Author: redcarpet

CCWP In the News

For Third Year, California Kills Bill to Help Incarcerated Domestic Violence Survivors

BOLTS Magazine

By: Victoria Valenzuela

September 23, 2025

Advocates in California have pushed for relief for people convicted of harming their abuser, hoping to build on states across the political spectrum that have adopted such reforms.

Just before her 25th birthday, Susan Bustamante confided in her brother about the violent abuse she had suffered from her husband. She says her brother had protected her from her abusive father in the past, so she turned to him again after her husband threatened to hurt her family if she left him. “He told me don’t worry sis, I’ll take care of it,” Bustamante said in public testimony earlier this year. “The idea that he would kill him never occurred to me.” 

After Bustamante’s brother murdered her husband, she was convicted of helping him plot the killing. During her two-day trial, she was barred from testifying about the abuse she endured for years, which wasn’t seen as relevant to her case. Anytime she tried to talk about the abuse during the trial, it was struck from the court record. She was sentenced to life without parole.

At the time she was sentenced, Bustamante’s daughters were eight and 11 years old. She said she missed their weddings, the births of their children and the death of her sister. She was granted clemency in 2017 and released from prison in 2018 after 31 years of incarceration.

In March, Bustamante found herself sitting before California lawmakers, testifying about the abuse she experienced from her husband and how she was silenced in court. She asked for them to pass state legislation to help give other survivors of domestic abuse who are still in prison for crimes related to their abuse a chance at release. She also told lawmakers how the experience of incarceration retraumatized her. 

“I’m a survivor of domestic violence, of child molestation, and a survivor of the California prison system, which as you were speaking earlier, it’s horrific,” Bustamante told lawmakers. “I’m an advocate for victims and survivors who should have the chance to at least tell their stories in court.” 

Read full article from BOLTS Magazine here!

Updates on Prisons

First Women’s Class Graduates from California’s Sole In-Person Prison Bachelor’s Program

Davis Vanguard 

By Emily Martine 

October 9, 2025

CHINO, Calif. — On Oct. 3, 2025, in a major step toward educational equity and prison reform, 23 incarcerated women at the California Institution for Women (CIW) received bachelor’s degrees through Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative (PGI), marking the first women’s cohort to graduate from the state’s only in-person prison bachelor’s degree program.

The milestone highlights the persistent challenges and disparities in access to higher education for incarcerated women as PGI accelerates efforts to dismantle systemic barriers in the criminal justice system.

“This is the biggest accomplishment of my life,” said graduate Leticia Montoya, who served as a student speaker during the ceremony, which coincided with her 48th birthday. “I didn’t graduate high school; I got a GED. I thought that’s it for me. Higher education was never in the plan; it wasn’t valued in my household.”

Read more from the Davis Vanguard here!

Updates on Prisons

Parole in Perspective: A deep dive into discretionary parole systems

Prison Policy Initiative 

October 2025

By Leah Wang   

Parole, the release mechanism which could significantly reduce the number of people behind bars, has reached a moment of reckoning. Dysfunctional in some states and banned in others, parole looks really different from state to state. But parole is a system worth having, if states can implement it fairly and broadly.

This two-part report builds out work we started with the MacArthur Justice Center, which resulted in a “North Star” document of Parole Principles. These principles establish a vision of what our parole systems should look like, knowing that every state’s system is different and each faces different political realities.

In this two-part report, Parole in Perspective, we take a deep dive into these systems, providing the most accessible and comprehensive look at how they operate, and what can be done to make them real tools for decarceration.

  • In part 1, we examine the composition of these boards and how their hearings work.
  • In part 2, we look at parole grant rates and the decision making guidelines and realities that lead to those rates.

 

Read more from Prison Policy Initiative here. 

Reproductive Justice

Forced Sterilizations – Reading List

Newspaper Articles

“Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval.”  by Corey G. Johnson July 7, 2013. Reveal News. https://revealnews.org/article/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california-prisons-without-approval 

“Prison doctor blamed for excessive sterilizations: Excessive sterilizations, unhealthy methods alleged.” By Corey G. Johnson, Center for Investigative Reporting. Feb 15, 2014. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/prison-doctor-blamed-for-excessive-sterilizations-5238882.php 

“California Once Targeted Latinas for Forced Sterilization: In the 20th century, U.S. eugenics programs rendered tens of thousands of people infertile” By Nicole L. Novak and Natalie Lira. March 22, 2018. Smithsonian Magazine.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/california-targeted-latinas-forced-sterilization-180968567/

“California to pay victims of forced, coerced sterilizations.” By Adam Beam. July 7, 2021. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/california-business-science-health-government-and-politics-bb019f426cdbb839790ac98d420a0224 

“Beautiful Strength: ‘Sobrevivir’ Pays Homage to the Women Coerced to Sterilization in 1960s and ’70s L.A.”  By Carren Jao. July 19, 2022.

https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/beautiful-strength-sobrevivir-pays-homage-to-the-women-coerced-to-sterilization-in-1960s-and-70s-l-a

“California trying to find, compensate sterilization victims.” By Adam Beam. January 2, 2023. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/politics-health-california-state-government-prisons-b560ec0a0155d8cc13730310e1073d9d 

“More pain for California’s forced sterilization patients.” By Lynn La. March 22, 2023. Cal Matters. https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/03/forced-sterilization-california/ 

“‘I would have been a great mom’: California finally pays reparations to woman it sterilized.” By Cayla Mihalovich. October 7, 2024. Cal Matters. https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/10/reparations-forced-sterilization/

Scholarly Presentations and Talks

“Measuring Miscegenation: Eugenics and the Legacy of Slavery” By Rana Hogarth. National Human Genome Research Institute. December 2, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjz9C5I3Psg 

“The Impact of Eugenic Legacies on Queer & Trans Communities.” In conversation with Susan Raffo, Kenyon Farrow, Sebastian Margaret, and Isa Noyola. Dismantling Eugenics: A Convening. 9/26/21 – 10/2/21 https://antieugenicsproject.org/video-archive/the-impact-of-eugenic-legacies-on-queer-trans-communities/ 

“Eugenics and Sterilization in the US: Patterns, Experiences and Legacies” By Alexandra Minna Stern. National Human Genome Research Institute. December 10, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFAQQpU0REY 

 “Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition.” ​​Liat Ben-Moshe. April 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofRgzXO97tQ

Books and Peer Reviewed Articles

Avila, Vrindavani, and Jennifer Elyse James. 2024. “Controlling Reproduction and Disrupting Family Formation: California Women’s Prisons and the Violent Legacy of Eugenics” Societies 14, no. 5: 73. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14050073 

Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Vintage, 2014. https://bookshop.org/p/books/killing-the-black-body-race-reproduction-and-the-meaning-of-liberty-dorothy-roberts/6723871 

Roth, Rachel, and Sara L. Ainsworth. “If they hand you a paper, you sign it: a call to end the sterilization of women in prison.” Hastings Women’s LJ 26 (2015): 7. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/Roth_If_They_Hand_You_1_15_2015.pdf 

Stanley and Smith, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. AK Press. 2011. https://www.akpress.org/captivegenders.html 

Stern, Alexandra Minna. Eugenic nation: Faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. Vol. 17. Univ of California Press, 2016. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/eugenic-nation/paper 

Sufrin, Carolyn. Jailcare: Finding the safety net for women behind bars. Univ of California Press, 2017. https://www.jailcare.org/ 

Whatcott, Jess. Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics. Duke University Press, 2024. https://www.dukeupress.edu/menace-to-the-future 

“Confronting Pregnancy Criminalization: A Practical Guide for Healthcare Providers, Lawyers, Medical Examiners, Child Welfare Workers, and Policymakers.” [Formerly Known As] National Advocates for Pregnant Women. June 2022. https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/resources/confronting-pregnancy-criminalization-guide/ 

Appleman, Laura I. “Deviancy, Dependency, and Disability: The Forgotten History of Eugenics and Mass Incarceration.” DUKE LAW JOURNAL 68 (December 2018): 62. https://dlj.law.duke.edu/article/deviancy-dependency-and-disability-appleman-vol68-iss3/ 

Gonzales, Angela, Judy Kertész, and Gabrielle Tayac. “Eugenics as Indian Removal: Sociohistorical Processes and the De(Con)Struction of American Indians in the Southeast.” The Public Historian 29, no. 3 (January 1, 2007): 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.3.53.

Roth, Rachel. “‘She Doesn’t Deserve to Be Treated Like This’: Prisons as Sites of Reproductive Injustice.” Radical reproductive justice: Foundation, theory, practice, critique (2017): 285-301. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/Roth%202017%20Prisons%20Reproductive%20Injustice.pdf 

Whatcott, Jess. “No selves to consent: Women’s prisons, sterilization, and the biopolitics of informed consent.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 44.1 (2018): 131-153. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26553061 

Stern, Alexandra Minna, Nicole L. Novak, Natalie Lira, Kate O’Connor, Siobán Harlow, and Sharon Kardia. “California’s Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress.” American Journal of Public Health 107, no. 1 (January 2017): 50–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303489.

Updates on Prisons

States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context 2025

Prison Policy Initiative

September 2025

by Emily Widra and Aleks Kajstura 

The United States still incarcerates 614 people for every 100,000 residents, more than almost any other country in the world. Women in particular are incarcerated in the U.S. at a rate of 112 per 100,000. This may seem relatively minor, but it’s a scale of women’s incarceration that remains higher than that of any other country except El Salvador. Furthermore, women’s incarceration stubbornly remains at near-historic highs in the U.S., while the country’s overall incarceration rate has been falling.

This report helps make sense of these numbers, providing an updated snapshot of how women in the U.S. fare in the world’s carceral landscape and comparing incarceration rates for women in each U.S. state with the equivalent rates for countries around the world.

Read the full report from Prison Policy Initiative here.