Bringing together cutting edge and diverse research from international and interdisciplinary perspectives, this book initiates and shapes conversations about transgender people within the criminal justice system.
Ambitious and timely, the book collates research to provide research-based detailed insights into the involvement of transgender people in different types of criminal justice systems and in different parts of the world. With a focus on all parts of the system, chapters explore interactions with various criminal justice services, with a principal focus on carceral systems. In doing so, a wide variety of topics are discussed, including access to medical care and vulnerability to harassment and physical violence as well as the uses and abuses of state power. These are examined using a plethora of methods, and through the different perspectives provided by the authors, including academics, activists and practitioners.
Collating international research and enabling comparisons with and between different criminal justice systems, Transgender People involved in the Criminal Justice System will be of value to academics, practitioners, human rights defenders and policy-makers working across a wide range of disciplines and criminal justice contexts, including criminology, sociology, law, social policy, zemiology, queer theory, and transgender studies.
Chapter one – introduction Often Cruel, Sometimes Unusual, and Sadly Predictable: A Look at the Transgender Carceral Nexus around the Globe Matthew Maycock, Saoirse O’Shea, Valerie Jenness Part one Chapter two “I know the degradation, the humiliation around being incarcerated and ostracized, and marginalized, and sexualized: Pathways to incarceration and the incarceration experiences of Black American and First Nations Australian trans women.” Tania M. Phillips, Kirsty A. Clark, Annette Brömdal, Jaclyn White Hughto, Amy B. Mullens Chapter three, Transgender in deprivation of liberty in Brazil by the lenses of coloniality of power Fernando Fernandes, Heloisa Melino Chapter four, Trans women and travestis in prisons: experiences, selectivity and criminal treatment. Eric Seger de Camargo, Guilherme Gomes Ferreira Chapter five, “I’m in prison. I’m prisoning myself” – The experiences of transgender men in a women’s prison who are perceived as cisgender. Mia Harris Chapter six “The Only Man in the Village”: The Lived Experiences of Transgender Men Serving Sentences in Women’s Prisons in England & Wales Bill Rossi Chapter seven, “They didn’t want me to be myself, they wanted me to be a man”: The Lived Experience of a Transgender Individual Incarcerated in a Canadian Men’s Correctional Institution. Lee Vandenbroeck Chapter eight The current situation and issues of transgender prisoners in Turkey Ezgi Ildirim, Can Calici Chapter nine, Transgender Peoples’ experiences of the Criminal Justice System in Pakistan Mashal Aamir Chapter ten, Invisible Identities: Transgender Persons, Prisons and Preliminary Perspectives from India. Arijeet Ghosh Part two Chapter eleven, Transgender and non-binary prisoners in the USA and English and Wales Prison Estates. Olga Suhomlinova, Saoirse O’Shea Chapter twelve, Rights Went Wrong: Situating Trans Reforms in Canada’s History of Women-Centered Correctional Transformations. William Hébert Chapter thirteen, media Narratives Regarding the Accommodation of Trans Prisoners in Canadian Prisons. Carla Cesaroni, Victoria Ginsley Chapter fourteen, Transgender Perspectives on the Scottish Justice System: On the Subject of the Legal Subject. Beth Cairns Chapter fifteen, transgender Rights in African Confinement: an analysis of recent jurisprudence in Southern Africa. Rui Garrido, Xaman Minillo Chapter sixteen, Is dignity an option? The situation of transgender persons in Swiss prisons Jean-Sébastien Blanc Chapter seventeen, transgender people in prison in England and Wales: policy and practice in a culture of penal populism. Caroline Gorden, Caroline Hughes Chapter eighteen, Prioritising the rights of incarcerated trans and gender diverse people: a case study of a community-led revision of an Australian prison policy. Paul L. Simpson, Zahra Stardust, Lucky Dodd, Teddy Cook, Mindy Sotiri, Kaz Zinnetti, Tait Sanders, Annette Brömda, Danika Hardiman Chapter nineteen bodies, desires and pleasures: resistance of trans women imprisoned in a male prison in Mexico City Chloé Constant
Matthew Maycock, PhD, is a senior lecturer in Criminology at Monash University. He was previously a Baxter Fellow in Community Education at the University of Dundee. Matthew previously working within the criminal justice system in Scotland as a Learning and Development Researcher at the Scottish Prison Service. Matthew is an anthropologist by training, and undertook his PhD at the University of East Anglia (UK) and leads on an ongoing longitudinal study analysing modern slavery and freedom in Nepal through the theoretical lens of masculinity. Throughout various studies, Matthew has consistently worked on gender issues with critical studies on men and masculinity being a particular focus. Matthew is the co-editor of four edited collections, all focusing on aspects of life in prison, and he sits on the editorial board of three journals as well as being an editor of the International Journal of Prisoner Health. Valerie Jenness is a Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of four books and many articles published in sociology, law, criminology, and gender journals. Her work on prostitution, hate crime, prison violence, transgender prisoners, and prison grievance systems has been honored with awards from half a dozen professional organizations and informed public policy, and she has received national recognition for teaching and mentoring. She has served as President of the American Society of Criminology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Pacific Sociological Association. Saoirse O’Shea, I’m a nonbinary person who underwent “gender affirming surgery” in December 2020. I’ve worked as an academic in UK based universities since 2000 and am currently employed as a senior lecturer (associate professor). I sometimes write about my lived experiences as a nonbinary person and on gender, queer theory and queer(y)ing gender and academic theory. I have published with Olga Suhomlinova and others various articles concerned with the lived experiences of transgender people in contact with the criminal justice system in England and Wales in British Journal of Criminology, The International Journal of Mental Health and a chapter in Advances in Gender Research 32 Advances in Trans Studies (Johnson, A.H., Baker A., Rogers, T. and Taylor, T. eds.). Olga and i are also currently writing a book for publication in 2024, Transgender and non-binary prisoners’ experiences in England and Wales: Coming Out, based on our longitudinal research. I like cats, chocolate, fashion and tattoos.
Reviews for Transgender People Involved with Carceral Systems: International Perspectives
Transgender People Involved in Criminal Justice System: International Perspectives, is a timely edition. The 18 chapters bring voices from the Global South to the Global North to address how transgender people come to be subject to state control. It is a thought-provoking volume highlighting the systemic and epistemic levels of violence and discrimination that transgender persons experience as they are processed by the prison industrial complex. By queering the production and systems of gender normativity that are amplified in the criminal justice system, the volume serves to advance transgender justice. This is an exciting book that educators, students, policymakers and those working in criminal justice must read. -Professor Azrini Wahidin, Head of School for the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney. This remarkably varied and valuable volume examines the experiences of incarcerated trans people within the violent institutional enforcement of the gender binary. Contributions come from around the globe to examine the subjugation of trans people internationally and to illustrate the workings of the “transgender criminal legal nexus” in multiple locales. Taken together, the authors address the scope of the oppression of trans people, as well as the growing pursuit of trans rights through everyday resistance, innovative polices, and demands for change. - Sarah Fenstermaker, Research Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Barbara
