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Locked-In and Locked-Down Lives

Women’s Carceral Recollections of Quotidian and Pandemic Times

Bibliographic Data

ID6451793
AuthorsSharmila Purkayastha (Miranda House, Delhi University, New Delhi, Delhi, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume55
Issue2
Pages209-225
Publication date2025-04-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0049-0857 • E-ISSN: 0976-3538
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00490857251321245
OpenAlexW4409955547
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

Prisons incarcerate individuals, undertrials or convicted, through a repressive disciplinary regime. Because of its permanent institutional nature, penal power is ‘normalised’ via a slew of rules, restrictions, and regulations. The assimilation of disciplinary and surveillance mechanisms within the quotidian lives of prisoners is the hallmark of routine penal power. Focusing on women prisoners who remain invisible within the prison population, this article explores women’s everyday life behind bars through testimonial accounts recorded/written by four ex-prisoners—B. Anuradha, Seema Azad, Sudha Bharadwaj, and Angela Sontakey. Beyond the quotidian, the article inspects the exceptional times when prison order breaks down. While it is known that prisoner protests are dealt with severely, the recent pandemic has presented newer forms of penal repression. To better understand the gamut of repressive penal practices, this article focuses on the issue of custodial care both in everyday times and during the pandemic. By examining the interface between locked-in and locked-down times through instances of routine health care and pandemic experiences, the article seeks to build a wider account of the impact of penal repression on women prisoners

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Criminology · Pandemic · Political science · Prison · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · History · Medicine · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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    Open Access•D Melossi, Massimo Pavarini•The Prison and the Factory•1981

  • Punishment in Modern Societies

    Open Access•J Clegg, Sebastian Spitz et al.•Annual Review of Criminology•2023

  • India’s Undeclared Emergency

    Sharmila Narayana•Nationalism and Ethnic Politics•2023

  • The Invisibility of the Prison in Democratic Theory

    Bernard E Harcourt•The Good Society•2014

  • Women, incarcerated

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Unique citing works2
Citations per year2
Citation span2026 - 2026 (1)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 2

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