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Title: Not Helpless Victims Author: Victoria Law Date: Spring, 2012 Language: en Topics: Fifth Estate, Fifth Estate #386, prison, prisoners, women Source: FIFTH ESTATE #386, Spring, 2012, Vol. 47, No. 1, page 19
In July 2011, women at California’s Valley State Prison launched a
hunger strike in solidarity with prisoners on a four-week hunger strike
at Pelican Bay State Prison and also to protest their own Secure Housing
Unit (an extreme solitary confinement unit).
Upon hearing about the hunger strike, a woman incarcerated in another
state, and who had been in solitary confinement for 942 days, launched a
one-day hunger strike, stating, “I’ll refuse my trays tomorrow in
solidarity with long-term solitary confinement hostages everywhere and
for the girls held in the outer buildings that don’t have
air-conditioning or enough electrical sockets to plug in their personal
fans and are stuck in rooms with 4” x 12” windows that provide no air.
It’s a heat index of 110 degrees today.”
Women prisoners have always resisted. In 1835, New York State opened its
first prison for women. The environment was so terrible that the women
rioted, attacking and tearing the clothes off the prison matron and
physically chasing away other officials with wooden food tubs. When
imprisoned in male penitentiaries and work camps, women often refused to
obey the rules. When states began housing them in separate facilities in
the 1800s, they protested substandard conditions, sometimes violently,
as the New York prison officials learned.
Women’s actions, however, are often overlooked by prisoner rights
activists and advocates, leading to both the mistaken belief that women
do not organize and to a lack of outside attention and support for their
actions.
The number of women in federal and state prisons has increased
twenty-fold in the last 40 years, from 5,600 in 1970 to 114,979 by the
mid-2009. What caused this explosion in women’s incarceration?
From President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 “War on Crime,” to numerous
state “Three Strikes” laws mandating life in prison without the
possibility of parole for a third conviction, to Ronald Reagan launching
the current “War on Drugs,” expanding both policing and imprisonment,
prison populations began to swell. (It was not until 1985 that crack
began to rapidly spread through and destroy poor black urban
neighborhoods.)
In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act with mandatory minimum
sentences for drug offenses. The legislation led to a huge expansion in
the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses, from 16,340 in 1986
to 58,260 by the end of 1994.
The act also allowed police and prosecutors to arrest and charge spouses
and partners with conspiracy if they took a phone message or signed for
a package. Lacking knowledge about drug transactions, spouses and
partners are unable to plea-bargain by trading information for a lesser
charge. Between 1986 and 1996, the number of women in federal prisons
for drug law violations increased 421 percent.
Women of color are disproportionately impacted by these policies. The
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics show that one of every 100 Black
women, one of every 404 Latinas, and one of every 1,099 white women are
in prison. Racial profiling, not an increase in crime among people of
color, accounts for much of this overrepresentation.
Policing policies disproportionately target inner-city African-American
and Latino neighborhoods. Within the past decade, many police
departments have increased the use of stop-and-frisk tactics, in which
officers stop, question, and pat down those they perceive as acting
suspiciously, often people of color.
In addition, alternatives to incarceration are less likely to be offered
to people of color. A California study showed that two-thirds of drug
treatment slots went to whites despite the fact that 70 percent of
people with drug sentences were African-American.
Class is also a strong indicator of which women end up in prison. Only
40 percent of all incarcerated women were employed full time before
incarceration. Of those, most held low-paying jobs. A study of women
under supervision (prison, jail, parole, or probation) found that
two-thirds had never held a job that paid more than $6.50 per hour.
Approximately 30 percent had been receiving public assistance before
being arrested.
The 1996 so-called welfare reform disqualified those with drug felonies
and probation or parole violations. Between 1996 and 1999, more than
96,000 women were subject to the welfare ban because of past drug
convictions.
The use of prisons to control women is not new As late as the early
twentieth century, women were often arrested and imprisoned for defying
gender norms: being drunk, engaging in pre- and extra-marital sex,
contracting a venereal disease, or keeping “bad company.” In contrast,
men were neither arrested nor penalized for the same behaviors.
Women were often given longer, if not indeterminate, sentences than men
convicted of the same offense. In 1913, Pennsylvania passed the Muncy
Act, requiring that all women convicted of an offense punishable by more
than one year be given an indeterminate sentence.
Under this Act, women were also not eligible for parole as early as men.
In 1966, the state’s Superior Court ruled that the Act’s sentencing
disparity did not violate women’s constitutional rights, stating that
women and men’s “inherent physical and psychological differences
justified differential treatment. Therefore, it was deemed reasonable
for women to receive longer sentences, especially because they
supposedly received more effective rehabilitation while incarcerated.”
Once behind bars, women have protested and challenged their conditions.
In 1975, prisoners at the California Institution for Women, in Corona,
protested the cancellation of family holiday visits and holiday
packages. They gathered in the yard, broke windows, made noise and
burned Christmas trees in a “solidarity” bonfire.
“The important thing was that it was not especially political in its
roots — simply a classic example of a fed-up-population,” recalled Sin
Soracco, one of the riot’s many participants. “The result, however, was
very political: everyone had lots of time while we were locked down, in
between bitching about the one hardboiled egg a day, to consider the
idea of prison/punishment/conditions/rationale.”
Despite the lockdown, the women circulated a document on which everyone
wrote down their suggestions for demands. The document became the
women’s own Ten Points, demanding improved health care, food, education,
maternity care and family visits, as well as an end to the arbitrary
methods of penalizing women for infractions, the use of solitary
confinement, brutal sentencing, overcrowding, and staff sadism.
Women’s resistance is not always as visible as rioting. More than half
the women in state prisons and local jails report having been physically
and/or sexually abused while incarcerated. The Bureau of Justice
Statistics found that women were three times more likely than men to
have been physically or sexually abused prior to incarceration.
Prison environment, with its male guards, lack of privacy, physical and
verbal abuse, and fear, often perpetuates abuse. Despite these
circumstances, women have connected with and supported each other in
their efforts to overcome past trauma.
In the late 1980s, women serving life sentences in Marysville, Ohio,
formed a support group called Looking Inward for Excellence (LIFE).
Members realized that many had been,sentenced to life imprisonment for
killing their abusers. At a time when abuse and battering were not
widely recognized in either the courtrooms or outside society, they
began working around issues of domestic violence.
LIFE members reached out to other survivors, helping them overcome
denial and encouraging them to apply for clemency. Their efforts led to
18 additional women applying for clemency. In the end, 25 women were
granted clemency.
The actions of LIFE inspired women at the California Institution for
Women to organize a similar clemency drive. Members of Convicted Women
Against Abuse (CWAA), a prisoner-initiated support group for battered
women, wrote a letter to then-Governor Pete Wilson asking him to
consider commuting their sentences and inviting him to one of their
weekly meetings so he could understand how they had ended up in prison.
Wilson declined the invitation, but the letter drew the attention of
lawyers and advocates who helped the women draft arguments and gather
evidence for clemency petitions. The governor granted clemency to three,
denied it to seven, and made no decision on 24 of the petitions.
In both Ohio and California, battered women’s efforts not only
strengthened and expanded the clemency processes, but also raised public
awareness about abuse. Even those not granted clemency became empowered
to speak out about their experiences instead of continuing to live in
shame.
CWAA members continue to meet and share current news regarding domestic
violence, homicide cases, court rulings, and their own experiences with
the justice system. They discuss possible legal strategies, media
stories about women who fight back, and journalists with a focus on
domestic violence.
The advocates and lawyers who originally helped women with their
petitions formed the California Coalition for Battered Women in Prison
to continue organizing and educating the public. More than 15 years
later, the group, now part of the California Coalition for Women
Prisoners, continues to advocate for the release of women imprisoned for
self-defense. Within the past 12 years, the group has helped free 35
additional women.
Although the dramatic increase in women’s incarceration has led to
increased attention, many continue to believe that women do not resist
or organize. Remembering these past revolts not only counters the belief
that women passively accept injustice, but also opens the door to both
recognizing the less visible forms of resistance within women’s prisons
and working to support their struggles.
Incarcerated women and their advocates have suggestions on how activists
and organizers on the outside can support their resistance behind bars:
noted, “Visits, phone calls, and letter writing are essential. Only with
a firm foundation, a strong foundation, can we together be able to build
a greater movement.”
with issues that are considered “non-prison” issues.SEND LITERATURE AND
NEWS FROM THE OUTSIDE.
treatments! They also need outside people who are willing to provide
services not available (but much needed) within the prison.
look into setting up a women’s studies course or other program within a
women’s prison that helps articulate and challenge the dominant ways of
thinking and the power structure.
and leadership of currently and/or formerly incarcerated women.