Linda Evans
Three extremely successful Peace and Justice Commu-nity Summits were organized by All of Us or None in Oakland, San Francisco, and East Palo Alto in 2004. A total of over 1200 people attended the three Summits. For the first time, formerly incarcerated people were speaking in our own voices, making demands and policy recommendations to Action Panels that included over 70 elected officials and community leaders.
The voices of formerly incarcerated people and our families have been repeatedly marginalized in debates about policy issues affecting our communities. The Summits provided forums where people who had been in prison and suffered injustices testified, and policy-makers and community leaders listened. We hoped the Summits would help mobilize communities devastated by mass imprisonment and its after-effects to struggle for criminal justice reform.
All of Us or None members took flyers in English and Spanish to neighborhoods in Oakland, San Francisco, and East Palo Alto every Saturday during the months prior to each Summit. We talked to hundreds of people at community meetings and on the streets, handed out flyers at community fairs, events, and at bus and BART stops all over the Bay Area. We made presentations at schools, halfway houses, and drug treatment centers. We put stacks of our flyers in beauty shops, barber shops, and corner grocery stores in targeted neighborhoods.
At the Summits, formerly incarcerated people told our stories ? about being locked out of employment, housing, higher education; about our families being torn apart because of 20-year-old felony convictions; about being denied welfare, foodstamps, and custody of our children after getting out of California prisons or Youth Authority. We demanded an end to the discrimination we face in so many areas of life. We made very specific recommendations for changes in public policy to the Action Panels at each Summit.
After each Summit we held community meetings where many new members joined All of Us or None. We formed active workgroups to involve our membership in the ongoing work: Policy, Outreach/Inreach, Sustainability, and Membership. We continue to do outreach with formerly incarcerated people and to neighborhoods that are hardest hit by incarceration. We have regular programs of outreach/inreach at local jails and prisons. We are continuing to meet with elected officials and community leaders. Many of them have come forward to support our demands.
We are determined to win significant change, even though it is a long-term struggle. Most important, we are determined to build a powerful movement of formerly incarcerated people so we have a voice in our own futures and in the survival and development of our communities.
Category: Issue 29 – Fall/Winter 2004
AnnaBell Chapa, CCWF
Many family members deny you when you come to prison. My relationship with my sister-in-law, for example, is very shaky. Her son came out at his high-school graduation to 200 people. He told them that talking with me (I was telling him that he should be who he is) and reading my letters was what convinced him to come out of the closet. His mom still blames me.
In spite of being in prison, my mom and my nephew don?t judge me for being a lesbian, nor for messing up my life the way I did. My time goes by easier when I receive loving letters and feel the unconditional love, not to mention a visit, from my mom.
L. N., VSPW
I have been beaten, raped, molested, abandoned, rejected. I was left with a broken spirit. Being a mother was the best thing I ever did. My eyes lit up only when interacting with my children.
Now I am a state away. We have le
ft one abusive situation for another. But the love for my children survives. My children are left motherless, with an abusive father. I have been shut out of their lives. Court orders have been violated and my voice goes unnoticed.
My fight will never end until I have contact with and see my children again. Do they remember they have a mother who loves them with all her heart, who never forgot them?
By separating mothers from their children a whole new generation of people are wounded and lost and tend to end up money-hungry in an abusive system. Children wanting their mothers pay severely for their loss.
Our society should be ashamed. Long termers need our visits, if only for our families’ well being. The hurt doesn’t need to continue.
The Family Advocacy Network, a project of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, is a group of family members and friends of prisoners who advocate for the safety and well being of our incarcerated loved ones. We defend our right to simply be and maintain our families in spite of the prison walls. We come together to heal from the damage caused by incarceration and to make sure our loved ones inside are free from abuse, get needed medical care, and are treated with the respect and humanity they deserve. We fight against unfair parole policies that keep our loved ones imprisoned for decades. We speak out against the injustices of a racist prison system and work to create alternatives that will lead to real healing and reunification.
We believe that the voices of family members who have incarcerated loved ones are invaluable to the pursuit of justice for all. It is because of their unique knowledge, compassion and relentless dedication that prisoners are not abandoned or forgotten, despite the many ways that incarceration attempts to separate and isolate us.
Pregnancy and Mother and Infant Health in California State Prisons
Pam Fadem
Incarceration in California becomes a go ahead for the CDC to condemn women prisoners to bad?or no?prenatal care. CDC policy results in denying the babies born in prison the good health and disease immunity afforded by at least 6 months of breast feeding and the bond built with their mothers.
Pregnant women do not receive any special diet, though they usually do get an ?extra snack? which may mean only one extra glass of milk a day! They are assigned to an OB/GYN doctor at the prison, but that is no guarantee that there will be regular check-ups or follow-up in case of any complications.
Dental care in the CDC is hard or near impossible to obtain, and for most it means getting teeth pulled rather than preventative care. For pregnant women, dental exams, regular teeth cleanings and treatment for gum disease are especially important. The bacteria from gum disease are linked to both premature deliveries and low infant birth weights.
Pregnant women are transported to the hospital in restraints while in labor and are shackled to their hospital beds. All of this jeopardizes 2 lives?the mother?s and her baby?s?as proved by the many miscarriages and stillbirths suffered by women prisoners.
The state has long had legislation requiring the CDC to allow pregnant women to live in community-based facilities before giving birth, and for up to 6 years afterwards with their child. But the Department has made it really hard to qualify for these programs, and the state has provided little funding. There are now only 3 Community Prisoner Mother Programs (CPMPs in Oakland, Pomona, and Bakersfield), also known as the Mother-Infant Program?down from 7?where women can live with their babies. A lot of ?experts? have studied programs similar to the CPMPs in other states (New York, Washington, Nebraska) and reported that not only are babies and moms healthier, but they also result in less recidivism for women and better lives for their children.
What can we do? If you are a pregnant woman inside ? or have already had your baby- and have a story that you want to share, please contact LSPC (see box on this page). And if you are on the outside and want to be involved in this advocacy work, also contact LSPC. Let?s protect our future generations!