This engaging collection of essays offers a glimpse into the working lives and experiences of a collection of well-known female prison researchers in the US and the UK. In a series of intimate accounts, they not only offer practical advice to younger colleagues, but also reflect on quite personal aspects of their academic careers. In its focus on female researchers this book inspires reflection about the role of gender in the construction of knowledge. Many of the authors acknowledge their class and educational privileges relative to the men and women in prison, as well as their racial differences. Coming to the end of the book, I found myself wishing for a companion volume of papers by the research participants. Perhaps that could be the editor’s next project. For now, this book will fill an important gap in methods training for prisons researchers.

Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford

This collection brings rare emotional honesty and intellectual discernment to research in prisons as it grapples with the gendered, always deeply political aspect of undertaking it. The stories will inspire a new generation of scholars working across carceral boundaries and other social hierarchies.

Lois Presser, University of Tennessee