Women with life sentences

PHOTOGRAPHY

Nov 14

Photographer Sara Bennett immerses us in an emotional collection about incarcerated women, questioning the criminal justice system in the US and humanising the viewer through them.

Photography Sara Bennett

After spending almost two decades as a Public Defender, Sara Bennett decided to grab her camera and document women who were serving life sentences for homicide. In her series Looking Inside: Portraits of Women Serving Life Sentences, she portrays women who were sentenced to life as young as age 15 and are at the beginning of their sentences, as well as women who are in their sixties and seventies who have already spent as much as 35 years in prison. Her series makes us question the American justice system and humanises her portrait subjects.

Assia, 35, in the storeroom for baby clothes at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (2018).
Sentece: 18 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 19 in 2003.

“Through portraiture, the viewer gets a sense of the humanity of people who may have committed serious crimes. From them, we learn about dignity, resilience, hope. I want the viewer to ask: what do we do with a redeemed life?”

Sara Bennett

Sahia, 23, in the college library at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (2019).
Sentence: 20 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 16 in 2011.

About Sara

After spending 18 years as a public defender, SARA BENNETT turned her attention to photographing women with life sentences, both inside and outside prison. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo shows, including at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR and Photoville in Brooklyn, NY, and in group shows, including MoMA PS1’s Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Her work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker Photo Booth, and Variety & Rolling Stone’s “American (In)Justice.”

To see more of her work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram

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Women with life sentences

Photographer Sara Bennett immerses us in an emotional collection about incarcerated women, questioning the criminal justice system in the US and humanising the viewer through them.

“Through portraiture, the viewer gets a sense of the humanity of people who may have committed serious crimes. From them, we learn about dignity, resilience, hope. I want the viewer to ask: what do we do with a redeemed life?”

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