Event Details - Lecture by Jill McCorkel on Gender and Mass Incarceration

 Prison reform measures have contributed to measurable declines in the number of men serving time in prisons and jail. In contrast, women have not benefitted at all. In several states including Pennsylvania, the number of women in prison has actually increased, even as the number of men in prison decreased. Women are now the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population.

In 2020, Jill McCorkel decided to do something about this problem. She launched the Philadelphia Justice Project for Women & Girls, a non-profit research and advocacy organization dedicated to ending mass incarceration and gender violence. In addition to describing the problem of gender and mass incarceration and the role of policy in perpetuating it, she will discuss the powerful role applied sociology can play in the justice reform movement and how students, researchers, and concerned citizens can contribute to building a truly just legal system.

Dr. Jill McCorkel is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University. Her critically acclaimed first book, Breaking Women: Gender, Race, and the New Politics of Imprisonment (New York University Press, 2013), explores the impact of the War on Drugs and punitive crime policies on incarcerated women. She is currently at work on a second book that examines the #metoo movement in the context of mass incarceration.

Sponsored by the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Psychology, Social Work and Gerontology, and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Women and Gender Studies.