Getting Wrecked provides a rich ethnographic account of women battling addiction as they cycle through jail, prison, and community treatment programs in Massachusetts. As incarceration has become a predominant American social policy for managing the problem of drug use, including the opioid epidemic, this book examines how prisons and jails have attempted concurrent programs of punishment and treatment to deal with inmates struggling with a diagnosis of substance use disorder. An addiction physician and medical anthropologist, Kimberly Sue powerfully illustrates the impacts of incarceration on women’s lives as they seek well-being and better health while confronting lives marked by structural violence, gender inequity, and ongoing trauma.


 

"In this volume [Sue] offers an eye-opening account of the gendered dimensions of the 'War on Drugs.'—Highly recommended" - CHOICE

"Sue demonstrates empathy for the women she has come to know, as well as realism regarding the harshness of their circumstances." - Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books