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Women in Prison
Incarcerated women and girls, as well as incarcerated women with children, suffer inhuman treatment and injustice in our judicial and prison systems. The majority of incarcerated women and girls are of color and poor, verifying the systemic racism and class discrimination in our "justice" system.
Incarcerated women and girls routinely report inadequate legal representation and unfair sentencing. In prison they experience and unsafe, overcrowded facilities, substandard physical and mental health services, lack of programs for substance abuse, harassment, physical and sexual violence. They are denied parental rights, adequate access to education and employment programs, and services to help them successfully reintegrate into our society and reunite with their children.
The feminist movement is dedicated to human dignity, civil rights, judicial and prison reform to protect one of the most vulnerable segments of our society: incarcerated women and girls, and incarcerated women with children.
Aging Women in Prison
Women face unique challenges growing older behind bars. Research shows that prisons are not geared to meet the specific needs and vulnerabilities of older people, which puts elders at risk for injury. Older prisoners must contend with prison rules that require them to drop to the ground for alarms, climb onto top bunks, and undress for strip searches. Additionally, the built environment (for example, the limited number of bottom bunks, cells without handrails, long-distance walks to the dining hall and grossly overcrowded conditions) contributes to making life difficult for older women. The California state prison system lacks a geriatric work policy which means that all but the most ill and disabled prisoners must work or participate in a prison program. Failure by prison staff to adequately consider an individual’s age, abilities, health status, and physical limitations when issuing job assignments frequently puts older prisoners at risk for injury. For more information, see Dignity Denied: The Price of Imprisoning Older Women in California, a report by Legal Services for Prisoners with Children available at http://www.prisonerswithchildren.org/news/dignity.htm
Pregnant Prisoners
As of January 2006, pregnant prisoners will no longer be shackled during transport to the hospital, during labor or delivery, or post delivery due to changes in California law. Additionally, during the second trimester of pregnancy, prisoners are required to receive a dental examination, teeth cleaning and a periodontal evaluation. Concerns have been raised by advocates that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation lacks the necessary funds to comply with those provisions in the law relating to dental care requirements. For more information visit www.prisonerswithchildren.org.
Despite comprising about 10% of the overall imprisoned population in the US as of 2002, women represent the fastest growing population within jails and prisons. Of these women, women of color, particularly African American and Latino women, are disproportionately represented. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
California now has the uncertain distinction of having the most women prisoners in the nation, as well as the world's largest women's prison. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
As of 2005, a combined 8,000 women live in the Valley State Prison for Women and the adjacent Central California Women's Facility. http://www.prisons.org/reform.htm
Two prisons -- the Central California Women's Facility and the adjacent Valley State Prison for Women -- currently house 64% of California's total female prison population. Together, the two prisons constitute the largest women's prison complex in the world, and now house far more prisoners than they were designed to. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health2.html
California is one of the only places in the world where male guards oversee women's housing units - and complaints of sexual harassment abound. http://www.prisons.org/reform.htm
The majority of women in prison (approx. 75%) are in prison for non-violent economic and/or drug-related crimes. The most typical convictions resulting in imprisonment for women are property crimes, such as check forgery and illegal credit card use. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
Over 60% of the women who are serving time in state prison in California are serving time for non-violent crimes. http://www.prisons.org/reform.htm
Roughly 80% of women in California prisons are mothers, and the majority of these women are single caretakers. http://www.womenprisoners.org/resources/critical_statistics.html
As of 1994, 80% of women in prison reported incomes of less than $2,000 per year in the year before their arrest, and 92% reported incomes under $10,000. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
The rate of imprisonment of black women is more than eight times the rate of imprisonment of white women; the rate of imprisonment of Hispanic women is nearly four times the rate of imprisonment of white women. http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=D0F5C2222D1AABEA8025690000692FC4
The majority of women in prison were physically or sexually abused before incarceration.
California Commission on the Status of Women
Many women in prisons and jails in the U.S. are victims of rape and other forms of sexual abuse including, commonly, sexually offensive language; male staff touching female inmates' breasts and genitals while conducting searches and male staff watching women while they are naked. http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=D0F5C2222D1AABEA8025690000692FC4
The rise in imprisonment of women for drug-related crimes has not been met by a rise in addiction treatment and rehabilitation programs for these women. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
In a prison system primarily designed for men, women's health needs are often not addressed by prison policy, programs and procedures. As such, medical issues that relate to reproductive health and to the psychosocial issues that surround imprisonment of single female heads of households are often overlooked. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
Women in prison complain of lack of regular gynecological and breast exams and argue that their medical concerns are often dismissed as over-exaggerations. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
The Battered Women Project asserts that the culpability for a crime cannot merely be judged by the crime itself, but that a contextual understanding of the woman's abusive history is critical to this determination. www.freebatteredwomen.org/mission.htm
Women in California state prisons make only pennies an hour. Females incarcerated in federal prisons make a minimum of $5.75 per month. Although inmates from the United States can sometimes make more money through federal work programs, non-nationals are not permitted to make more than the base monthly amount. In California state prisons, women earn as little as $.05 per hour. http://www.womenprisoners.org/resources/critical_statistics.html
Since mandatory sentencing laws went into effect in the mid-1980s, the California female prison population has skyrocketed. http://www.womenprisoners.org/resources/critical_statistics.html
At least 6,200 battered women are incarcerated in California as of October 2003. http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/statistics.htm
80% of women prisoners in California report experiencing abuse either in childhood or as adults. 60% report being physical abused as an adult, primarily by spouses or partners. http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/statistics.htm
Of 223 reviewed appellate opinions of battered women's homicide cases, 75% involved confrontations (meaning the woman was being assaulted or abused at the time of the killing). http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/statistics.htm
In North Carolina, 75% of incidents where women killed their male partners were preceded by male-initiated violence. In contrast, no evidence suggested that homicides by men were preceded by female-initiated violence. http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/statistics.htm
Immigrant and non-English-speaking women face extra challenges in the justice system as they are often coerced into signing papers without interpreters or that they don't fully understand - sometimes unknowingly consenting to putting their children up for adoption or pleading guilty to charges even when they are innocent. http://www.womenprisoners.org/news/000560.html
From 1994 to 1994 the number of women in prison increased 138% in ten years. This was partly due to the worsening of economic conditions for women, and also due to the increase in arrest rates due to the "war on crime" and "war on drugs". http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
Women prisoners spend on average 17 hours a day in their cells, with one hour outside for exercise. Compare to men prisoners, who spend, on average, 15 hours a day in their cells, with 1.5 hours outside. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
The Women's High Security Unit at Lexington, KY, was closed in 1988 because of a national and international human rights campaign. The prison kept the women in years of isolation in subterranean cells, conducted daily strip searches, allowed extreme sleep deprivation practices, and as policy, condoned a compete denial of privacy, including male guards watching the showers, and an intense campaign of sexual abuse. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
Racism and economic discrimination are inextricably linked to sexism in our culture, creating severe inequalities in the court system and the prison system. Black women are twice as likely to be convicted of killing their abusive husbands than are white women. Black women, on average, receive longer jail time and higher fines than do white women for the same crimes. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
In 1994, 58% of women in prison had not completed high school. http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html
Hepatitis C (HCV) continues to be the fastest growing epidemic behind the walls at Central California Women's Facility. http://www.prisons.org/act_up!_fight_back!.htm
The 1995 California case of Shumate vs. Wilson accused prison administrators and medical staff at both the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institute for Women in Frontera of cruel and unusual punishment and charged them with "deliberate indifference" to the health needs of inmates. That suit ended in a settlement in 1997, in which the state of California agreed to improve its overall prison health care system however the settlement allowed for the state to avoid admitting any wrongdoing. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health.html
Among the cases at the center of the Shumate lawsuit were instances of untreated or poorly treated pulmonary and cardiac problems, hypertension, sickle-cell anemia, and cancer. Attorneys also attributed at least two prison deaths to the poor quality of health care, including the case of a mentally ill woman with gastrointestinal problems. Confined naked to a prison cell, the woman ingested her own body waste and eventually died of untreated pancreatitis and starvation. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health.html
Women prisoners at the Central California Women's Facility report spending an average of two and a half hours a day outside standing in line for their medications, even if they're sick. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health2.html
In 1985, Sherrie Chapman, a prisoner at the California Institute for Women found lumps in both her left and right breasts, and reported her concerns to medical staff. Despite her repeated requests for medical tests -- and despite a history of breast cancer in her family -- Chapman was not given a mammogram until 1994, when the lumps were actually visibly protruding from her right breast, necessitating a mastectomy of her right breast - nearly 10 years after her initial complaint. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health3.html
Allissa McCune, a 39-year-old prisoner housed in the mental health ward at the Washington Corrections Center for Women for severe psychiatric problems including multipersonality disorder and panic and anxiety disorder, cut the brachial artery in her upper arm in a suicide attempt. After recovering from surgery, she was given extra hours of work duty, placed in a one-on-one watch in a small room, and fined $50 for medical expenses. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health4.html
Women often arrive in prison with serious health problems, turning 10 and 20-year sentences into death sentences for some of these women when serious and inadequately treated illnesses become terminal. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health5.html
In California, a compassionate release policy designed for inmates dying in prison was signed into law in October of 1997. But since the law became effective in January 1998, the numbers of compassionate releases have actually decreased. Experts cite the anti-prisoner political climate as the reason. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/08/talvi_health5.html
Many imprisoned women are survivors of physical and sexual abuse and have lacked previous health care in their communities - two factors that put them at even greater risk for having high-risk pregnancies and for developing life-threatening illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and HPV/ cervical cancer. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
In multiple prisons throughout the United States, women have been victims of sexual abuse by prison staff - at times during routine medical examinations. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
Women prisoners who are pregnant report that they do not receive regular pelvic exams or sonograms, they receive little to no education about prenatal care and nutrition, and that they have little ability to alter their diets to suit their changing caloric needs. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
After child delivery women prisoners are not permitted to breast feed, and they are allotted no more than 24 to 72 hours "to bond" with their infants before that infant is turned over to a family member for guardianship or enters the State's foster care system. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/womens.html
When women, who are most often the primary caretakers of children and support the family unit, go to prison, most often, families fall apart. When imprisoned, they often lose contact with their families and children, as demonstrated by near empty visiting waiting rooms in women's prisons when compared to men's prisons. http://movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth/family.html
Correctional officers have used cross-gender pat frisks to grope women prisoner's breasts, buttocks, and vaginal areas. Given the extraordinarily high percentage of women prisoners who have been sexually or physically abused prior to entering prison, cross-gender pat searches can also contribute to unresolved trauma from such prior abuse. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/12/16/usdom9906.htm
In federal women's correctional facilities, 70% of guards are men. http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/womeninprison.html
In many states guards have access to and are encouraged to read the prisoner's personal history files - including any complaints ever filed by the prisoner about any of the correctional officers. http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/womeninprison.html
Women's prisons are often located in rural areas far from the cities in which the majority of inmates lived, making it difficult to maintain contact with their children and jeopardizing the prospects of successful reunification. http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=D0F5C2222D1AABEA8025690000692FC4
Between January 1999 and December 2001 the California Department of Corrections investigated 187 of sexual abuse of women prisoners, and treated 100 cases as criminal. http://www.prisons.org/women.htm
While 95% of women prisoners are released from prison at some point, 68% of them return within three years. http://www.prisons.org/reform.htm
Many women prisoners are serving time for being enablers to crimes their husbands or their significant others committed. http://www.prisons.org/reform.htm
There are over 90,000 women in prison in the U.S. today. The majority is in prison for economic crimes.
The most typical convictions resulting in imprisonment for women are property crimes, such as check forgery and illegal credit card use.
80% of women in prison report incomes of less than $2,000 per year in the year before their arrest, and 92% report incomes under $10,000.
Of the women convicted of violent crimes, the vast majority was convicted for defending themselves or their children from abuse.
In California alone there are 600 women in prison for killing their abusers in self-defense.
Average prison terms are twice as long for killing husbands as for killing wives.
54% of women in prison are women of color.
Ninety percent of women in prison are single mothers. They lose contact with their children, sometimes forever.
There are 167,000 children in the U.S. whose mothers are incarcerated.
The average age of women in prison is 29, and 58% have not finished high school.
Racism and economic discrimination are inextricably linked to sexism in our culture, creating severe inequalities in the court system and the prison system.
Black women are twice as likely to be convicted of killing their abusive husbands than are white women.
Black women, on average, receive longer jail time and higher fines than do white women for the same crimes.
25% of political prisoners in the U.S. are women.
Specific facts on women in prison in California
Gender Resposive Prisons Report
Women in Prison Resources
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Free Battered Women
A project of the California Coalition for Women in Prison.
FBW is a statewide grassroots coalition that strives to end the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence as part of the struggle to resist all forms of violence against women through policy work, parole advocacy, media campaigns, grassroots organizing, public education, and legal action.
Contact: Free Battered Women
1540 Market St., Suite 490
San Francisco, California 94102
Phone: (415) 255-7036 ext. 6
Fax: (415) 552-3150
E-mail: info@freebatteredwomen.org
Website: www.freebatteredwomen.org
California Coalition for Women in Prison
CCWP raises public consciousness about the cruel and inhumane conditions under which women in prison live, promotes leadership of and gives voice to women prisoners, former prisoners, and their families and advocates for changes in the intolerable conditions insde prisons such as inadequate health care, rampant sexual abuse and security housing. CCWP seeks the abolition of a prison system whose goals are punishment, control, profit and the warehousing of human beings, the majority of whom are people of color and poor. CCWP works for the release of battered women and prisoners of the drug war and fights for mother-infant programs and alternatives to incarceration. CCWP also supports women political prisoners and seeks to connect its work for women prisoners to the fight to end all forms of violence, discrimination, racism, humiliation and impoverishment of women.
Contact: California Coalition for Women Prisoners
1540 Market St., Suite 490
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: (415) 255-7036 ext. 4
Fax: (415) 552-3150
Email: info@womenprisoners.org
Website: www.womenprisoners.org
Women’s Prison Association
The Women’s Prison Association is a service and advocacy organization committed to helping women with criminal justice histories realize new possibilities for themselves and their families. Our program services make it possible for women to obtain work, housing, and health care; to rebuild their families; and to participate fully in civic life. Through the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, WPA pursues a rigorous policy, advocacy, and research agenda to bring new perspectives to public debates on women and criminal justice.
Contact: Women’s Prison Association
110 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
Phone: (212) 674-1163
Fax: 212-677-1981
Email: ajacobs@wpaonline.org
Website: www.wpaonline.org
Justice Now
Justice Now works to end violence against women and to stop their imprisonment. Justice Now promotes alternatives to policing and prisons – which they believe are not making our communities safe and whole but are instead severely damaging to the people imprisoned and the communities most affected by it. Justice Now is the first teaching law clinic in the country solely focused on the needs pf women prisoners and provides legal services in the areas of compassionate release, healthcare access, defense of parental rights, sentencing mitigation and placement in community-based programs. Justice Now also supports prisoners, their families and community members in organizing efforts that promote health and justice.
Contact: Justice Now
1322 Webster Street, Suite 210
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: (510) 839-7654
Fax: (510) 839-7615
Email: cynthia@jnow.org or cassandra@jnow.org
Website: www.jnow.org
Prison Activist Resource Center
PARC is an all-volunteer collective committed to exposing and challenging the institutionalized racism of the criminal injustice system and to further developing anti-racism as individuals and throughout our organization. We provide support for educators, activists, prisoners, and prisoners’ families. This work includes building networks for action and producing materials that expose human rights violations while fundamentally challenging the rapid expansion of the prison industrial complex.
Our Main Goals
Contact: Prison Activist Resource Center
P.O. BOX 339 or (1904 Franklin St. #515. – just moved)
Berkeley CA 94701
Phone: (510) 893-4648
Email: parc@prisonactivist.org
Website: www.prisonactivist.org
California Prison Focus
The mission for which California Prison Focus is organized is to end human rights abuses and torture in California prisons including abolishing the Security Housing Units, to end medical neglect and to insure civil and human rights for all prisoners. CPF achieves its purposes by visiting prisoners, monitoring conditions, educating the public and policymakers, providing a voice for and working with prisoners, and encouraging legal advocacy.
Contact: California Prison Focus
2940 16th Street #B-5
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 252-9211
Fax: 415-252-9311
E-mail: info@prisons.org
Website: www.prisons.org
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
LSPC advocates for the human rights and empowerment of incarcerated parents, children, family members and people at risk for incarceration. We respond to requests for information, trainings, technical assistance, litigation, community activism and the development of more advocates. Our focus is on women prisoners and their families, and we emphasize that issues of race are central to any discussion of incarceration.
Contact: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
1540 Market St., Suite 490
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: (415) 255-7036
Fax: (415) 552-3150
Email: info@prisonerswithchildren.org
Website: www.prisonerswithchildren.org
Action Committee for Women in Prison
ACWP’s mission is to advocate for the humane and compassionate treatment of all incarcerated women everywhere. ACWP works for the release of all women who pose no danger to society, including those who are unjustly imprisoned. They strive to eliminate the over-reliance on incarceration, to develop sane and sensible alternatives to imprisonment, to work to bring fairness and equity into the criminal justice system and to shift the focus to treatment and restorative justice. AWCP educates the public, develops new legislation, implements new programs, and builds resources for incarcerated women.
Contact: Action Committee for Women in Prison
1249 N. Holliston Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91104
Email: acwip@yahoo.com
Website: www.acwip.net
Beyondmedia
Beyondmedia's Women and Prison programming supports formerly incarcerated women and their families to voice their stories through the arts, engaging their issues and experiences to create opportunities for dialogue, healing and community organizing. Since 1998, Beyondmedia has collaborated extensively with formerly incarcerated women and girls to create interdisciplinary, multimedia forums on women and prison since the invisibility of women's perspectives and experiences in discussions of the growing prison industrial complex constitutes a serious gap, given that the numbers of women in this male oriented system are increasing at an alarming rate. Making the issues of women prisoners more visible expands the analysis and strategies being developed to seriously challenge the criminal justice system and work to end the cycle of crisis it creates for women and their families.
Contact: Beyondmedia Education
7013 N. Glenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60626
Phone: (773) 973-2280
Fax: (773) 973-3367
beyond@beyondmedia.org
Website: www.beyondmedia.org/women-prison
The American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU works daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The ACLU works to extend rights to segments of the population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including Native Americans and other people of color; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people; women; mental-health patients; prisoners; people with disabilities; and the poor. The ACLU handles nearly 6,000 court cases annually from its offices in almost every state.
Contact: ACLU (National Office)
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004
Website: www.aclu.org
ACLU of Northern California
1663 Mission Street, Suite 460
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 621-2493
Website: www.aclunc.org
ACLU of Southern California
1616 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Phone: (213) 977-9500
Website: www.aclu-sc.org
ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties
P.O. Box 87131
San Diego, CA 92138-7131
Phone: (619) 232-2121
Website: www.aclusandiego.org
For information on women in prisons: http://www.aclu.org/Prisons/Prisonslist.cfm?c=128
Amnesty International USA
Amnesty’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote human rights.
Contact: Amnesty International USA (National Office)
5 Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 807-8400
Fax: (212) 627-1451
Email: aimember@aiusa.org
Website: www.amnestyusa.org
Western Regional Offices:
Los Angeles Office
2999 Overland Avenue, Suite 111
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Phone: (310) 815-0450 or 1-866-A-REGION
Fax: (310) 815-0457
Email: aiusala@aiusa.org
San Francisco Office
350 Sansome St., Suite 630
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 291-9233 or 1-866-A-REGION
Fax: (415) 291-8722
Email: aiusasf@aiusa.org
For information on women in prisons go to: http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/womeninprison.html
Prisoner Action Coalition
University of California, Berkeley – Boalt Hall School of Law
The Prisoner Action Coalition is a collaborative student organization, with members at Boalt and Hastings Law Schools. The Prisoner Action Coalition advocates to improve conditions in California's prisons and to assist individual prisoners with legal matters.
Contact: check the website at www.boalt.org/PAC/contactus.html for up-to-date contact information as it tends to change as students cycle in and out of the school.
For information on women in California prisons: http://www.boalt.org/PAC/stats/women-prison-fact-sheet.html
Critical Resistance
Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. CR believes that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, their work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because it seeks to abolish the PIC, it does not support any work that extends its life or scope.
Contact: Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St., Suite 504
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: (510) 444-0484
Fax: (510) 444-2177
Email: crnational@criticalresistance.org
Website: www.criticalresistance.org
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee carries out service, development, social justice, and peace programs throughout the world. Founded by Quakers in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims, AFSC's work attracts the support and partnership of people of many races, religions, and cultures. AFSC's work is based on the Quaker belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. AFSC seeks to understand and address the root causes of poverty, injustice, and war and to confront, nonviolently, powerful institutions of violence, evil, oppression, and injustice.
Contact: AFSC National Office
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Phone: (215) 241-7000
Fax: (215) 241-7275
Email: afscinfo@afsc.org
Website: www.afsc.org
For information about prisons and women in prison go to: http://www.afsc.org/issues/issue.php?id=370
Chicago Books to Women in Prison
Chicago Books to Women in Prison is a volunteer collective working to distribute books free of charge to women in prison nationwide. CBWP is dedicated to offering women behind bars the opportunity for self-empowerment, education, and entertainment that reading provides. Incarcerated women can send CBWP their requests for books directly and CBWP attempts to furnish the requested materials from its stock of donated books – sending three books in every package.
Contact: chicagobwp@hotmail.com
www.chicagobwp.org
The Sentencing Project
The Sentencing Project promotes reduced reliance on incarceration and increased use of more effective and humane alternatives to deal with crime. It is a nationally recognized source of criminal justice policy analysis, data, and program information and its reports, publications, and staff are relied upon by the public, policymakers and the media. The Sentencing Project has provided technical assistance and helped establish alternative sentencing programs in more than 22 states and consulted on issues such as juvenile detention, racial disparity, and the trial of juveniles in adult court. The Sentencing Project is also widely known for its reports and analyses highlighting inequities in the criminal justice system.
Contact: The Sentencing Project
514 Tenth Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington DC 20004
Phone: (202) 628-0871
Fax: (202) 628-1091
For information specific to women in prisons go to: http://www.sentencingproject.org/issues_10.cfm
Drug Policy Alliance
The Drug Policy Alliance is the leading organization in the United States promoting alternatives to the war on drugs. DPA does not believe that there is an ultimate solution to our drug problems, but it does believe that there are steps that can and should be taken soon to reduce the harms associated with both drug use and our failed policies. DPA envisions a just society in which the use and regulation of drugs are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights, in which people are no longer punished for what they put into their own bodies but only for crimes committed against others, and in which the fears, prejudices and punitive prohibitions of today are no more.
DPA’s mission is to advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug misuse and drug prohibition, and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies.
Contact: Drug Policy Alliance – Sacramento Office
1225 8th Street, Suite 570
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 444-3751
Fax: (916) 444-3802
Email: sacto@drugpolicy.org
Website: www.drugpolicy.org
Drug Policy Alliance – San Francisco Office
2233 Lombard St
San Francisco, CA 94123
Phone: (415) 921-4987
Fax: (415) 921-1912
Email: sf@drugpolicy.org
Drug Policy Alliance – Los Angeles Office
610 S. Ardmore Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Phone: (213) 201-4780 ph
Fax: 213-201-4781
Email: amendoza@drugpolicy.org
Drug Policy Alliance – Legal Affairs Office
717 Washington Street
Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 208-7711
Fax: (510) 208-7722
Email: legalaffairs@drugpolicy.org
For information specific to women in prisons go to: http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/women/womeninpriso/
Anarchist Black Cross Network
The Anarchist Black Cross Network is a decentralized and egalitarian network of organizations committed to seeing prisons and the poverty, racism and genocide that accompanies them to be symptoms of a social order whose last days are near. ABCN asserts that Third World/indigenous/people of color, the working class and the poor are forced into existences in which communities are gentrified; in which they are targeted over race and class or worse if they are "illegal" immigrants or refugees; health care, child care, food and rents go out of reach in costs; their "choices" are nothing more than setups to lock them away and that revolutionaries who speak out and fight against the conditions of society are imprisoned or killed.
Contact: Anarchist Black Cross Network
P.O. Box 667233
Houston, Texas 77266-7233, USA
Email: abc-net@anarchistblackcross.org
Website: www.anarchistblackcross.org
For information specific to women in prisons go to: http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/content/essays/articles/wom/women-in-prison.html
The Body – The Complete HIV/AIDS Resource
The Body's mission is to use the Web to lower barriers between patients and clinicians, to demystify HIV/AIDS and its treatment, to improve patients' quality of life and to foster community through human connection.
Contact: Body Health Resources Corporation
250 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10107
Website: www.thebody.com
For information specific to women in prison with HIV: http://www.thebody.com/whatis/women_prison.html
The November Coalition – Working to End Drug War Injustice
The November Coalition is a non-profit organization of grassroots volunteers educating the public about the destructive increase in prison population in the United States due to our current drug laws. The coalition works to alert citizens, particularly those who are complacent or naive, about the present and impending dangers of a powerful federal authority acting far beyond its constitutional constraints. The November Coalition contends that the drug war is an assault and steady erosion of our civil rights and freedoms by federal and state governments.
Contact: The November Coalition
282 West Astor
Colville, WA 99114
Phone: (509) 684-1550
Email: moreinfo@november.org
Website: www.november.org
PrisonSucks.com – Research on the Crime Control Industry
Prisonsucks.com, a project of the Prison Policy Initiative, is a clearinghouse for useful, verifiable statistics about the crime control industry available for use by prison activists. PrisionSucks.com provides up-to-date statistics and information about prisons along with verifiable citations so that prison activists can win their flight without being sidetracked by arguments over defective statistics.
Contact: Prison Policy Initiative
PO Box 127
Northampton MA 01061
Email: peter@prisonsucks.com or staff@prisonpolicy.org
Website: www.prisonsucks.com
Human Rights Watch - Bay Area Young Advocates Women Prisoners Project
Through bimonthly visits to Valley State Prison for Women, in collaboration with California Prison Focus, Bay Area Young Advocates. A coalition of students and young professionals in the bay area, seek to investigate and improve the human rights of incarcerated women in
California. Findings from investigative visits serve as the basis for community education and may influence prison-related bills at the state government level.
Contact: Bay Area Young Advocates Women Prisoners Project
Email: hrw.ya.sf@gmail.com
Website: www.youngadvocates.org
Or
Human Rights Watch
100 Bush St., Suite 1812
San Francisco, CA 94194
Phone: (415) 362-3250
Fax: (415) 362.3255
Email: hrwsf@hrw.org
Website: www.hrw.org
Prison Law Office
The Prison Law Office provides free legal services to California state prisoners, and occasionally to California state parolees. Assistance is generally limited to cases regarding conditions of confinement. The office focuses on cases in which a change in conditions is sought and attempts to resolve such cases informally, if possible, by advocating on behalf of prisoners to prison officials, or through formal litigation.
Contact: Prison Law Office
General Delivery
San Quentin, CA 94964
Website: www.prisonlaw.com
Amnesty International. (1999). “Not part of my sentence” – violations of the human rights of women in custody. New York: Amnesty International USA.
Atwood, J.E. (2000). Too much time: women in prison. Phaidon Press Limited.
Banks, C. (2003). Women in prison: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Bhattacharjee, A. & Silliman (eds). (2002). Policing the national body: race, gender, and criminalization. South End Press.
Bloom, B.E. (2003). Gendered justice: addressing female offenders. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Bloom, B.E., Chesney-Lind, M., & Owen, B. (1994). Women in California prisons: hidden victims of the war on drugs. Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.
Bosworth, M. (1999). Engendering resistance: agency and power in women’s prisons. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited.
Brenzel, B. (1983). Daughters of the state. MIT Press.
Browne, A. (1997). When battered women kill. The Free Press.
Carlen, P. (2002). Women and punishment: the struggle for justice. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing
Carlen, P., & Worrall, A. (2004). Analyzing women's imprisonment. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing.
Chigwada-Bailey, R. (1997). Black women’s experiences of criminal justice: a discourse on disadvantage. Winchester: Waterside Press.
Collins, C.F. (1997). The imprisonment of African American women: causes, conditions, and future implications. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Comack, E. (1996). Women in trouble: connecting women’s law violations to their histories of abuse. Fernwood Publishing.
Cook, S., & Davies, S. (Eds.) (1999). Harsh punishment: international experiences of women’s imprisonment. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Daly, K. (1994). Gender, crime, and punishment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Dodge, L.M. (2002). Whores and thieves of the worst kind: a study of women, crime, and prisons, 1835-2000. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Enos, S. (2001). Mothering from the inside: parenting in a women’s prison (SUNY Series in Women, Crime, and Criminology). State University of New York Press.
Faith, K. (1993). Unruly women: the politics of confinement & resistance. Press Gang Publishers.
Fletcher, B.R., Shaver, L.D., & Moon, D.G. (1993). Women prisoners: a forgotten population. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Freedman, E. (1981). Their sisters keepers: women’s prison reform in America: 1830-1930. Ohio State University Press.
Gabel, K., & Johnston, D. (1995). Children of incarcerated parents. Lexington Books.
Gillespie, L.K. (1989). Justifiable homicide: battered women, self-defense and the law. Ohio State University Press.
Gillespie, L.K. (1997). Dancehall ladies: the crimes and executions of America’s condemned women. Lanham: University Press of America.
Girshick, L.B. (1999). No safe haven: stories of women in prison. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Grana, S.J. (2002). Women and (in)justice: the criminal and civil effects of the common law on women’s lives. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Greenfeld, L.A. (1999). Women Offenders. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Harlow, B. (1992). Barred: women, writing, and political detention. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Kassebaum, P. (1999). Substance abuse treatment for women offenders: guide to promising practices. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.
Kruttschnitt, C. (2005). Marking time in the Golden State: women’s imprisonment in California. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leonard, E.D. (2002). Convicted survivors: the imprisonment of battered women who kill. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Malloch, M.S. (2000). Women, drugs, and custody. Waterside Press.
Mauer, M., Potler, C., & Wolf, R. (1999). Gender and justice: women, drugs, and sentencing policy. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project.
O’Brien, P. (2000). Making it in the "free world": women in transition from prison (Suny Series in Women, Crime and Criminology). State University of New York Press.
O'Shea, K.A. (1999). Women and the death penalty in the United States, 1900-1998. Westport, CT: Praeger.
O'Shea, K.A. (2000). Women on the row: revelations from both sides of the bars. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.
Owen, B.A. (1998).“In the mix”: struggle and survival in a women’s prison. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Pollock, J.M. (2002). Women, prison, & crime. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.
Rafter, N.H. (2000). Encyclopedia of women and crime. Oryx Press.
Richie, B.E. (1996). Compelled to crime: the gender entrapment of battered black women. Routledge Press, 1996.
Sadawi, N. (1994). Memoirs from the women’s prison. University of California Press.
Scheffler, J.A. (ed). (2002). Wall tappings: women’s prison writings, 200 A.D. to present. Feminist Press.
Shakur, A., Buck, M.M., & Whitehorn, L. (1998). Out of control: let sparks fly: women political prisoners and prisoners of war in the U.S. Regent Press.
Sharp, S.F., & Muraskin, R. (2003). The incarcerated woman: rehabilitative programming in women’s prisons. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Van Wormer, K.S. (2000). Women and the criminal justice system. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Walker, L.E. (1989). Terrifying love: why battered women kill and how society responds. Harper Perennial.
Watterson, Kathryn. (1996). Women in prison: inside the concrete womb. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Wojda, R.G. (1997). Women Behind Bars. Lanham, MD: American Correctional Association.
Zaitzow, B.H., & Jim Thomas, J. (2003). Women in prison: gender and social control. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Women's prisons: old problems and new solutions. (2003). Television Renaissance, Inc.; produced in association with Discovery Channel Canada. Director: Leslie Côté; Writer: Anthony Anderson. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
Summary: this program goes inside three women’s prisons in the U.S. and Canada, contrasting old and new correctional philosophies. Key differences between the countries’ systems are noted, such as the level of tolerance for sexual relationships between inmates. Interviews with the women poignantly highlight their struggles with drugs, suicide, motherhood, and physical and sexual abuse.
What I want my words to do to you: voices from a maximum security women's prison. (2003). Produced in association with American Documentary, Inc. Executive Producers: Eve Ensler, Carol Jenkins & Judith Katz. Writer: Gary Sunshine. United
Summary: look into the minds and hearts of women inmates of a New York prison. Go inside a writing workshop led by Eve Ensler, where the women create works of poetry and prose which ends in the performance of their writing by critically acclaimed actors.
Winner of Freedom of Expression Award, 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
Women behind bars: rehabilitation or retribution. (2001). CBS Eye Too Productions. Executive Producer: Tom Seligson. Producer: Andy Martin. Writer: Rick Smigielski. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Summary: Issues such as sexual and drug abuse, family histories, and breaking the cycle of crime and incarceration are addressed through the personal stories of women who are doing time.
Own your future: women inmates living with HIV. (2001). GlaxoSmithKline.
Summary: A special HIV program for women inmates as well as ideas for counselors and support group leaders working with HIV positive women in prison.
Women in prison. (1993). Produced by Kurtis Productions, Ltd. in association with Arts & Entertainment Networks. New York, NY: A&E Home Video. Executive Producer: Bill Kurtis. Associate Producers: Betsy Smegal and Kenneth Arkow.
Summary: a look at the women who are in prison. Interviews with some of the inmates explored some of the factors that put them there. Investigative reports document why women are becoming a large part of the growing prison population and searches for the root cause of the inmates’ incarceration. Many of the women interviewed are from the Central California Womens’ Facility.
Girl hood. (2004). Produced by Moxie Firecracker Films, Inc. for TLC. A film by Liz Garbus. Produced and directed by Liz Garbus. Produced by Rory Kennedy. New York: Wellspring Media.
Summary: Director Liz Garbus presents the coming-of-age stories of two girls trying to make a life for themselves both inside and outside of Baltimore's juvenile justice system.
“Street life”: inside America's gangs. (1999). Directed by George Paul. Producers: Michael Bicks, Anna Sims-Phillips, & Terence Wrong. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
Summary: police estimate that there are 31,000 gangs currently operating in the U.S., with more than 800,000 members--many of whom are women. In this program, ABC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden interviews female members of two Los Angeles gangs--while correspondent John Quinones talks with King Tone, the radical leader of New York City’s notorious Latin Kings. In addition, extensive unscripted video footage shot by members of these gangs provides a glimpse as raw as it is rare of life inside the net that is snaring young people all across the country.
From one prison... (1994). Produced and directed by Carol Jacobsen. Berkeley, CA: University of California Extension Center for Media and Independent Learning.
Summary: interviews in a Michigan prison with women imprisoned for murdering abusive men in self-defense. Highlights injustice and inequities in the legal system regarding women. Approximately 80% of women who commit murder kill abusers in self-defense.
Locked up and left out: mothers in prison. (1983). Sacramento, CA: University Media Services, CSU, Sacramento. Director: R.C. Osborn.
Summary: this program deals with the subject of imprisoned mothers and their children and how they are denied the crucial parent/child relationship.
Prisons and Social Control
Prison Activist Resource Center, June 1987
Women and Imprisonment in the U.S. – History and Current Reality
By, Nancy Kurshan
Reforming California's Prisons: An Interview With Jackie Speier
By, Lisa Katayama. Mother Jones Magazine, July 2005.
Women Prisoners Under Attack – What do we do? Act up! Fight back!
By, Judy Greenspan, HIV/HCV in Prison Committee, California Prison Focus
Criminal Procedure
By Silja Talvi. Mother Jones Magazine, August 1999.
"Not part of my sentence" – Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody
Amnesty International USA
Women in prison
By, Ellie Hidalgo. The Tidings, December, 2004.
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