As a teenager, there was only one officer of the law Burton could trust- George, a bail bondsman. With no support and no options, Burton fell into drugs, alcohol abuse, and prostitution.

She was also angry with her mother, whom she felt was too proud to ask for help when her father left. She also learned to distrust police officers and undermine authority figures, because they didn’t uphold justice. Burton felt like she had no value and wasn’t worth any better treatment. The police and the social services ignored the poverty and child neglect unfolding all around them. When the police came to visit, it was always to interrogate her father about some alleged crime or another. She remembers living in a crumbling house, infested with rats, and having no food on the table. She uses her own childhood as an example.

The lack of support begins many years before someone enters the prison system, Burton asserts. Vulnerable to predators, many of these women return to the brutal lives they left because they have nowhere else to go. She notes that many women find themselves released from prison without so much as a house key or identification it is incredibly difficult for these women to reintegrate into society. Burton explores the rehabilitation and support services available to incarcerated women, concluding that they are unfit for purpose. After spending more than fifteen years in and out of US prisons, Burton understands these statistics better than most, and she has dedicated her life to addressing them. Most of these women suffer sexual and/or physical abuse, and many of them are black or from other marginalized groups. Burton explains that most women in US prisons are victims before they’re perpetrators. Burton opens with the problems affecting women in the US prison system. She dedicates her life to helping women in similar situations and campaigning for the dignified treatment of female inmates. Burton served many years in prison and struggled to get back on track after her release.

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Biography/Autobiography in 2018, the book is widely praised by critics. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women (2017), follows Burton’s journey from a prison inmate to a leading campaigner for justice system reform. Susan Burton and Cari Lynn’s social justice memoir, Becoming Ms.

Becoming ms burton