women,” it addresses three dominant issues. One, Richie calls attention to the failures of the racial justice movement, but mostly, the feminist antiviolence movement in yielding attention, assistance, and protection for women of color. Hence, she boldly indicts the feminist antiviolence movement for having neglected its original mission in ways that left some (white) women at a greater advantage in escaping and recovering from male violence, while simultaneously leaving others (Black) further disadvantaged, and thus, subject to criminality. So who are these Black women and in what ways do they experience male violence? What makes their experiences of male violence more cumulative and thus detrimental than that of white women and why can their experiences not be understood and addressed as a monolithic group? More specifically, how do their identities (i.e., race, class, gender, sexuality) work to create and further their demise, landing them on track for prison? Through detailed accounts, this book answers the previous questions throughout by providing a window into the real experiences of Black women that cannot be understood or simply addressed with generalized solutions.
Two, Richie provides a path whereby readers can follow the evolution of the feminist antiviolence movement, particularly as it progressed from radical, social justice–oriented, grassroots activism (liberal) to a political, social work–oriented, institutionalized machine (conservatism). Consequently, it is in the fight for continued legitimacy, funding, compromise, and inevitably institutionalization and the failure of the movement that Richie progresses discussions into the third issue. That is, how the movement’s support of hegemonic ideologies, policies, and practices increased the neglect of Black women as they faced male violence, alongside of the prison buildup. As a result of limited or no tangible recourse, abused Black women have been forced into acts/actions deemed punishable by the criminal justice system. It is then through the private and public sphere that Black women encounter male violence prior to, during, and following incarceration.
Arrested Justice provides a well-balanced analysis of the successes and failures of the movement. Richie provides a critical analysis of compromises made by the movement, while simultaneously championing its original agenda and ability to advance the victimization of women in general from “a personal problem to one that is rooted in patriarchy” (p. 68). In addition, this piece promotes social justice by challenging the status quo and offering solutions that work to aid and protect “all” women, especially those most disenfranchised.
The book’s weakness lies in its redundancy. Richie spends much of the book revisiting and reexplaining the link between Black women’s experiences of male violence to the buildup of prisons. In addition, Richie is limited in accounting for instances where social location works to benefit some women of color over other women of color (e.g., Kemba Smith). While social location certainly worked to condemn Kemba, so too did it work to free her with an international platform of her own.
I recommend this book for graduate courses in Criminology, Sociology, Gender and Women Studies. It is an excellent resource for readers wanting to further understand feminists’ antiviolence efforts and is especially appealing to empathizers with the intersection of class, race, gender, and sexuality.