The book explores the women’s lives before imprisonment in an attempt to understand their incarceration in the context of childhood and adolescent experiences, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, low education level and poor work histories. It includes the women’s views of doing time, the criminal justice system and their own rehabilitation. The book also contains interviews with family members, friends and social service providers to show how support networks function or fail. The women are not safe, secure or respected outside or inside prison; an understanding of gender inequality helps to explain why this is so. It makes specific recommendations for policies that address the need for societal changes so that prison does not remain the dumping ground for women who have no viable options for self-support or the institution to which they must turn for drug treatment, job training or safety from battering. Once imprisoned, they become scapegoats for society’s failures, intensifying their degradation. Table, index, references