In a Box: Gender-Responsive Reform, Mass Community Supervision, and Neoliberal Policies

In a Box draws on the experiences of more than one hundred Michigan women on probation or parole to analyze how court, state, and federal policies hamper the state’s efforts at gender-responsive reforms in community supervision. Closely narrating the stories of six of these women, Merry Morash shows how countervailing influences keep reform-oriented probation and parole agents and the women they supervise ＂in a box.＂ Supervisory approaches that attempt to move away from punitive frameworks are limited or blocked by neoliberal social policies. Inspired by the interviewees’ reflections on their own experiences, the book offers recommendations for truly effective reforms within and outside the justice system.

Merry Morash is Professor of Criminal Justice and University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She is the author of Women on Probation and Parole: A Feminist Critique of Community Programs and Services.