Entry Lessons: The Stories of Women Fighting for Their Place, Their Children, and Their Futures After Incarceration

by Jorja Leap

Overview

“A call to action … A reminder of the beautiful resilience of formerly incarcerated women and a celebration of all that they have to offer.” —Susan Burton, author of Becoming Ms. Burton and founder of A New Way of Life

Urgent and empathetic, Entry Lessons is one of the first examinations of the lasting impact of incarceration on women and their families

Recent reports show that women make up the fastest-growing population within the United States’ criminal justice system. And yet, despite necessary conversations about incarceration and prison abolition, their stories of abuse, neglect, poverty, and family separation often go untold. Now, through immersive storytelling and expert analysis of women’s lives after prison, anthropologist Jorja Leap explores their journeys into, through, and beyond the jail cell.

In these pages, you’ll meet women like:

–Ivy and Janet, accused of murder, whose intertwined stories of childhood harm, domestic abuse, and gang violence unfold throughout the book
–Denise, who confronts the lasting impact of her childhood sexual trauma as she struggles with relationships and the realities of homelessness
–Rosa, a survivor of sex trafficking whose relationship with her mother—her trafficker—is fraught with conflicting feelings she works to resolve
–Carmen, whose search for love ultimately endangers not just her life but also the lives of her children
–Clara, who survived placement in the child welfare system only to experience having her own children sent to foster care
–Angela and Ronnie, two women navigating the complexities of sexuality and queerness in and out of prison

Leap chisels away at superficial narratives to unearth pasts rife with struggle and oppression. She reveals the sharp edges of reentry and the wounds suffered by these women and their families, exposing a cycle of trauma that powers the revolving door of reentry and reincarceration. And, still, Entry Lessons is a book of hope just as much as it is of pain. Leap calls for systemic change through the development of meaningful reentry programs and policies that will have a lasting, life-changing impact on women as they rebuild their lives and especially as they are able to reclaim their children.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807022887
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	04/26/2022
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	483,447
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jorja Leap, MSW, PhD, is on the faculty of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, where she also serves as the executive director of the UCLA Social Justice Research Partnership. She is a nationally recognized expert in gangs, community violence, and prison reentry whose most recent work includes a five-year study of Homeboy Industries, which focuses on the life histories of program participants as they encounter the dual challenges of leaving gang life and reentering mainstream society. Dr. Leap has also been the recipient of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. She is the author of highly acclaimed books, including Jumped In and Project Fatherhood.

Table of Contents

PART I: THE JOURNEY IN

ONE
Sleepwalking

TWO
Party Bus

THREE
Personal Statement

INTERLUDE

FOUR
I Didn’t Have Any Tears

INTERLUDE

FIVE
I Thought He Would Take Care of Me

SIX
Baby Prison

INTERLUDE

SEVEN
Crossover Kids

EIGHT
Self-Medication

PART II: THE JOURNEY OUT

NINE
Halfway Is Just That

TEN
The Hope of Reentry

INTERLUDE

TWELVE
New Love

THIRTEEN
Love in the Time of Reentry

INTERLUDE

FOURTEEN
Redemption Baby

FIFTEEN
The Light

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

02/07/2022

Anthropologist Leap (Project Fatherhood), director of the Health and Social Justice Partnership at UCLA, delivers an eye-opening if somewhat disjointed group portrait of women in Los Angeles who are struggling to heal from the interrelated traumas of poverty, racism, drug abuse, domestic violence, and incarceration. Drawing on interviews with dozens of formerly imprisoned women, Leap documents their path from neglected childhoods to gang affiliation to criminal activity (usually small-scale and drug-related) to imprisonment and release back into the same environment that led to trouble in the first place, with limited resources for supporting reentry. Throughout, Leap takes a critical view of halfway houses, foster care, juvenile courts, and other components of the “carceral system,” and laments that criminal justice reform efforts are typically focused on male prisoners. Details about programs that offer counseling, job placement, and other services provide a measure of hope, but Leap’s abrupt shifts of topic are jarring, and the story of two women arrested and convicted for their involvement in a high-profile murder adds drama but somewhat muddies the book’s larger message. Still, readers will be appalled by how high the odds are stacked against women who’ve served their time. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Devastating revelations that humanize statistics while calling for reform.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“In her book, Jorja Leap dives into the trauma that too many poor Black and Brown women face on the long and difficult road that leads to cycles of incarceration. The women she interviewed have given her and her readers the generous gift of their stories, so that those who have not lived similar experiences can begin to understand the criminalization of trauma, the harm done by the criminal injustice system, and the utter failure of society to provide support to women leaving incarceration. Let this book be a call to action to address that failure and to dramatically expand resources for women and girls exiting jails and prisons, particularly mothers striving to stay with their children. Let it also be a reminder of the beautiful resilience of formerly incarcerated women and a celebration of all that they have to offer.”
—Susan Burton, author of Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women

“Jorja Leap illuminates the pain endured by Latina, Black, and all women who have been incarcerated and the clear solutions to address their suffering. The many stories offered in the book exemplify the harm done when society invests in the wrong systems. These failures hurt not just those on whom they’ve been inflicted but all of us. Leap’s book depicts what must be done to ameliorate the trauma inflicted and instills a sense of urgency among readers. I have been a longtime supporter of A New Way of Life’s Susan Burton, having seen her immense impact, and I am grateful to Leap for capturing her meaningful fight for justice and dedicating the book to my sister Dr. Beatriz Solis, who lives on in the work of those like Susan Burton. As the book’s title duly notes, these women are fighting for their place, their children, and their futures following incarceration. It’s time we fight for them.”
—Hilda L. Solis, Los Angeles County supervisor

“Compelling and gloriously written. Entry Lessons advances the criminal justice conversation from an entrenched ‘pathology model’ to a ‘healing in community’ one. Jorja Leap doesn’t just point things out; she points the way. Leap makes the case for a gender-sensitive, trauma-informed, and person-centered focus on healing and relational wholeness. In these pages, we are informed, inspired, and filled with zeal to stop punishing the wounded but, rather, to seek to heal them.”
—Gregory J. Boyle, founder, Homeboy Industries

“Every day in the United States, women, especially women of color, are locked up because they are poor. Family separation and generational cycles of trauma are the result. Jorja Leap tells the stories of these women and offers the promise of a new way forward. A must-read for all those who care about family separation and the future of this country.”
—Zach Norris, author of Defund Fear

From the Publisher

2022-01-04
Women caught up in California’s criminal justice system share their harrowing stories.

Over the last decade, Leap, executive director of the Social Justice Research Partnership at UCLA, interviewed 80 formerly incarcerated Californian women about their experiences. “I didn’t need reentry services,” one woman noted, “I need entryservices—like how do you enter into a normal life?” Much of what the women recount is excruciating. Rosa, for instance, was not only molested as a child, but sex-trafficked by her own mother, who kept her prisoner. At 13, after giving birth to her first child, a gang helped her escape and took her in. “She became deeply involved in…criminal activity in exchange for her freedom.” When discharged from a juvenile detention center, a judge released her to her mother’s custody; this served as Rosa’s final breaking point, sparking years of cycling in and out of jail. In chapters such as “I Thought He Would Take Care of Me” and “Halfway Is Just That,” Leap highlights commonalities of incarcerated women, including childhood violence and crushing entanglements with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, the latter of which Leap describes as more focused on punishment than rehabilitation. Substance abuse, she writes, was “always about medicating the trauma,” and the reason for relapses is often the fact that “their underlying trauma had never been addressed and treated.” Citing poverty as the primary factor of recidivism, Leap expertly demonstrates why having financial and emotional security is key to sustaining change. “Out of the more than twenty thousand individuals L.A. locks up on any given day, a little over two thousand are women,” and nearly half of the women “are in jail simply because they can’t afford to post bail.” The author closes with a strong case to end indiscriminate use of money bail, and she offers specific suggestions for funding and the extension of relevant programs, which includes community-based alternatives to incarceration.

Devastating revelations that humanize statistics while calling for reform.

Kirkus Reviews