Jane Evelyn Atwood has devoted ten years of her life to photographing women in prison. Begun in 1989, this colossal project has taken her to forty prisons in nine European countries and the United States. There she met inmates whose lives had been scarred not only by ignorance, poverty and broken families, but also by years of physical, moral and sexual abuse at the hands of men.
First published in 2000 in France and the United States, Too Much Time. Women in Prison has quickly established itself as a classic of documentary photography. Out of print, this major book by one of the greatest documentary photographers of our time is back in a new edition, enhanced by previously unpublished photographs and an afterword by Jane Evelyn Atwood.
At a time when the gains of women’s struggles to control their own bodies are under threat around the world, this book is a powerful reminder of the political urgency of the issue of women in prison.
» People often ask how I could pursue such a “sad” subject for so long. Curiosity was the initial spur. Surprise, shock, and bewilderment gradually took over. Rage propelled me along to the end. […]
One woman told me her husband had forced her to set the alarm clock to have sex with him three times a night. She endured it for years and had finally killed the man who held her hostage. Another woman’s husband was shot by their daughter after he had stabbed the girl in the arm as a “souvenir,” poured hot coffee on his wife’s head because she hadn’t mixed in sugar, and urinated all over the living room floor when one of the children had refused to come out of the bathroom. The mother was serving time for “failing to come to the husband’s aid.” I listened to their stories and left with one thought : I have to tell people about this. […]
I decided to concentrate on women doing time for common-law crimes (thus no terrorists, no political prisoners). I wanted to know who they were, where they came from, and what it was like for them inside. For the next nine years, I photographed women in forty different prisons, jails, detention centers, and penitentiaries in nine countries. […]
Look at the women in these pages. They have been courageous enough to assume their guilt, to try to change, and even to speak to us through words and photographs. These are the women we have turned our backs on. »
