Chicana lives and criminal justice : voices from el barrio /

In her second book on Latinos and prisons, Juanita Diaz-Cotto (SUNY Binghamton; Gender, Ethnicity, and the State, CH, Oct'96, 34-1244) focuses specifically on women and drug-related offenses, particularly those at the Sybil Brand Institute in Los Angeles. The author conducted six years of interviews with Chicanas who are simultaneously victimized by domestic abuse, US foreign drug war policies, discriminatory local policing, and inequitable judicial and penal systems. She cross-checked these narratives with legal records. This multilevel analysis focuses on both the personal and societal impacts of Chicanas in the criminal justice system. Targeting her book not only at academic and political readers, Diaz-Cotto also attempts to reach prisoners as an audience. Extensive quotes of women's personal stories, interspersed with analysis, dominate the text. The repetition of themes in many interviewees' voices makes for compelling reading and strengthens the author's claims that this is not conspiracy theory but lived reality for Chicanas caught up in multiple systems of oppression. Diaz-Cotto makes specific policy recommendations for changing the prison-industrial-military complex, such as better family education and interaction programs to lessen isolation and estrangement, which she claims creates different issues for women than men. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. S. M. Green California State University--Chico