"Sharp is a leading expert on women in prison and she continues her record of outstanding scholarship with this work. Mean Lives, Mean Laws will make a much needed contribution to policy studies of criminology and criminal justice." 
Barbara Owen
author of In the Mix: Struggle and Survival in a Women's Prison
"No one is better poised to write ... Read morea scholarly book on incarcerated women and no state is more appropriate to study than Oklahoma. Mean Lives, Mean Laws is historically, theoretically, and methodologically remarkable. But even more importantly, the self-reported rates and words of real incarcerated women about their harsh lives before, in, after, and sometimes upon re-entry to prison are powerful testimonies to how the U.S. system is fundamentally flawed in responding to women and girls as victims and offenders."
Joanne Belknap
author of The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice
"Sharp truly cares about incarcerated women and has devoted her life to convincing state bureaucrats to reform the ways they are treated in Oklahoma, possibly the most conservative state in the union and definitely the one with the highest rate of female incarceration."
Women's Review of Books
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