Shedding light on the crisis of women behind bars
National and International Resources
PRISON LEGAL NEWS/HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENSE CENTER is an independent monthly magazine that provides a cutting edge review and analysis of prisoner rights, court rulings and news about prison issues. PLN has a national (U.S.) focus on both state and federal prison issues, with international coverage as well. PLN provides information that enables prisoners and other concerned individuals and organizations to seek the protection and enforcement of prisoner's rights at the grassroots level.
NATIONAL COUNCIL ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY, founded in 1907, is a nonprofit organization that promotes effective, humane, fair, and economically sound solutions to family, community, and justice problems. NCCD conducts research, promotes reform initiatives, and seeks to work with individuals, public and private organizations, and the media to prevent and reduce crime and delinquency. NCCD has recently created the Women and Justice Initiative to focus on gender-specific concerns in the criminal justice system.
ACLU NATIONAL PRISON PROJECT: Founded in 1972, the ACLU's National Prison Project is the only national litigation program on behalf of prisoners. An invaluable resource.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL undertakes research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination. Amnesty's work often relates to prison and incarceration, including several groundbreaking reports on female incarceration.
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE: STOPMAX Campaign
The STOPMAX Campaign, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), works to eliminate the use of long-term isolation and segregation in U.S. prisons.
ADPSR ARCHITCETS/DESIGNERS/PLANNERS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Many acrchitects, designers, and planners already refuse to do prison work as an informal policy. ADPSR hopes that by marshalling the collective voice of the design professionals who feel this way, we can raise awareness of the problems with the prison system.
BOOKS TO PRISONERS (BTP) is a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends books to prisoners in the United States. BTP believes that books are tools for learning and opening minds to new ideas and possibilities. By sending books to prisoners, we hope to foster a love of reading and encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement.
Contact them at:
Books to Prisoners
c/o Left Bank Books
92 Pike Street, Box A
Seattle, WA 98101
CRIMINAL JUSTICE TRANSITION COALITION This comprehensive report on criminal jsutice reform was the result of national collaboration. Essential reading for anyone interested in prison, juvenile justice and re-entry reform.
DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE is one of the nation's leading organizations working to end the war on drugs and promote harm-reduction and accurate information about substance use, addiction, legal and illicit substances alike.
FAMILIES AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS is the national voice for fair and proportionate sentencing laws. We shine a light on the human face of sentencing, advocate for state and federal sentencing reform, and mobilize thousands of individuals and families whose lives are adversely affected by unjust sentences.
FREE BATTERED WOMEN seeks to end the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence as part of the movement for racial justice and the struggle to resist all forms of intimate partner violence against women and transgender people. We achieve this through community organizing, parole advocacy, public education, media campaigns, and policy work.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH is one of the leading human rights organizations in the world, with strong emphasis on prison conditions, exposing abuses, ongoing investigations, legal actions, and policy reforms.
JUST DETENTION INTERNATIONAL: Prisoner rape – and the failure of the government to address it – constitutes one of the most egregious human rights violations in the U.S. today. All of Just Detention International’s work takes place within the framework of international human rights law and norms. The sexual assault of prisoners, whether perpetrated by corrections officials or by inmates with the acquiescence of corrections staff, is a crime and is recognized internationally (although not always prosecuted) as a form of torture.
JUSTICE NOW is the first teaching law clinic in the country solely focused on the needs of women prisoners. Interns and staff provide legal services in areas of need identified by women prisoners, including: compassionate release; healthcare access; defense of parental rights; sentencing mitigation; placement in community-based programs.
JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE works to enhance the public dialog on incarceration through accessible research, public education, and communications advocacy. Lawmakers, media, advocates, systems reformers and the general public rely on JPI’s timely analysis. JPI was named one of the 25 most quoted progressive non-profits in the country by FAIR magazine.
LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION (LEAP) is an international organization made up of current and former members of law enforcement (and corrections) who are opposed to the War on Drugs.
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND (LDF) was founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall. Although LDF's primary purpose was to provide legal assistance to poor African Americans, its work over the years has brought greater justice to all Americans.
NATIONAL JUVENILE JUSTICE NETWORK enhances the capacity of state-based, juvenile justice coalitions to advocate for fair, equitable and developmentally appropriate adjudication and treatment for all children, youth and families involved in the juvenile justice system.
THE NOVEMBER COALITION: Working to end drug war injustice, the November Coalition, a non-profit grassroots organization, was founded in 1997. Members educate the public about destructive, unnecessary incarceration due to the U.S. drug war, and advocate for drug war prisoners. The organization's publication, Razor Wire, is a must-read.
ONE AMERICA (FORMERLY HATE FREE ZONE) is committed to the vision of a unified nation with justice for all. Our mission is to advance the fundamental principles of democracy, justice, and human rights at the local, state and national levels. We work with community partners and with partners across the nation to protect and strengthen fundamental American rights for all people—especially immigrants.
THE PEW CENTER ON THE STATES' PUBLIC SAFETY PERFORMANCE PROJECT seeks to help states advance sound sentencing and corrections policies and practices that protect public safety, hold offenders accountable, and control corrections spending.
THE PRISON DOULA PROJECT provides pregnancy, labor, and post-partum doula services and popular education style childbirth education classes to women incarcerated in Washington State.
THE REBECCA PROJECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS is a national legal and policy organization that advocates for public policy reform, justice and dignity for vulnerable families. The Rebecca Project strives to reform child welfare, criminal justice, and substance abuse policies that impact the lives of vulnerable families. We frame the pervasiveness of violence against women and girls, the draconian conditions that too often characterize maternal incarceration, and the dearth of access to health and healing for mothers and their children, as fundamental human rights violations.
STOP THE DRUG WAR (DRCNet) calls for an end to drug prohibition (e.g. some form of legalization), and its replacement with some sensible framework in which drugs can be regulated and controlled instead. Founded in 1993 by executive director David Borden, DRCNet has from the beginning called unambiguously for an end to prohibition; we are the largest "full-purpose" national membership organization with a wide range of programs to hold that position.
VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE combines expertise in research, demonstration projects, and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety.
W. HAYWOOD BURNS INSTITUTE works with a number of jurisdictions across the country to help successfully reduce racial and ethnic disparities in their juvenile justice systems.
WOMEN AND PRISON 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.
WOMEN'S PRISON ASSOCIATION (WPA) is a service and advocacy organization committed to helping women with criminal justice histories realize new possibilities for themselves and their families. Our program services make it possible for women to obtain work, housing, and health care; to rebuild their families; and to participate fully in civic life. Through the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, WPA pursues a rigorous policy, advocacy, and research agenda to bring new perspectives to public debates on women and criminal justice.
CALIFORNIA PRISON FOCUS works to abolish the
CALIFORNIA COALITION FOR WOMEN PRISONERS (CCWP) is a grassroots racial justice organization that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women and communities of color by prisons and the criminal justice system. We are building a movement with women prisoners, family members of prisoners, and the larger communities through organizing, leadership development, and political education.
CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE: In the past 20 years, CJCJ has pioneered some of the most innovative programs in the country for youth and adult offenders. These programs range from our nationally recognized Detention Diversion Advocacy Program for high risk juvenile offenders to our Supportive Living Program for adult parolees with histories of substance abuse. With our creative approaches to offender services, CJCJ is setting the standard for promoting safer communities.
YOUTH JUSTICE COALITION: The YOUTH JUSTICE COALITION/Free
PRISON CREATIVE ARTS PROJECT is committed to original work in the arts in
Mississippi Resources
MISSISSIPPI YOUTH JUSTICE PROJECT is working to break the cycle of juvenile incarceration by making juvenile justice and education systems more responsive to the needs of children, families and the communities in which they live.
New Mexico
PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY FAMILY SERVICES, INC.: PB&J pioneered the use of interactive parenting and bonding programs as an effective way to prevent child abuse and neglect and as a way to preserve the family unit. Includes prison-related family support programs.
PARTNERSHIP FOR SAFETY AND JUSTICE unites people convicted of crime, survivors of crime, and the families of both to redirect policies away from an over-reliance on incarceration to effective strategies that reduce violence and increase safety. Formerly known as the Western Prison Project.
Washington
CENTER FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH JUSTICE is shaping better lives for youth involved in
JUSTICE WORKS: This grassroots organization focuses on undoing racism in the criminal justice system as experienced by African Americans. Emphasis for 2008-2009 is on Three Strikes legislation.
POWERFUL VOICES has been improving the lives of adolescent girls in
To read a PDF copy of the first "Living Diary" anthology written by girls in juvenile detention as well as at-risk, middle and high school female students in King County, the anthology was co-edited by Silja J.A. Talvi and Blak Washington as an outreach tool for Powerful Vocies, please click here.
REAL CHANGE: The Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project has many faces, a newspaper, an advocacy group, a Homeless Speakers Bureau, and literary workshops. A strong emphasis is placed on the role of incarceration and re-incarceration in the crisis of homelessness.
To contact the Women Behind Bars Project, please send an email to womenbehindbars@gmail.com
Source: William J. Sabol, PhD, Todd D. Minton, and Paige M. Harrison, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006, Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2007. Click here for BBC News In Depth, World Prison Populations, 2007.
Even the smallest donation makes a difference. The Women Behind Bars Project wants to respond promptly to requests for information, resources, books to prisoners, and speaking engagements. We're already doing a lot with very little, but we need your help.
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