prison-life
Where 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.
activism community prison-life programs-in-prison
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.
community personal-narrative political-prisoners prison-life
Invisibility of Women Prisoner Resistance
by Victoria Law
Victoria Law’s research indicates that women prisoners are even more overlooked by mainstream society than their male counterparts. She explains how their struggles to improve their health care, abolish sexual, maintain contact with their children and efforts to further their education have been ignored or dismissed by those studying the prison-industrial complex.
activism movement-building prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Fighting the 'Labia Lift'
by Krystal Voss
Colorado prisoner Krystal Voss tells about the invasive strip search policy at the Denver Women’s Correctional Center. During routine strip searches, women are required to spread their labia to allow staff to search for contraband.
activism guard-prisoner-relations personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex sexual-harassment
Interview with Sheryl Abel
by Sheryl Abel
In this interview Salome Chasnoff asks Sheryl to talk about her experience in prison and how she walked out the prison and is now walking back in without handcuffs and shackles helping the women she left behind. And how she became the CEO of H.O.P.E.
motherhood prison-life reentry
Interview with Joanne Archibald
by Salome Chasnoff
In this interview with Salome Chasnoff, Joanne Archibald discusses the impact of her federal prison sentence on her life, her relationship with her son, and her ability to move on with her life afterwards.
motherhood prison-life reentry
Interview with Iyrania Hill
by Iyrania Hill
In this interview with Carolyn Watson and Salome Chasnoff, Iyrania Hill describes her time serving a twenty-year sentence beginning at age 18. She discusses her life in prison, including five years spent at a medium-security co-ed prison and the ways people maintained romantic relationships behind the walls.
labor prison-life relationships
Interview with Hilda Berghammer
by Hilda Berghammer
In the course of being interviewed by Carolyn Watson and Salome Chasnoff, Hilda Berghammer discusses her life beginning with her immigration to the U.S. at age 9. She was involved in a series of abusive relationships, before being arrested on charges related to driving under the influence. She details her experiences inside Cook County Jail and Illinois state prisons, describing the intake process and the physical space of the prison. She also talks about her experiences in prostitution, and discusses her relationship with her son.
domestic-violence motherhood prison-life prostitution substance-abuse
Interview with Donna Henry
by Donna Henry
In this interview with Carolyn Watson, Donna Henry gives a detailed account of being raped at age 16, starting heroin at age 23, and entering Dwight Correctional Facility. She talks about losing her children to DCFS and the steps that she is taking to have them returned. She also describes her experiences in a drug treatment program within the prison, including a typical day and the worst day.
motherhood prison-life state-violence substance-abuse
Interview with Diana Delgado
by Diana Delgado
In this interview conducted by Joanne Archibald and Salome Chasnoff, Diana Delgado tells the story of her life beginning with the loss of her mother at age 12. She discusses her own experiences of mothering, which included losing her first child to SIDS, giving birth while shackled to a bed, and being separated from her children while serving an 8-year sentence.
motherhood prison-life
Surviving Solitary
by Laura Whitehorn
Laura Whitehorn wrote this letter in March 1997 as a part of a packet for the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons, discussing the tactics she used to survive in a control unit.
activism control-units political-prisoners prison-life
Will the Justice Department Stand Up for Women Raped in Prison?
by Rachel Roth
Eight years ago, Congress acknowledged the brutal fact of systemic sexual assault behind bars by unanimously passing the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The Justice Department is now poised to issue final rules to implement the law, which makes federal funding to prisons and jails contingent on improved staff training, availability of medical and psychological services for people who suffer sexual assault, investigations and publicly available data about reported assaults.
court-advocacy guard-prisoner-relations health immigration movement-building prison-life prison-industrial-complex sexual-violence state-violence
Voices in Time
by Salome Chasnoff
This essay from Feminist Studies, looks at Voices in Time, a multimedia installation that artistically recreates a furnished prison cell, echoing with women’s stories.
prison-life public-policy
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
by Bonnie Kerness
These past years hve been full of thousands of calls and complaints of increasingly distrubing nature from prisoners and their families throughout the United States. The proportion of those complaints coming from women has risen, with women describing conditions of confinement, which are torture.
activism community movement-building prison-life prison-industrial-complex public-policy racism sexual-violence state-violence
The Vermont Women’s Prison Project
by Traci Schlesinger & Mary Field Belenky
Based on extensive interviews with both staff and incarcerated women in one Vermont prison, this article examines the supportive relationships women form with one another and with “good” guards. The authors discuss the women’s and guards’ stories about positive changes within women’s behavior and outlook during their incarceration, emphasizing the importance of new-found relationships and trust in supporting such changes.
guard-prisoner-relations prison-life relationships
The Condition in Women's Prisons
by Sara Olson
Today in California, there are 22,000 women, inmates and parolees, whose convictions are for, on the whole, non-violent and drug-related crimes. Women normally plea-bargain their cases. Even for violent crimes, we are usually sentenced as aiders and abettors. Because we are fallen women, our sentences tend to be longer than those for men convicted of the same crimes. When it comes to murder, women primarily kill abusers who have been torturing them for many years. Public financing for women’s prisons is money misspent.
abolition activism gender movement-building prison-life prison-industrial-complex public-policy
Suicide City
by Sara Olson
Right after 4:30 p.m. count on Halloween, there was the sound of a scuffle in D Hall. An alarm brought guards running from all parts of the yard. An ambulance pulled up to the back door of the hall in which we live. The attendant pulled open the back door, got back into the ambulance and backed the rear of the vehicle up to the door. Next thing we knew, a phalanx of guards came hot-footing down our hall toward the ambulance, three of them surrounding a tall, slim woman with her wrists cuffed behind her back, hair flying everywhere and a wild, terrified look in her eyes. She’d threatened to cut her wrists.
prison-life health
The Prison Industrial Complex in Indigenous California
by Stormy Ogden
Ogden describes the historical legacy of the racism, abuse and mistreatment of Native American peoples in the United States at the hands of the U.S. government. She connects their history with the current imprisonment of Native Americans, including her own story to demonstrate the oppressive impact of incarceration.
native-american-prisoners personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex racism
Why Does Popular Culture Treat Prison Rape As a Joke?
by Anna Clark
There's no soap-dropping counterpart "joke" referring to the abuse of female inmates. Ultimately, these distorted punch-line/silence memes enforce each other and perpetuate the reality of prison rape.
activism guard-prisoner-relations prison-life prison-industrial-complex sexual-harassment sexual-violence
Freedom Fantasy
by Sara Olson
In March, 2008 I was released from Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California after over six years in prison. I won a writ, a portion of one anyway, in October, 2007 in Los Angeles that agreed with my attorneys that the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) had violated my double jeopardy right by adding a year to a sentence that a real court had already addressed.
personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex public-policy
Fourth of July at CCWF July 2006
by Sara Olson
Olson tells of a 4th of July at CCWF. When you come into the CDC, it’s a whole different world. It’s like t third world country. You’re completely cut off from civilization. I was freaked out when I got here. I was sure some of the prisoners were men. "Are they men?" I asked. I had no idea. You’re isolated.
personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex public-policy
Environmental Essay
by Sara Olson
The systems of federal and state and corporate imprisonment, the Prison/Industrial Complex, are growth industries in the United States. While there has been much attention worldwide to the human rights travesty of massive American incarceration, criticism has brought no reduction, only growth in the numbers. Incarceration is aimed at a certain group of people Blacks, Latinos, and the poor.
abolition activism gender movement-building prison-life prison-industrial-complex public-policy
Are We Really Innocent Before Proven Guilty?
by Jennifer Price
Jennifer tells her experience in the criminal justice system. In my experience, a Public Defender is more like a 'figurehead', appointed to the poor to give the illusion of fair representation and justice for all. My Public Defender advised me to accept one of the plea bargains. I looked at him and said, "But I am not guilty". He said, "That didn’t really matter because I looked guilty".
personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex
A Modern Modest Proposal
by Sara Olson
Olson describes what a prisoner goes through serving a life sentence.
personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Do I Have to Stand for This?
by Kimberly Burke
Kimberly Burke, a mother in prison tells a story of an interaction while her 7-year old son is visiting What convinces him to not want to come back. She uses her experience to talk about the large numbers of prisoners that never get a visitor. The enemy lines between prisoners and guards create a kind of hostile environment in which no one wants to be apart of.
children-of-prisoners guard-prisoner-relations personal-narrative prison-life
Why A Book About Women In Prison: (Excerpt From Women Behind Bars) 'Health Care Can Be Deadly'
by Silja Talvi
This question is entirely valid, the deeper I began to delve into the underlying reasons for the rapid growth of girls and women in lock-up, the more insight I gained into a world that few outsiders see, much less understand. Once I began to pay particularly close attention to the ways in which females in the criminal justice system were portrayed in the media, it became clear to me that stereotypes and judgments about “fallen women” from centuries ago were still holding fast.
activism health movement-building prison-life
When I Think Back
by Rachel Galindo
Galindo shares her story about the supportive relationships in prison that have helped her to endure prison life
community prison-life relationships
Prison Life: A Day
by Marilyn Buck
Marilyn Buck illustrates a prisoner’s determined efforts to reaffirm her own humanity in the face of constant indignities by describing one day of her own life in prison. Buck is a political prisoner serving eighty years in prison. She has been an active supporter of the Black Liberation movement and other struggles for self-determination.
guard-prisoner-relations personal-narrative political-prisoners prison-life
Excerpt from Banished Pride
by Gina Autrey
I have a hard time trusting others. My friendship is not something that is given freely. I can count on one hand the people who I truly consider to be my friend.
peer-support personal-narrative prison-life prison-industrial-complex reentry relationships
Bonnie, Frannie & Linda RIP
by Jerrye Broomhall
Every year the legislature approves the necessary extra millions to keep Oklahoma’s mass imprisonment binge solvent. Due to the economic downturn, however, the funds are no longer available and the mandate to fund Oklahoma’s prisons is no longer compelling to the cash-strapped legislature.
prison-life health reentry
A Maypole in Prison
by Starhawk
“When Pagans get their rights, everyone gets their rights,” say Patrick McCollum, who for the last fifteen years has volunteered to serve as a Pagan chaplain in the California prisons. McCollum, a talented jewelry designer and craftsman by nature, has in the last decade spent the bulk of his time—and money—helping prisoners and making interfaith alliances worldwide.
health mental-health peer-support prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Giving Birth in Chains - The Shackling of Incarcerated Women During Labor and Delivery
by Anna Clark
As birthing choices are increasingly prominent in the public conversation, pregnant women are more and more empowered to decide what sort of care is right for their bodies and their child.Not so for pregnant women who are incarcerated. Not only are their decisions about care restricted, but many incarcerated pregnant women are physically restricted while giving birth: during labor and delivery, they are shackled.
activism children-of-prisoners family health mental-health motherhood prison-life reproductive-rights
Living Conditions Here in the CCWF
by Patricia Wright
This article tells of the unfair treatment, unsanitary, and overcrowding living conditions of CCWF and how the inmates are forced to live in these conditions. California has the largest female institution in America and it is still overcrowded. The overcrowdings of the institution leads to daily fights, unsanitary chow halls, and a exhausted staff to run the institution.
health movement-building prison-life
Equality at the Price of Justice
by Traci Schlesinger
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, prison admission rates have been rising precipitously, racial disparities remain high, and the proportion of prisoners who are women is increasing dramatically. While several scholars argue that changes in sentencing policies play a part in increasing the proportion of the correctional population that is women, there have been few empirical examinations of this presumed connection. In this study, I examine whether and when mandatory terms and sentencing enhancements disproportionately affect women’s prison admission rates and if this disparate affect differs by race. The study has four major findings. First, mandatory terms and sentencing enhancements increase prison admission rates for violent, property, and drug crimes among Black and White men and women. Second, these policies disproportionately burden women, regardless of offense type. Third, the gender disparate impacts of these policies are most consistent among Blacks. Finally, the affects of these policies are most consistently associated with increases in violent admissions, but associated with the most substantial increases in drug admissions. These findings corroborate the theoretical perspective offered and suggest that that the concept of equality may be fruitfully replaced by one of justice.
prison-life public-policy
Being an Inmate
by Tammica L. Summers
Being an inmate takes everything you have! It’s like having an out of body experience in which “you’ must come out of yourself and use all manner of determination, self-preservation, sacrifice, compromise, strength, and extreme measure of self-discipline to will yourself to do what is required…to will yourself into being an inmate.
creative-writing personal-narrative prison-life
World of the Forgotten
by Tammica L. Summers
Summers shares her reflection on life in prison.
prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Without Regret
by Tammica L. Summers
Summers lives her life without doubt and has hope for the future. endures the anguishing wait.
personal-narrative prison-life reentry
Why
by Chrissy DeStefano
I lost my son right out the hospital when he was born for being addicted to drugs. So because the father and I were addicted to drugs we started robbing people’s houses for money and etc. for the drugs. Now we lost both kids, one to the state and one to my parents, and we’re facing 3+ years in prison. There’s more to the story but this pretty much explains it. Thanks!
creative-writing family personal-narrative prison-life substance-abuse
Who Decides
by Mary Moran
In this poem, Mary asks the hard questions who decides your justice, who decides your fate?
abolition creative-writing poetry prison-life
Untitled
by Chrissy DeStefano
This poem is about being incarcerated and how you feel being locked up!
poetry prison-life
Ready to Go
by Tammica L. Summers
Summers shares her pain in waiting to be released from prison.
health personal-narrative prison-life reentry
My Sunrise
by Rhonda Leland
In this poem, Rhonda gives her dynamic view about prison life.
poetry prison-life
My Son’s Birthday
by Deanna Lynd
In this poem Deanna talks about her son whom she gave birth to while incarcerated. She speaks of the heartache and pain of being separated from your child at birth.
creative-writing poetry prison-life
My Cell
by Melissa
I wrote this early in the morning sitting alone in my cell contemplating my sentence.
creative-writing personal-narrative prison-life
IMPRISONED
by Denise Lopez
In this poem Denise talks about imprisonment and being free. Are we only imprisoned while incarcerated or is it in the mind.
creative-writing poetry prison-life
If Only I Can Tell My Story!
by Tammica L. Summers
A poem by the late, great Wenona Thompson.
prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Freedom
by Tammica L. Summers
Summers is getting closer to life on the outside of prison and she endures the anguishing wait.
personal-narrative prison-life reentry
Dehumanization Resistance
by Tammica L. Summers
Summers stays true to who she is in prison.
mental-health prison-life
Confinement After Midnight
by Deanna Lynd
In this poem Deanna talks about the confinements of prison life. She speaks on a personal level of doing her time. She is very creative in her description this is a very compelling poem.
creative-writing poetry prison-life
Another Day Series
by Tammica L. Summers
In this series of poems, Summers describes everyday prison life from a personal point of view. Fifteen separate poems discuss different aspects of daily life inside the walls, covering a broad range of emotions.
mental-health personal-narrative poetry prison-life prison-industrial-complex
Consider this... Quit Yelling at Statues!
by Deborah Nicholls
Nicholls continues her poetry series, Consider this writing about the challenges of forgiving yourself.
creative-writing mental-health personal-narrative poetry prison-life
A Different Point of View
by Rhonda Leland
California Proposition 21, known also as Prop 21, was a proposition proposed and passed in 2000 that increased a variety of criminal penalties for crimes committed by youth and incorporated many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice system.