Overview

When Ann Hansen was arrested in 1983 along with the four other members of the radical anarchist group known as the Squamish Five, her long-time commitment to prison abolition suddenly became much more personal. Now, she could see firsthand the brutal effects of imprisonment on real women's lives. During more than thirty years in prison and on parole, the bonds and experiences Hansen shared with other imprisoned women only strengthened her resolve to fight the prison industrial complex. In Taking the Rap, she shares gripping stories of women caught in a system that treats them as disposable-poor women, racialized women, and Indigenous women, whose stories are both heartbreaking and enraging. Often serving time for minor offences due to mental health issues, abuse, and poverty, women prisoners are offered up as scapegoats by a society keen to find someone to punish for the problems we all have created.

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9781771133555

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""Taking the Rap will change the way you think about the necessity of prisons."" - Vicki Chartrand, Department of Sociology, Bishop's University ""Ann Hansen's powerful memoir, based on her experiences as a self-avowed urban guerrilla and her consequent prison years is a compelling examination of both the system and individual lives. Drawing upon a deep analysis of colonialism and racism in a voice that is both passionate and compassionate, she shows readers that neoliberalism has led to even more virulent strains of imprisonment, policing, and surveillance."" - Patricia O'Brien, professor emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago

Author Information

Ann Hansen served seven years of a life sentence in federal prisons. She is a prison abolition activist and author of Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla.

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