Merry Morash's "In a Box"

Merry Morash is Professor of Criminal Justice and University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She is the author of Women on Probation and Parole: A Feminist Critique of Community Programs and Services.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, In a Box: Gender-Responsive Reform, Mass Community Supervision, and Neoliberal Policies, and reported the following:

Page 99 presents the words of three women whose probation or parole agents referred them to mental health counseling. Two of the women described a connection between counseling and stopping illegal activity and one did not. This page, like most other pages, gives a good indication of what is contained in In a Box, because it cites what 3 of the 118 women who told their life stories said about themselves. It is also a good indication of the book’s contents because it focuses on some helpful actions that probation and parole agents take, and it is therefore consistent with a theme that runs through the book, which is that the Michigan Department of Corrections gender responsive reforms, and more generally reforms in supervision for everyone, “worked.” This is very different than the many books and articles that show harm after harm perpetuated by correctional actions and interventions. It is also consistent with the book’s recognition that some women in the criminal legal system continue breaking the law despite seemingly helpful interventions.

It is important to recognize that page 99 only gives a glimpse into the book’s contents. That page does not show deviations from the reforms and how they have harmful effects. Even more important, this page does not show how juvenile courts, neoliberal housing and welfare policies, and time limitations and other reasons for unavailability of mental health and substance abuse services undermine reforms. This page does not capture the flow of the book which entices the reader to get on to the next chapter after reading about Starting Points in life and moving towards Endpoints for 6 of the women. Finally, this page is 67 pages away from the last chapter, which highlights policy reforms including but much more encompassing than correctional change that the women on probation and parole recommend and that I back up with empirical evidence of success.

Learn more about In a Box at the University of California Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue