A profound, compelling argument for abolition feminism—to protect criminalized survivors of gender-based violence, we must dismantle the carceral system.
Since the 1970s, anti-violence advocates have worked to make the legal system more responsive to gender-based violence. But greater state intervention in cases of intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault, and trafficking has led to the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of victims, particularly women of color and trans and gender-nonconforming people. Imperfect Victims argues that only dismantling the system will bring that punishment to an end.
Amplifying the voices of survivors, including her own clients, abolitionist law professor Leigh Goodmark deftly guides readers on a step-by-step journey through the criminalization of survival. Abolition feminism reveals the possibility of a just world beyond the carceral state, which is fundamentally unable to respond to, let alone remedy, harm. As Imperfect Victims shows, abolition feminism is the only politics and practice that can undo the indescribable damage inflicted on survivors by the very system purporting to protect them.
Leigh Goodmark is Marjorie Cook Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and the author of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence and A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System.
"Be prepared to get angry. Through a blend of shocking stories and even more outrageous statistics, Goodmark challenges and complicates our country's dominant narratives about violence and safety. The main lesson of Imperfect Victims is not that police and prisons keep us safe from gender-based violence, but the opposite—that the legal system not only continually fails, but further punishes, survivors of gender-based violence. Goodmark challenges us to rethink long-ingrained notions of violence, safety, healing, and punishment and to work toward creating the world we want to see."—Victoria Law, author of Resistance behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women
"Leigh Goodmark puts forth a galvanizing call to jettison the current American criminal legal system as a response to domestic violence. Goodmark’s decades of work representing victims of domestic violence inform this thorough and heartbreaking study of the myriad ways that our legal system fails survivors of intimate partner violence. She shows how innovative abolitionist approaches to intervening in violence and repairing harm are not only possible, but the essential way forward. The devastating stories and structural flaws documented in Imperfect Victims demand that we do better for survivors of violence, and the book boldly points the way toward a response that always puts care first."—Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black
"With great passion and humility, Goodmark brings the dedication to freedom and commitment to justice that we have come to expect from her in this latest book about the tyranny of gender-based violence and mass criminalization. In Imperfect Victims, the words on the page come alive in the telling of the stories of criminalized survivors, surrounded by Goodmark's compelling analysis of how the legal system harms survivors. Legal scholars, social scientists, policy makers, antiviolence workers, and activists reading this book will be moved to act in the direction of abolition feminism and away from dangerous reform work. The antiviolence movement desperately needs to embrace more radical actions at this time, and this book will help pave the way toward liberation."—Beth E. Richie, coauthor of Abolition. Feminism. Now.
296 pp.6 x 9
9780520391123$24.95|£21.00Paper
Jan 2023