Political Science and Criminal Justice

For Them All: Women Against Prison (in French) – by Professor Gwenola Ricordeau

Congratulations to Criminal Justice Professor Gwenola Ricordeau for the publication of her book, For Them All: Women Against Prison.

The book was published in 2019, and Professor Ricordeau has been busy with a book tour and media interviews throughout France, Belgium and Canada. See a short description of this work below.

Ricordeau Book Cover

Gwenola Ricordeau. Pour elles toutes. Femmes contre la prison [For Them All. Women against prison], Montreal, Lux, 2019, 240 p.

Feminist struggles and the fight for penal abolition are often presented as conflicting. This book seeks to overcome this impasse by exploring the protection, or lack thereof, that women can expect from the criminal justice system. It also investigates the various ways in which the criminal justice system affects women’s lives, whether they are criminalized or have relatives in the system.

Does the criminal justice system protect women? How does the criminal justice system affect women’s lives? Should feminist struggles be “judicial struggles”? In answering these questions, Gwenola Ricordeau denounces the weakness of the feminist proposal that promotes the criminalization of violence against women. Critical of "carceral feminism", she advocates for building feminist solidarities and the use of transformative justice outside of the criminal justice system.

Political Statements is the official newsletter of the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at California State University, Chico.

With over 1,000 total majors, the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice is one of the largest departments at Chico State. Students choose courses from a rich curriculum, providing close student-faculty contact in each of the following majors of study: U.S. politics, legal studies, criminal justice, international relations, and public administration. The department also offers a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Arts in Political Science.

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