Photographer Spends 10 Years Chronicling Women Serving Life Sentences in America

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An older woman with purple hair, wearing a green uniform, sits alone in a sparsely furnished room with chairs, tables, bookshelves, and a TV mounted on the wall.

A photographer spent over a decade documenting women convicted of homicide and sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. — challenging the idea that they can be defined by a single act.

Former public defender turned photographer Sara Bennett’s intimate portraits of women serving life sentences, taken over 13 years, form a new book called Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences (published by Kehrer Verlag). Bennett’s book explores the complexity and humanity of women who are, and have always been, more than the single act that sent them to prison for life.

A woman in a green uniform stands in front of shelves filled with books, resting her hands on a wooden table and looking at the camera.

An older woman sits on a chair in a playroom decorated with a Christmas tree and Winnie the Pooh mural, surrounded by scattered toys and exercise balls. Sunlight streams through the windows.

A woman stands in a room with shelves and bins full of baby clothes. She is folding or sorting baby clothes on a table, with more clothes hanging on a rack nearby. The room appears organized and well-lit.

Her long-term project traces the women’s lives across time and space: inside prison walls, in their post-incarceration bedrooms, and as they re-enter the outside world after decades behind bars. Through tender portraits and personal ephemera, such as Polaroids, letters, drawings, and handwritten notes, Bennett creates a layered narrative that offers a rare perspective, resisting stereo- type.

An older woman with white hair sits on a chair in an empty room, holding a cane. She wears a white blouse, green skirt, and gray shoes. Stacked chairs, tables, and a mural are visible in the background.

An older woman with white hair sits on a purple-covered bed in a small room with lavender walls and green carpet. A window lets in daylight and there is a pillow and blanket on another bed nearby.

According to a report by Huck Mag, Bennett’s photographs grew out of her experience as a public defender, where she became increasingly troubled by the conditions inside prisons and the criminal justice system. The project began in 2009 while Bennett was working pro bono on the clemency case of Judith Clark, who was serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women for her role in the 1981 Brink’s armored car robbery that killed two police officers and a security guard.

A person in green clothing sits on a chair in a room with cream walls, next to a fake fireplace decorated with books, under a wall-mounted TV and security camera, with sunlight coming through the window.

A woman with long hair sits cross-legged on a bed in a tidy bedroom with plants, a vanity, and neutral decor. A door to another room is open in the background.

A couple sits close together on the edge of a bed in a cozy bedroom, smiling at the camera. The room has stuffed animals on top of a wardrobe and various personal items on the dresser.

While preparing Clark’s clemency application, Bennett photographed 15 women incarcerated alongside her. The portraits accompanied written testimonies describing Clark’s contributions in prison, including her advocacy for HIV-positive inmates and programs supporting incarcerated mothers.

“I began photographing because I was deeply frustrated with the criminal legal system,” Bennett tells Huck Mag. “I believed that if judges, prosecutors, and legislators could see people who have been convicted of serious crimes as individual human beings, they would rethink policies that lock them away forever.”

Book cover for "Looking Inside" by Sara Bennett. A woman is partially visible through a vertical keyhole shape in the center of a beige background. Text reads "Women with Life Sentences" and "KEHRER.

Clark’s sentence was commuted by then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2016, and she was released from prison in 2019. Bennett later left her career as a public defender to focus on photography, writing, and advocacy. The publication is complemented by a powerful afterword by Clark, who served 38 years in prison and is now Director of the Survivors Justice Project.

Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences by Sara Bennett can be purchased here.

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