Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care
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Description
At the height of the opiate epidemic, Tennessee lawmakers made it a crime for a pregnant woman to transmit narcotics to a fetus. They promised that charging new mothers with this crime would help them receive the treatment and support they often desperately need. In Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Wendy Bach describes the law's actual effect through meticulous examination of the cases of 120 women who were prosecuted for this crime. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, Bach demonstrates that both prosecuting 'fetal assault', and institutionalizing the all-too-common idea that criminalization is a road to care, lead at best to clinically dangerous and corrupt treatment, and at worst, and far more often, to an insidious smokescreen obscuring harsh punishment. Urgent, instructive, and humane, this retelling demands we stop criminalizing care and instead move towards robust and respectful systems that meet the real needs of families in poor communities.
Law Library patrons can access the ebook through the link.
ISBN
9781108474832
Publication Date
9-1-2022
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
Cambridge
Keywords
poverty, criminal law, reproductive justice
Disciplines
Criminal Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Bach, Wendy A., "Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care" (2022). Books. 4.
https://ir.law.utk.edu/utk_lawfacbooks/4