The Fire Inside, by the
California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
The Fire Inside is a
series of writings put together by the California Coalition for Women
Prisoners as a quarterly newsletter. The newsletters feature writing by
Charisse Shumate, Patricia Elaine Mason, Linda Field, N. Duran, Linda
Evans, Debi Zuver, Theresa Cruz, Danielle Metz, Cynthia Russaw, Marilyn
Buck, Anna Bell, Dylcia Pagan, Alicia Rodriguez, Ida Luz Rodriguez,
Alejandrina Torres, Carmen Valentin, Laura Whitehorn, Susan Crane, and
Silvia Baraldini. These letters, essays, poems, stories, and other
writings are written by women inside prisons, to try and connect and
break down the walls that the prison system creates between the outside
world and inside the Prison Industrial Complex. Keywords:
Poetry,
Personal Narrative,
Community.
Letters from Prison Camp, by
Kathleen Desautels
Kathleen
Desautels, a nun and previous political prisoner, was arrested for
protesting the School of the Americas, and sent to Greenville, IL to
serve a six-month sentence. In this series of letters to friends and
family, she describes the day to day activities within the women's
prison while describing the relationships and bonds that are created
inside prison walls. Keywords:
Political Prisoners,
Personal Narrative,
Prison Life,
Community.
Sound Clip: Comedy as Resistance, by Dionna
Griffin
Dionna
Griffin reflects on the idea of comedy as resistance in the prison
setting. She details her personal attempts to share improvisational
comedy with other women while doing time in a Detroit jail and a federal
prison. She emphasizes creativity as a form of liberation for
prisoners.
Listen
Keywords: Audio, Personal Narrative, Community.
Sound Clip: "101 Uses for a Maxi
Pad"
Dionna
Griffin and Brenda Myers lead this discussion around women's
resourcefulness in prisons. Specifically, they detail the myriad
utilizations of maxi pads they have witnessed.
Listen
Keywords:Audio, Personal Narrative, Prison Life
All-White Jury Convict Black Women by
Imani Henry
Four African American women received sentences
ranging from three and a half to eleven years for defending themselves.
Their attack happened because they were lesbians Keywords: Sexual Harassment, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, State Violence, and Public Policy
Poem: Untitled, by Heather
Johnson
In this poem, Florida prisoner Heather Johnson reaches
out to others, urging them to "break the silence" and speak out about
their lives. Keywords: Poetry
Invisibility of Women Prisoner
Resistance, by Victoria Law
In this essay about women
prisoners' organizing and self-advocacy, Victoria Law challenges the
marginalization of accounts of women taking action to improve their
conditions and challenge their incarceration. Keywords: Movement-building, Activism.
Remarks from "Forms of Resistance to the
Prison-Industrial Complex," by Pilar Maschi
In Maschi's opening statement from a panel discussion
that occured as a part of 2004's
Voices in Time, Lives in Limbo
installation in Chicago, she discusses her work with Critical Resistance
and her understanding of various forms of resistance to mass
incarceration. Maschi also challenges the Therapeutic Community model
of recovery, arguing that recovery is a collective process that includes
multiple forms of resistance to a society that does not benefit poor,
queer, or indigenous people, people of color, or immigrants.
Listen to a clip
Keywords: Abolition, Activism, Movement-building
Armageddon Now, by Sara Olson
I
try to reach out through writing and talking with people within the
prison. That is what, it seems to me, any activist must do: educate and
organize as creatively as possible under any circumstances one might
face. Keywords: Activism, Public Policy, Movement-building
How the Criminal Justice System Uses
Domestic Violence Programs Against Native Women, by Andrea
Smith
In this long article, Smith discusses criminal justice
responses to Native American women's experiences of violence,
questioning the effectiveness of relying on the state for responses to
violence given the overwhelming evidence of continuing state violence
towards Native American communities. In Part Two, Smith then discusses
alternative responses to violence. Smith concludes in Part Three with
an overview of effective organizing campaigns working to end both state
and interpersonal violence against women of color. (In three parts: part 1, part
2, part 3) Keywords: Activism, Domestic Violence, Racism,Native American
Prisoners
When Love Flies Free: Women, Home, and
Writing in Cook County Jail, by Ann Folwell Stanford
In this essay, Stanford weaves writing by her students
at Cook County Jail into a meditation on the meaning of home and the
impact of incarceration on all of us. Keywords:
Activism,
Program Description,
Prison Life,
Community.
Find Her, Feel Her, Free Her, by
Pamela Thomas
Find Her, Feel Her, Free Her, is a
gender-specific re-entry program created by Pamela Thomas based on her
own experiences of the criminal justice system. This program is a set
curriculum that assists the needs of those re-entering communities by
providing them with the resources they need. Keywords:
Reentry,
Program Description.
Women on the Inside, by Rachel Marie
Crane-Williams
This article comes from a program, called Women
on the Inside, made up of a series of classes and workshops that took
place in a Iowa Correctional Institution for women. Alongside long
excerpts of her students' work, Crane-Williams discusses the silencing
of women in prison. Keywords:
Program Description,
Poetry,
Personal
narrative.
