Book review on prisons Gelthorpe

Gelsthorpe, L. (2010) ‘Women, crime and control’ SAGE Publications
This article was written by Loraine Gelsthorpe to ‘tease out Wacquant’s treatment of gender’ in his two books ‘Punishing the Poor’ and ‘Prisons in Poverty’ (Wacquant) Loraine takes a feminist approach towards Wacquant’s work and feels he needs to look into gender more. Agreeing with Loraine although Wacquant has written about the vulnerability of women in the regimes of workfare, he fails to understand how social policies escalate penal outcomes for women. Other contributions agree also, Peter Squires (2012) and John Lea (2012) state ‘Wacquant’s work does not consider gender in any detail’ and ‘does not trace the intricate ways that gender based differences play out in the contemporary world he analyses’
The books being critiqued by Loraine Gelsthorpe written by Loic Wacquant explaining his views on the neoliberal state as a ‘penal state’ which in Loraine’s eyes is full of young men, she wants to show that a lot less attention is shown to women, her argument here is that ‘the penal treatment of women is often indistinguishable from ‘welfare’ treatment’ (Gelsthorpe 2010)
Loraine feels very strongly about women and criminal justice, in other pieces of her work for example ‘saying it again, again and again’ she writes about sentencing women and states ‘women’s needs have to be recognised’(Gelsthorpe 2006) reading other work from her makes her ideology of the article very clear. The article Loraine is critiquing lacks greatly in what she is passionate about, Wacquant sees women as ‘recipients of the workfare programmes’ he also states they are ‘victims’ To make her point that Wacquant needs to look into gender she references many arguments to add to the existing body of knowledge. For example using Ann Orleff’s (2002) analysis on ‘gender sameness’ supports her argument by talking about equality between women and men’ Also work from Chesney-Lind (1995) has ‘drawn attention to the steep increases in women’s imprisonment in the USA’
Using ways to extend Wacquant’s work on gender in Loraine’s work shows strengths in her argument, Wacquant mainly talks about ‘prisonfare’ which is the unemployed sections of society, basically penalising poverty. By adding feminist criminologist work, the extra information on punitive outcomes for women allowed the audience to examine the trends on a greater gendered basis. It is also significant to today’s world where people especially feminists will want gender to be discussed as it is a key issue in today’s society. Compared to Wacquant’s thoughts where his analysis demonstrates that when’ considering the experience of offenders, there is no need to do this on a gendered basis’ (Squires) this shows a controversial view from both the authors.
In her conclusion Loraine does demonstrate some agreement with Wacquant’s work by saying it is a ‘refreshing read which makes reference to women.’ Wacquant’s issues in his work are significant however again, Loraine uses many devices to influence her audience, arguing against Wacquant she wants to look at ‘interrelationships with other discourses or moral tutelage’
Adopting a feminist approach against Wacquant’s neoliberalism approach helps the audience see the different treatments towards men and women by criminal justice agencies, this approach makes her ideological position appropriate to the topic she is critiquing, Loraine uses the chapter of ‘women, poverty and control in the UK’ to discuss the issue of gender, with references such as Millar (1992) writing about the ‘feminisation of poverty’ Gelsthorpe has been able to use research on female offenders to back up her argument on extending Wacquant’s account to the experience of women.
Many other writers have previously critiqued Wacquant’s work, for example Peter Squires (2012) and Compte Rendu (1996) they both believe that Wacquant’s work ‘makes a coherent and important argument’ (Rendu) but both feel his work has weaknesses, just as Loraine argues. Having previous work stating the same downfall Loraine’s thesis in her writing is strongly supported.
In conclusion, Loraine has taken an appropriate ideological position, using her feminist approach she has been able to critique Wacquant’s work well as gender was not his favourite topic. Wacquant did not as stated in the introduction, understand how social policies escalate penal outcomes for women. This argument has been proven throughout Loraine’s work. Agreeing with Loraine’s thesis she has used numerous references to add to Wacquant’s work. However Loraine does look at empirical work on diversion from the court for female offenders in other pieces of her work, adding this to her critique would give the audience an idea of real life stories on women, crime and control. references Wacquant, L (2009) ‘Punishing the Poor, The Neoliberal Government of social insecurity’’ Duke University Press: 2009
Rendu, C (1996) Punishing the Poor: ‘The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity’ Book review Canadian Journal of Sociology

Gelsthorpe, L. (2010) ‘counterblast: women and criminal justice: saying it again, again and again’ Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2006.

Squires, P and Lea, J. (2012) ‘Criminalisation and advanced marginality’ Bristol: SAGE Publications