The organized right justifies its draconian policies toward the poor with moral arguments. Right-wing think tanks and blogs, for instance, ponder the damaging effect on disabled poor children of becoming “dependent” on government assistance, or they scrutinize government nutritional assistance for poor pregnant women and children in an effort to explain away positive outcomes for infants.
The willful ignorance and cruelty of it all can leave you gasping—and gasp was all we did for decades. This is why we so desperately needed a movement for a new kind of moral economy. Occupy Wall Street, which has already changed the national conversation, may well be its beginning.
There is a simple solution that would contribute to alleviating our children’s suffering: REHABILITATE AND EDUCATE THEIR INCARCERATED PARENTS. Instead of doling out lengthy sentences to felons, which simply serve to “warehouse” prisoners, while costing taxpayers millions of dollars, it would be more effective to teach prisoners different behaviors while in prison than the destructive lifestyle and behaviors with which they are familiar, and which led them to commit the crimes that led to their imprisonment.
It is expensive to send a person to prison, who, without rehabilitation, is 85 percent likely to return to prison. Money that is spent on “warehousing” a person could be better spent towards rehabilitation and education. IT IS A FACT THAT IT COST THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY TO HOUSE AN INMATE ANNUALLY AS IT DOES TO SEND HER TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOR ONE YEAR.
Fifty-three percent of the 1.5 million people held in U.S. prisons by 2007 were the parents of one or more minor children. This percentage translates into more than 1.7 million minor children with an incarcerated parent.
African American children are seven and Latino children two and half times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children. The estimated risk of parental imprisonment for white children by the age of 14 is one in 25, while for black children it is one in four by the same age.
“Beyondmedia’s Women and Prison programming supports formerly incarcerated women and their families to voice their stories through the arts, engaging their issues and experiences to create opportunities for dialogue, healing and community organizing. Since 1998 Beyondmedia has collaborated extensively with formerly incarcerated women and girls to create interdisciplinary, multimedia forums on women and prison. The invisibility of women’s perspectives and experiences in discussions of the growing prison industrial complex constitutes a serious gap, given that the numbers of women in this male oriented system are increasing at an alarming rate. The incarceration of women is linked to a multitude of interconnected issues facing poor women, drug-addicted women, women of color, lesbians, and women in prostitution, including interpersonal and state violence, poverty, racism, reproductive oppression, homophobia, harassment, lack of quality healthcare, homelessness, and more. By making the issues of women prisoners more visible, we expand the analysis and strategies being developed to seriously challenge the criminal justice system and work to end the cycle of crisis it creates for women and their families.”
“Beyondmedia Education’s mission is to collaborate with under-served and under-represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts.
Our Vision
Beyondmedia Education envisions a compassionate and just society where universal access to media tools and information equip women and youth to document and communicate their stories, serve as educators and role models for others, influence public policy, and generate social transformation.”
“Chicago Books to Women in Prison is a volunteer collective working to distribute books free of charge to women in prison nationwide. We are dedicated to offering women behind bars the opportunity for self-empowerment, education, and entertainment that reading provides.”
2. Prison and police accountability activists have generally organized around and conceptualized men of color as the primary victims of state violence. Women prisoners and victims of police brutality have been made invisible by a focus on the war on our brothers and sons. It has failed to consider how women are affected as severely by state violence as men. The plight of women who are raped by INS officers or prison guards, for instance, has not received sufficient attention. In addition, women carry the burden of caring for extended family when family and community members are criminalized and wherehoused. Several organizations have been established to advocate for women prisoners; however, these groups have been frequently marginalized within the mainstream anti-prison movement.
3. The anti-prison movement has not addressed strategies for addressing the rampant forms of violence women face in their everyday lives, including street harassment, sexual harassment at work, rape, and intimate partner abuse. Until these strategies are developed, many women will feel shortchanged by the movement. In addition, by not seeking alliances with the anti-violence movement, the anti-prison movement has sent the message that it is possible to liberate communities without seeking the well-being and safety of women.
So maybe I’m biased here by the whole thing where an evil wizard cursed me to be a human soul in the body of a woman, but I see a lot of sexism in the “vaginas are complicated mysteries!” thing.
INCITE! works with groups of women of color and their communities to develop political projects that address the multiple forms of violence women of color experience in our lives, on our bodies, and in our communities.
We identify “violence against women of color” as a combination of “violence directed at communities,” such as police violence, war, and colonialism, and “violence within communities,” such as rape and domestic violence.
