This book investigates the experiences of women inmates in Alipore Women’s Correctional Home and Dum Dum Central Correctional Home in West Bengal, India. It explores their socio-economic background, the major factors that led to their incarceration, the nature of their crimes, the problems that women inmates and their children face inside the correctional homes, and their dealings with the judiciary.

Using a mixed methods framework, this volume helps us to understand how multiple hegemonies can affect the offence done by a particular woman. Through inmate interviews, this book provides a window into their struggles and decisions. The narratives contain rich information on their motives and ‘modus operandi’ and produce data on how the ‘self’ is constructed by reflecting upon the complex nature of values, identities, cultures and communities of the inmates. The analytical framework further challenges positivism in contemporary criminology. Advancing feminist criminological agendas, this book aims to help influence the creation and implementation of public policy to improve the conditions of female inmates in correctional homes in countries like India.

Trijita Gonsalves is Associate Professor in Political Science, Lady Brabourne College, Kolkata, India.