Now is the Time to Stop Shackling Pregnant Women in California
Cross-posted from MomsRising: One month after the California Legislature sent a bill to the Governor to protect incarcerated women from being shackled during pregnancy, the State Sheriffs’ Association...
View ArticleNow It’s Clear: “Pro-Life” Means “Pro-Imprisonment”
Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed to consider an amicus (friend of the court) brief filed by the Liberty Counsel in support of the prosecutions of Hope Ankrom and Amanda Kimbrough. The...
View ArticleNew Paper Series Explores Reproductive Justice Issues, Including What Happens...
The Center for Women Policy Studies has published a series of papers called Reproductive Laws for the 21st Century. The series addresses issues ranging from the exclusion of abortion from health care...
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California Legislature Votes to Ban Sterilization of Inmates
Legislation banning the sterilization of inmates in California state prisons is awaiting the governor’s signature after gaining overwhelming support from both the state assembly and senate this week....
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Why Are Alameda County Jails Forcing Women to Take Pregnancy Tests?
For pregnant women in Alameda County jails in the 1980s, the daily realities of life included shackled limbs, denial of prescribed medication, and, in the case of full-term miscarriage, at least one...
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Senators ‘Deeply Concerned’ by Plans to Detain More Immigrant Women and Children
A massive new detention facility would harm immigrant women and children and reverse administration policy on family detentions, according to a letter sent Thursday by a group of leading Senate...
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‘Locked Down, Locked Out’ Puts a Face on the Criminal Justice System
Maya Schenwar’s Locked Down, Locked Out opens with a highly emotional story about the conflicting feelings Schenwar experienced when her sister Kayla was arrested in December 2012 for the seventh time...
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Names Do Hurt: The Case Against Using Derogatory Language to Describe People...
Too often, news stories about people in prison or jail use dehumanizing language to describe those under government control. While this coverage draws attention to widespread abuses in the criminal...
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Sentenced to Abuse: Trans People in Prison Suffer Rape, Coercion, Denial of...
Read other pieces in RH Reality Check’s Women, Incarcerated series here. In 2009, Janetta Johnson was sentenced to 71 months for possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine. When the economy...
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Advocates Push Bail Reform to Stop ‘Penalizing People for Being Poor’
In the United States, where the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is a cultural bedrock, close to half a million people are behind bars awaiting trial, convicted of nothing. As part of a...
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‘Coming Out of Concrete Closets’: LGBTQ Criminalization as Reproductive...
Last week, Black and Pink—a network of LGBTQ prisoners and allies on the outside—released Coming Out of Concrete Closets, a survey of 1,118 LGBTQ prisoners. Designed in conjunction with prisoners...
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New Report Details Staggering Rates of Women’s Incarceration in the United...
Twenty-five U.S. states have higher incarceration rates for women than any country in the world, according to a new report by the Prison Policy Initiative. Researchers compared incarceration rates for...
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New Report Highlights Growing Number of Aging People in Prison
Gloria Rubero served 26 years in New York prisons. Between being incarcerated at the age of 30 and her release at age 56, she was denied parole five times, suffered two major strokes, and earned her...
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Hearing Reignites Calls of ‘Justice for Sandra Bland’
Dozens of activists in Houston, Texas, packed a federal courthouse Thursday, where Judge David Hittner heard arguments ahead of an official trial for a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of...
View ArticleTrans Activists and Allies Mark First International Trans Prisoner Day of Action
On Friday, January 22, trans people and their allies marked the first International Trans Prisoner Day of Action with solidarity events and letter-writing campaigns taking place all over the world,...
View ArticleKentucky Lawmakers’ Response to Jail Deaths Seen by Advocates as ‘Weak’
Kentucky lawmakers have introduced a house bill that would create an independent panel to investigate in-custody deaths across the state, as critics call into question the panel’s independence. The...
View ArticleLouisiana Is ‘Ground Zero’ for HIV, Incarceration Crises, Report Says
Thousands of prisoners in Louisiana’s county jails are routinely denied access to HIV testing and treatment, with five of the state’s 104 jails offering regular tests to inmates upon entry, according...
View ArticleUnanswered Questions Abound in Gynnya McMillen’s In-Custody Death
It began with a 9-1-1 call and ended with the death of a 16-year-old Black girl in a youth facility in Kentucky. Little has been written about the girl’s case, but advocates and organizers say it is...
View ArticleMassachusetts Seeks Incarceration Alternatives for Parents
Jasmine (a pseudonym) is a 15-year-old from Boston. When she was 7 years old, her father was incarcerated. “It wasn’t for any violent crimes, but they gave him four years,” Jasmine told Rewire. It was...
View ArticleCherelle Baldwin Was Acquitted of Murder, So Why Did She Spend Three Years in...
On March 31, Cherelle Baldwin was acquitted of all charges in the death of her abusive ex-boyfriend. That afternoon, she walked out of court a free woman. But at that point, she had had lost nearly...
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