My children were one and three years old when I left them and I felt as if they were one and three the whole time I was away. I feel that way about myself now. I was arrested when I was 19 and being in this big, unfamiliar, advanced world makes me feel like a 19-year-old trapped in a 45 year old body; like putting a kindergartener in college. Aisha, age 45 – Sentence: 25 years to life –Served 25 years – Released 2016

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

When I first spent time with Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences by Sara Bennett, published by Kehrer Verlag, I got full-body chills. There was something about moving through these photographs and and reading the stories of women behind bars that felt both intimate and devastating. I found myself thinking not only about the women whose lives Bennett has documented, but about this particular moment in time and how much ground has been lost in the struggle for women’s rights, bodily autonomy, and the right to be heard and believed. The vast majority of women in prison report histories of domestic violence or sexual trauma, and for some, the crime that resulted in a life sentence is directly connected to violence they experienced or the attempts to defend themselves. I have to say that the book is truly profound and important.

A former public defender, Sara Bennett spent more than a decade photographing women convicted of homicide and sentenced to life in prison in New York State. Her extraordinary long-term project follows these women across time and circumstance, from prison cells to post-incarceration bedrooms. What makes this project so powerful is that Bennett allows us to encounter them as individuals, both looking back at us and looking inward. Most importantly, reclaiming some measure of control over how their stories are seen.

Bennett will be discussing Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences at the Brooklyn Library on Tuesday, September 29th from 6:30-8:00pm.

Her upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at BAXTER ST at CCNY, New York, New York, February 3 -April 7, 2027  and Sara Bennett and Mark Loughney will exhibit at  Bader & Simon, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 1 – June 8, 2027.

Judy, 69, in the nursery at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (2019) Sentence: 75 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 31 in 1981. Released: 2019 © Sara Bennett

Looking Inside asks us to confront the uncomfortable distance between justice and understanding. It does not excuse violence or erase accountability. Instead, it asks us to look more closely at the lives that precede a crime and at what happens when a woman’s entire identity becomes defined by the worst thing she has ever done.

The book’s powerful afterword by Judith Clark, who served 38 years in prison and is now Director of the Survivors Justice Project, adds another deeply personal perspective. Bennett’s pictorial endnotes further expand the project, allowing the photographs and the women’s own words to continue speaking beyond the frame.

Ultimately, Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences is an act of looking that asks something of us in return: to slow down, to question the stories we have been given, and to recognize the humanity that can so easily disappear behind a sentence of life.

Linda, 70, in the recreation room for the medically unemployed at Taconic Correctional Facility (2019) – Sentence: 30 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 43 in 1992. Released: 2022 © Sara Bennett

Linda’s handwritten statement, 2019 © Sara Bennett

Just because we ask for a second chance at life doesn’t mean we have forgotten what we have done; it means we were once part of the problem and to heal those we have hurt, we must be part of the solution, part of the conversation. You’ve held the state accountable by our punishment. Now let us show you how we’ve held ourselves accountable to your pain.
Patrice, age 36 – Incarcerated at the age of 16 in 1998 – Sentence 25 years to life – Released: 2020

Evelyn (Astoria, NY 2015) © Sara Bennett

Just because we ask for a second chance at life doesn’t mean we have forgotten what we have done; it means we were once part of the problem and to heal those we have hurt, we must be part of the solution, part of the conversation. You’ve held the state accountable by our punishment. Now let us show you how we’ve held ourselves accountable to your pain.
Patrice, age 36 – Incarcerated at the age of 16 in 1998 – Sentence 25 years to life – Released: 2020

Jennifer, 40, in her own apartment, 15 months after her release. Brooklyn, NY (2021) – Sentence: 18 years to life. Served: 17-1/2 years. Released: 2020 © Sara Bennett

Assia, 35, in the storeroom for baby clothes at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (2018) – Sentence: 18 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 19 in 2003. Released: 2021 © Sara Bennett

Pages from a book Assia made for her children commemorating their first visit to her in prison (2016) © Sara Bennett

Karen, 69, in the visiting room at Taconic Correctional Facility (2017) Sentence: 25 years to life. Served: 35 years. Released: 2017 © Sara Bennett

Karen, 69, in a homeless shelter four weeks after her release. New York City, New York (2017) © Sara Bennett

Karen on the Staten Island Ferry (2017) © Sara Bennett

Taylor, 36, in the fire and safety office at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (2018) – Sentence: 22-1/3 years to life. Incarcerated at the age of 24 in 2006 © Sara Bennett

Andrea, 64, in a recreation room at Taconic Correctional Facility (2019) Sentence: 20 years to life. – Incarcerated at the age of 46 in 2001. Released: 2020 © Sara Bennett

Evelyn, Queens, NY 2014 © Sara Bennett

Carol, 69, in supportive housing, four years after her release. Long Island City, NY (2017) – Sentence: 25 years to life. Served: 35 years. Released: 2013 © Sara Bennett

Veronica, 53, with her husband of 29 years, Vernon, in their apartment, 21 months after her release. Flushing, NY (2021) – Sentence: 25 years to life. Served: 27 years © Sara Bennett

Sara Bennett, a 2024 Guggenheim fellow, is a former public defender who primarily photographs women with life sentences, both inside and outside prison, as a way to draw attention to the problems of mass incarceration. Her work has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries, including group shows at Blanton Museum of Art’s Day Jobs, MoMA PS1’s Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration and the Museum of the City of New York’s New York Now: Home, and at solo shows including the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, Photoville in Brooklyn, New York, and Rotterdam Photo 2023. Her work is in the collection of, among others, the John Hays Library at Brown University, the Cantor Museum of Arts at Stanford University, and the Museum of the City of New York, and has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker Photo Booth, and Variety & Rolling Stone’s American (In)Justice. She is the 2023 Emerging Laureate of the International Women in Photo Association.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Instagram: @sarabennettbrooklyn

Judith Clark is the Director of the Survivors Justice Project, which fights for decarceration through the implementation of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. During her 38 years in prison, she helped create peer organizations including ACE (AIDS Counseling and Education) and the committee that helped bring back college after public funding was eliminated.

Kehrer Verlag is among the world’s leading publishers of photo books. Founded in 1995 by Klaus Kehrer, it is also one of the few independent publishing houses in Germany. In addition to photography, further focal points include contemporary art, art of the 17^th through the 20^th centuries, and international sound art.

Over the years, numerous Kehrer publications have been nominated for and honored with international book awards. From 2011 through 2016, Kehrer was also the German partner of the European Publishers Award for Photography (EPAP), an initiative launched by European publishing houses to promote contemporary photography.

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