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In recent years, critiques of "carceral feminism" have proliferated, objecting to feminist support for punitive policies against sexual and gendered violence that have contributed to mass incarceration. While the convergence of feminist and antiprison efforts is important, this essay argues that critiques of carceral feminism are limited insofar as they present a binary choice between the criminal legal system and informal community justice practices. First, this binary allows critics to overlook rather than engage feminist disagreements about the state and sexual harm. Second, the narrow focus on alternative solutions to harm obscures the plural and contested nature of prison abolition, which may include efforts to seize the state and to problematize carceral logics. Drawing on Michel Foucault, alongside Angela Davis and other contemporary prison abolitionists, I suggest that feminist prison abolition is better served by envisioning a spectrum of decarceration.

In analysing carceral logics in the context of the 'unholy alliance' of neoliberal and neoconservative hegemony, this paper seeks to acknowledge the central place of a distinctly moralistic, authoritarian neoconservative philosophy implicated in the crime control agenda. Thus, it is contended that carceral politics are in fact produced by a fusion of neoliberal and neoconservative ideas. Anti-carceral feminists argue that 'carceral feminism' has been co-opted by neoliberalism but fails to recognise and name these neoconservative forces, collapsing them into a confused conceptualisation of neoliberalism, lacking in theoretical clarity. In doing so, they do not see the spaces where their own politics risk appropriation by neoliberal principles. Dichotomies between neoliberalism and neoconservatism serve to produce a politics of backlash. Hence, by distancing themselves from the neoconservative forces of punitive state retribution embedded within carceral feminism, anti-carceral feminists unwittingly mobilise concepts central to neoliberal rationality. The anti-carceral position reflects a state-sceptical agenda, mirrored in the neoliberal turn to privatisation hastened in austerity, and reliant upon voluntarism in the community. This itself is dependent on a valorisation of the community, and a correspondent minimisation of its punitive drives. An erasure of nuance in the debate is indicative of the polarised backlash climate, whereby anti-carceral feminists are, understandably, keen not to give ground to the forces of the carceral state. Ironically, this approach may risk the very process anti-carceral feminists seek to avoid co-option by neoliberalism. The dominance of austerity politics, particularly following the 2008 recession, provides fertile ground for the convergence of privatisation policies. Progressive movements are unlikely to win tangible gains unless they promote a broader set of political interests. As such anti-carceral feminism could be viewed as providing a timely opportunity for states looking to cut public spending whilst simultaneously answering bi-partisan calls for criminal justice reform. The discussion focuses primarily on literature from the USA - however due to similarities in their political contexts pertinent examples from the UK are used where relevant, specifically in relation to voluntarism and austerity.

History reveals that the pathway toward carceral feminism was fraught with contradictions. Feminist reform strategies that appeared progressive devolved into mandates contributing to the policies of mass incarceration; frameworks meant to disavow racist myths of violence inherent to communities of color fueled color-blind narratives that cloaked white, middle-class-defined social movement priorities; safety strategies protecting survivors of violence entrapped them into set options violating the right to self-determination. Today's account of carceral feminism reveals well-intentioned choices leading to often ill-fated outcomes. As the critique of carceral feminism seeps into the discourse of the feminist anti-violence movement, a shift toward new values, policies, and practices holds the possibility of radical new directions. However, there is no reason to assume that this new pathway will be so straightforward. This article centers the dynamic of contradiction to synthesize insights of post-Marxist thought in application to contemporary anti-carceral feminist trends represented by transformative justice options. It also reflects on the recent ascendance of restorative justice and a renewed potential for carceral co-optation. The aim is to illuminate troubled areas of revision and radical alternatives and better navigate inevitable ethical and pragmatic tensions that may define future social movement trajectories.

This paper uses a materialist feminist discourse analysis to examine how women's movement organizations, liberal Democrats, and conservative Republican legislators shaped the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the consequences for intersectional and carceral feminism. Drawing on qualitative analysis of Congressional hearings, published feminist and conservative discussion of VAWA, and accounts of feminist mobilization around VAWA, I first show how a multi-issue coalition led by feminists shaped VAWA. Second, I show how discourses of crime intermixed with feminism into a polysemic gendered crime frame that facilitated cross-ideological support. Third, I show how, in contrast, intersectional issues that activists understood as central to violence against women were discursively and structurally separated from gendered crime in Congress. Although a multi-issue movement coalition advocated for expansions in VAWA dealing with immigrants, unmarried partners, same-sex partners, transgender people, and Native Americans, these issues were understood in Congress through more controversial single-issue discourses and often considered in administratively separate Congressional committees. Fourth, I show how VAWA's outcomes played out in terms of carceral and intersectional feminist goals.