Lynne Haney is Professor of Sociology at New York University and author of the award-winning books Offending Women and Inventing the Needy. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Fulbright New Century Scholars Program.
Haney shows how state bureaucracies seem to conspire against historically marginalized individuals, leaving indebted fathers beholden to the state and distanced from their children. She illustrates how systems of social exclusion and punishment operate by sharing the haunting stories of men who face the daunting task of navigating debt and a lack of gainful employment while under close surveillance by police. . . . This book uncovers structural inequalities and offers potential solutions. Highly recommended. * CHOICE * A fantastic ethnography. . . .Lynne Haney has navigated readers through the institutional bureaucracy that leaves these fathers' lives in shambles and bleeds into their lived experiences far beyond their incarcerations. Her intention to give voice to these fathers and center their experiences is remarkably done. * Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books * Drawing on years of research in the New York, Florida, and California family court and prison systems, Haney weaves these men's stories into a disturbing portrait of the U.S. child support enforcement regime as a modern form of debtors' prison. The result is by far the most comprehensive and illuminating account of the interplay between child support enforcement and incarceration in the contemporary United States. * Boston Review *