Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences - Paperback

by Sara Bennett (Author), Sara Bennett (Photographer), Sara Bennett (Text by (Art/Photo Books))

Sara Bennett, a former public defender, has spent the past 13 years photographing dozens of women convicted of homicide and sentenced to life in prison in New York State. Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences collects these intimate portraits of women throughout the prison, in their post-incarceration bedrooms, and making their way in the outside world after decades behind bars. The images are accompanied by the women's handwritten reflections and ephemera, including Polaroids, letters, poems, writings, and drawings. With an afterword by a woman who spent 37-1/2 years in prison, and pictorial endnotes by Bennett, Looking Inside shows the complexity, humanity, and resilience of women who are so much more than the one act that sent them to prison for life. As the British Journal of Photography has written, "[Bennett's] portraits serve as arresting reminders that those convicted of serious crimes are no less human than you or me."

Author Biography

Sara Bennett is a New York based photographic artist and 2024 Guggenheim Fellow. As a former defense attorney, she uses pho-tography to draw attention to the problems of mass incarcera-tion. Her work has been exhibited widely in museums and gal-leries, including MoMA PS1 and the Museum of the City of New York, and is in the collections of several museums.

Judith Clark is the Director of the Survivors Justice Project, which fights for decarceration through the implementation of New York's Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. During her 38 years in prison, she helped create peer organizations including ACE (AIDS Counseling and Education) and the committee that helped bring back college after public funding was eliminated.