Updates on Women Prisons

She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more common.
On 4 November 2019, TV stations across California blasted Chelsea Becker’s photo on their news editions. The “search was on” for a “troubled” 25-year-old woman wanted for the “murder of her unborn baby” …

The woman confronting the US prison-to-deportation pipeline
News of her client’s release sent attorney Melanie Kim scrambling to find clothes. Her client hadn’t known freedom since 2003. She needed something to wear when she left detention for the first time in 16 years.

Fourth California federal prison worker charged with sex abuse
The Federal Correctional Institution is shown in Dublin, Calif., July 20, 2006. A fourth worker at a federal women’s prison in California has been charged with sexually abusing an inmate. His arrest comes months after the prison’s warden was arrested on similar charges.

When A Prison Closes – L.A. Times Op-Ed
The scheduled deactivation of California Correctional Center has become a hot-button issue for the town of Susanville, sparking anger and a still-pending lawsuit to prevent the prison from closing at all. The fears of residents who have become dependent on prisons for their livelihood have been covered widely in the media, but …

All They Want For the Holidays Is for Their Loved Ones to Come Home From Prison
When she was 8 years old, Bryanna Rose had one item on her Christmas wish list — for her father, Jose Colon, to come home.

When a Miscarriage Becomes a Jail Sentence
National Advocates for Pregnant Women painted a grim picture of pregnant people increasingly being prosecuted around the country for a miscarriage

NO TOUCHING ALLOWED
Krystal Shelley, who does not identify as male or female and is Black, said that while they were sharing a cell with their partner at Valley State Prison for Women, correctional officers planted a shank under their mattress. Shelley was sent to the SHU.

A grandmother didn’t answer her phone during a class. She was sent back to prison.
In the year she was out of prison, Gwen Levi, 76, was thriving. But Levi’s season on the outside ended June 12 after she attended a computer word-processing class in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Trans women are still incarcerated with men and it’s putting their lives at risk
Jasmine Rose Jones is a woman. But for much of the last 23 years, she was incarcerated in a men’s facility, and she says she was subjected to rape, sexual assault and abuse, just because she is transgender.

To Confront Sexual Violence, We Don’t Need Better Prosecutors — We Need to Abolish Them
Prosecutors’ offices deal in punishment, not healing, prevention or justice. When candidates running for prosecutor claim to be on the side of survivors of violence, we always need to take a closer look — and recognize the violence inherent in the office itself.

A Film Tries to Make a Difference for Domestic Violence Survivors
“And So I Stayed” examines how the courts treat women who kill their abusers. The movie played a role in one case that resulted in freedom after a conviction.

Inhumane system of incarceration in U.S. poses special danger to women
New Jersey is closing a women’s prison, but it won’t get at the root of the problem.

Women’s Prison Plagued by Sexual Violence Will Close, Governor Says
Just over a year ago, the Justice Department offered a scathing indictment of New Jersey’s only prison for women, describing a culture of sexual violence by guards so entrenched that it violated prisoners’ constitutional protections from cruel and unusual punishment. But the string of scandals continued.

It’s too easy to sentence Black people to death in California.
On June 2, the California Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in a case that raises serious questions about the constitutionality of how California’s death penalty has been applied.

Santa Cruz Women’s Prison Project Collection
CCWP’s ally, Freedom Archives recently processed a new collection of materials related to Bay Area women’s’ prison organizing during the 1970s, the Santa Cruz Women’s Prison Project (SCWPP).

44 district attorneys sue California prison officials over ‘early releases’ of inmates
A group of 44 California district attorneys sued state prison officials Wednesday trying to force a halt to emergency state rules that they claim would allow the early release of 76,000 inmates.

N.J. moves transgender woman back to men’s prison, raising legal questions
Rollins, who is 25 and transgender, was recently moved from the state’s only women’s facility to New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, according to online prison records. No other person listed as “female” statewide is incarcerated in a male facility, records show.

New Report Looks at Strategies to Cut Incarceration of Illinois Women by Half
Between 1980 and 2014, the number of women incarcerated across the United States increased by 700 percent. In Illinois, women’s incarceration increased by 767 percent during that same time period.

Honoring Theresa Martinez, VOW Narrator and Human Rights Advocate
Theresa Martinez was a formerly incarcerated activist and survivor who died in March under cruel racist circumstances. Voice of Witness mourns the loss of Theresa Martinez, a narrator in VOW’s book Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons.

Biden administration says it’s unconstitutional to put a trans woman in men’s prisons
The Biden administration stood up for the safety of transgender women in a first-of-its-kind court filing, saying that it’s unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment” to systematically place trans women in men’s prisons and to deny gender-affirming health care to incarcerated trans people.

Federal Court Rules Ongoing Constitutional Violations in California Prisons Warrant Continued Monitoring
Today, a federal court ruled that California’s ongoing violations of the rights of prisoners, including systemic fabrication of information supposedly provided by confidential sources, should be subject to extended judicial monitoring.

N.J. agrees to pay almost $21 million to settle sexual abuse claims at women’s prison
New Jersey has agreed to pay almost $21 million to several women who said they were sexually abused while incarcerated at New Jersey’s only women’s prison and to other former inmates, officials announced Wednesday.

New Podcast “What Is Life?” about People Serving LWOP Sentences
What is Life is a podcast by Pennsylvania reporter Josh Vaughn that gives people serving life without the possibility of parole in Pennsylvania a chance to tell their story in their own voice.

Lawsuits, allegations of sexual assault plague women’s prison slated for closure
Joseph J. Martinez was accused of abusing female inmates at Springer Correctional Center from the moment they arrived at the facility in October 2016, according to a New Mexico State Police probable cause statement in a criminal case against the former guard.

‘A privilege for the rich’: CA Supreme Court opposes Cash Bail
The California Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the current cash bail system Thursday — a decision that some feel could lead to numerous releases and a more just future for marginalized communities.

Protesters demand N.J. women’s prison close as outcry against alleged beatings grows
Nobody could remember a rally ever happening outside New Jersey’s only women’s prison. Saturday may have been the first.

Announcing the 2021 Docs in Action Film Fund Recipients
The history of the prison industrial complex is rooted in slavery and colonization, with an inherent purpose of reinforcing oppressive social and economic injustices. To illuminate these realities and get to a world free of police and prisons – we need stories.

Cuomo Should Free Incarcerated Survivors of Gender-Based Violence — and Then Resign
The current spotlight on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s history of sexually abusing his staff is consistent with his history of structurally misogynistic treatment of the people — especially survivors of gender-based violence — incarcerated in New York prisons. The breadth of Cuomo’s interpersonal abuse is disgusting and infuriating. Unfortunately, it is not surprising…

In blistering ruling Federal judge orders video surveillance & body cams in 5 CA prisons to stop abuse of men & women with disabilities
On Thursday, March 11, Senior U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken handed down a blistering ruling that ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to institute a series of changes with which the judge hopes to put a stop to what she describes as a pattern of systemic abuse of incarcerated people with disabilities at five of the state’s prisons.

“Hell No”: Correctional Officers Are Declining The Coronavirus Vaccine En Masse
As states have begun COVID-19 inoculations at prisons across the country, corrections employees are refusing vaccines at alarming rates, causing some public health experts to worry about the prospect of controlling the pandemic both inside and outside. A statewide survey in California showed that half of all correctional employees will wait to be vaccinated.

35 Palestinian Women Yearning for Freedom on International Women’s Day
Today, as the world commemorates International Women’s Day, 35 Palestinian women are yearning for freedom in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Amongst whom are 11 mothers, six wounded prisoners, and three administrative detainees…

Mary J. Blige writes for survivors, those who want to survive
After watching the documentary “Belly of the Beast,” Mary J. Blige was incredulous. “I could not believe what I was seeing,” Blige said. “But somewhere in the back of my mind, all my life, I always felt like women weren’t being treated properly in prisons. Black women were just being treated like slaughtered pigs.”

Vulnerable Inmates Left in Prison as Covid Rages
The Danbury Federal Correction Institution in Connecticut is one of three federal prisons that were singled out for prompt action last spring by former Attorney General William Barr because of its vulnerability to Covid outbreaks. At a federal compound in Connecticut, inmates in precarious health “are like sitting ducks,” one lawyer said.

Unprepared for COVID, Texas Women’s Prison Was Equally Unprepared for Uri
Winter Storm Uri left the federal medical camp at Carswell, and the 1066 women confined there, without heat or hot water during a frigid weekend that dropped as log as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. “If They Can’t Take Care of Us, Release Us”.

Outraged by abuse at women’s prison, Democratic senators call for creation of public advocate
New Jersey needs a new public advocate to help protect inmates and people in other state-run facilities, three lawmakers said, arguing more oversight is needed after last month’s assault on inmates at the women’s prison and the apparent failure of the state to reach a settlement with federal authorities over problems at the facility.

No End In Sight: America’s Enduring Reliance on Life Imprisonment
Before America’s era of mass incarceration took hold in the early 1970s, the number of individuals in prison was less than 200,000. Today, it’s 1.4 million; and more than 200,000 people are serving life sentences – one out of every seven in prison. More people are sentenced to life in prison in America than there were people in prison serving any sentence in 1970.

31 Guards Suspended at a Women’s Prison Plagued by Sexual Violence
Inmates reported being beaten while handcuffed at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in New Jersey, the state’s only prison for women. For Trimeka Rollins’s daughter, who is 24 and transgender, New Jersey’s only women’s prison was supposed to be…

On the Need for Health Justice in the Prison System
In need of a life-saving bone marrow transplant for leukemia and positive for COVID, DeReta Steverson, incarcerated at the California Institution for Women (CIW), is still not eligible for compassionate release in California, even under the state’s much-hyped release program.

US government executes woman for first time in nearly seven decades
The United States executed Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, early on Wednesday, making her the first female prisoner to be executed by the federal government since 1953.

Lawsuit says New Mexico prison officials allowed guard to assault inmates repeatedly
Allegations of guards sexually assaulting prisoners at the state-run women’s prison in Springer continue to mount. Albuquerque attorneys representing several inmates who say they’ve been sexually assaulted at the facility have filed another complaint…

How the System Kept Failing the Only Woman on Federal Death Row
Throughout Lisa Montgomery’s life, authorities repeatedly failed to stop the extreme violence and abuse that she suffered. On Christmas Eve, a federal court ruled that the government had acted illegally…

25 California prisons have logged more than 1,000 infections. None are in the first wave of vaccinations.
California’s prison system, which has been exceptionally hard-hit by the coronavirus, has started vaccinating some inmates — but none so far at the 25 prisons that have been most overwhelmed by infections

States Say They’re Decarcerating to Fight COVID, Yet 1 in 5 Prisoners Has Had the Virus
“Some of us wear masks even in our beds, but it feels futile,” said Sarah Jo Pender, incarcerated at the Rockville Correctional Facility, one of Indiana’s three women’s prisons. “There is little to do except watch the infection spread and wait my turn to suffer.”

DOJ probe finds staff at Florida women’s prison sexually abused inmates
Federal prosecutors said a Florida women’s prison has failed to protect prisoners from sexual abuse by facility staff in violation of the inmate’s constitutional rights.

California’s high-risk inmates to get COVID-19 vaccines – Los Angeles Times
A state prison medical facility in the Central Valley houses inmates with special medical needs. At least 150 of its 2,400 inmates are positive for COVID-19.

Coronavirus outbreak infects 20% of East Bay women’s prison
A fast-moving coronavirus outbreak at FCI Dublin, a federal women’s prison in Alameda County, has infected more than 20% of the prison’s population, according to data released Wednesday. The mass spread of the virus in jails and prisons around the country…

Prisons in California’s Central Valley are COVID-19 hotbeds. Here’s how it happened
Coronavirus infections inside prisons have exploded in recent weeks with one of the worst surges taking place in California, where more than 40,000 inmates and staff across the state’s 35 prisons have tested positive for the virus.

Incarcerated Women Are Punished for Their Trauma With Solitary Confinement
From Truthout – At Minnesota’s Shakopee Correctional Facility for women, where I am incarcerated, solitude is something we seldom have a chance to experience. Loud, muffled over-head announcements begin every morning at 5:30 and continue until 9:30 p.m. when we are counted for the last time of the day.

With Over 115,000 Confirmed Cases, Incarcerated People Are Challenging Deadly Pandemic Conditions in Prisons
From Truthout – On April 10, Esther Arias made a video call to her son and asked him to stream the call on Facebook Live. Arias wanted the larger public to know about how the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, was handling COVID. One woman, she said, had tested positive three times — but remained in the housing unit.
