RT Article
T1 Gendering postcolonial penality: The religious detention of women in Ireland
JF Theoretical criminology
VO 29
IS 2
SP 161
OP 178
A1 Black, Lynsey
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1926164121
AB The role of religion was pivotal in shaping how women were punished in postcolonial Ireland. The new state used the Catholic Church to establish a separate system of confinement, a shadow penal regime for women, which drew its inmates from within a newly recognized threat to the nation. Drawing on Mark Brown's work on the ways in which postcolonial states can replicate the repression of colonialism, the article suggests that under an increasingly morally authoritarian state, women perceived as sexually promiscuous found themselves in systems of religious control. This article explores the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of this, examining the intersection of state and religious control through the cases of women convicted in the courts and sent to religious detention. I argue for the necessity of a gendered lens in postcolonial penality, and for consideration of the conditions of postcolonial nation formation in shaping punishment.
K1 Sexuality
K1 Religion
K1 Punishment
K1 postcolonial penality
K1 mother and baby homes
K1 Magdalen laundries
K1 Ireland
K1 Gender
K1 Catholic Church
DO 10.1177/13624806241263440