Edited and contributed to by a collection of eminent international scholars in the field, this is the first book to explore the gendered aspects of risk. It analyzes what is currently known and identifies some of the new directions and challenges for research and theory that emerge from thinking of risk as a governmental technique; as a form of consciousness and action and as a political issue, shaped by, and shaping gender in contemporary society.

Edited and contributed to by a collection of eminent international scholars in the field, this is the first book to explore the gendered aspects of risk.

It analyzes what is currently known and identifies some of the new directions and challenges for research and theory that emerge from thinking of risk as a governmental technique; as a form of consciousness and action and as a political issue, shaped by, and shaping gender in contemporary society.

In "Punishment in Disguise," Kelly Hannah-Moffat presents a look at some current forms of penal governance in Canadian federal women's prisons. Hannah-Moffat uses women's imprisonment to theorize the complexity of penal power and to show how the meaning and content of women's penal governance changes over time, how penal reform strategies intersect and evolve into complex patterns of governing, how governing is always gendered and racialized, and how expert, non-expert, and hybrid forms of power and knowledge inform penal strategies.

The author posits that although there has been a series of distinct phases in the imprisonment of women, the prison system itself, given its primary functions of custody and punishment, is consistent in thwarting attempts at progressive reform. While each distinct phase has its own corresponding ideology and discourse, the individual discourses have internal complexities and contradictions, which have not been adequately recognized in the general literature on penology.

Avoiding universal and reductionist claims about women's oppression, Hannah-Moffat argues that relations of power are complex and fractured and that there is a need to explore the specific elements of institutional power relations. Backed by solid research, "Punishment in Disguise" makes a strong contribution to criminology and feminist theory by providing an alternative approach to analysing the governance of women by other women and by the state.

Exploring the effects of punishment and penality on women's lives, the impact of feminist reforms on the lives of women in prison, and the systemic barriers that limit change in the context of both provincial and federal prisons, these essays question the role of prisons in our society, the importance of taking account of gender and its intersection with race and class, and the problems of both weak feminist models and the cooptation of feminist ideals and Aboriginal spirituality by correctional systems.