We All Do the Time

Breaks new ground by showing how women in prison and their families interact through prison boundaries

Although women make up only 7% of the overall prison population in the US, their numbers are rising faster than men's, and yet little research has been done on their lives behind bars. In We All Do the Time, Holly Foster-Talbot focuses on how incarcerated women maintain connections to their families and communities while inside prison and shows how these connections foster positive emotions and feelings of belonging with broader society, in line with re-integrative and rehabilitative ideals. She argues that generating inclusive emotions is a vital part of how imprisoned women and their families cope with and survive imprisonment.

Focusing on the experiences of over 300 women in minimum-security federal prison, Foster-Talbot demonstrates that women and their families navigate the prison-family interface through two key mechanisms: women’s intersectionally linked lives and their intergenerationally linked lives. Among core findings is that Latina and Black women suffer worse self-rated mental health in prison than white women, despite having more supportive family ties. If not for these ties, women’s racial and ethnic health disparities in prison would be even greater than they already are. This book also shows how the families and communities hit hardest by mass incarceration are also more heavily affected by resultant caring-related absences when women are incarcerated. Ultimately, Foster-Talbot argues that understanding these important connections behind bars are vital for prison programming and policy.