Contributors
Adalina Pineda
No biography at this time.Alexandra Cox
Alexandra Cox is a Doctoral candidate in Criminology at the University of Cambridge. Her research is about young people's experiences of punishment and social control. She previously worked for the Drug Policy Alliance and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.…Read full bio
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 900 television and radio stations in North America. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,”…
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Ana Lucia Gelabert
Ana Lucia Gelabert is a U.S. citizen of Cuban national origin. Born in 1938 in Central Cuba, she came to the U.S. for the last time in 1961 and has been in a Texas…
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Andrea J. Ritchie
Andrea J. Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney and organizer in New York City. She is a co-author of Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, along with Joey L. Mogul and Kay Whitlock.
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Andrea Smith
Andrea Smith, is a co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the Boarding School Healing Project. She is the author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, the editor of the Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond…Read full bio
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is a world-renowned political activist and leader educating various audiences on the prison industrial complex, the criminal justice system, women's issues, issues affecting communities of color, among an array of other subjects. She studied in Europe at the…Read full bio
Ann Folwell Stanford
Ann Folwell Stanford is professor of multidisciplinary and literary studies at the School for New Learning, DePaul University. She is also the founder and director of the DePaul Women, Writing and Incarceration Project.Read full bio
Ann Russo
Ann Russo, is an antiracist feminist writer, educator, and activist who is currently the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at DePaul University. Her research, teaching, and activism over the past 25 years has been embedded in the…Read full bio
Anna Bell Chapa
Anna Bell Chapa, CCWF, is a poet, gardener and lover of rabbits and mice whom she has befriended in the prison. She is a regular writer for The Fire Inside and a keen observer of the ironies of prison life.Read full bio
Anna Clark
Journalist, writer, educator, blogger, editor; a bookish outdoorsy sensibility. Her website: http://www.annaclark.net includes stories on creative social justice as well as other narratives and short stories. She is involved with the Prison Creative Arts Project in Michigan, and…
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Annette Anderson
"Since taking part in the film “Turning A Corner”, I have in much amazement been approached by people that I have never seen come up to me and tell me how they enjoyed watching it. I just celebrated 5 years…Read full bio
Ayelet Waldman
Ayelet Waldman is the author of Red Hook Road and Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.
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Barbara Holder
No biography at this time.Barrilee Bannister
Barrilee Bannister was one of seventy-eight women sent to a male prison in Arizona run by the Corrections Corporation of America, where they were sexually assaulted and harassed by male staff. Barrilee organized the women, contacted the media and launched…Read full bio
Becky Brasfield
Becky Brasfield is a writer and researcher based in Chicago, IL. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is currently a (second) Master’s degree candidate in…Read full bio
Bonnie Kerness
No biography at this time.Brenda Myers
No biography at this time.Bruce Reilly
No biography at this time.C.Bina, T. Cornelius, B.Holder, C. Johnson, T. Kemmerer, L.Larson
No biography at this time.California Coalition for Women Prisoners
No biography at this time.Carolina Fulecio Hernandez
No biography at this time.Carolyn Shapiro
Carolyn Shapiro, MA, YES! director, has more than 30 years experience as an educator in high schools and colleges and as an initiator of numerous community efforts and still existing community organizations. For the past three years she has researched…Read full bio
Celeste Johnson
No biography at this time.Ceyma Bina
No biography at this time.Charisse Shumate
Charisse Shumate was a founding member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a lead plaintiff in a groundbreaking lawsuit about health care conditions for women prisoners, and a regular columnist for The Fire Inside. She lived with sickle cell…Read full bio
Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin has been awarded 2003 Rhodes Scholarships for study at Oxford University. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Boudin majors in history and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. A student of Latin American development, Boudin spent his junior…Read full bio
Chrissy DeStefano
Chrissy wrote this poem while at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland Maine.Read full bio
Danielle Metz
Danielle Metz, FCI Dublin, is serving three life sentences for conspiracy to distribute five kilograms of cocaine. Her story is typical of the countless women who have been caught up by the war on drugs because of their relationships with…Read full bio
Dawn Harding
Dawn Harding, is a 32 year old and is sentenced to 14 months for sales of cocaine from Cape Conaveral. She has a 6 year old son and loves reading and writing poetry.Read full bio
Deanna Lynd
Deanna Lynd is a 31 years old single white female whom is serving a 15 yer minimum mandatory prison sentence in South Florida. She is originally from New Orleans, LA attended Tulanc Medical University there, teachers pre-release classes and adult…Read full bio
Debi Zuver
Debi Zuver is a battered woman who received a 21-year sentence on a manslaughter charge after a plea bargain. Her appeal of her sentence was recently denied by the California appellate court. She continues to advocate on behalf of other…Read full bio
Deborah Nicholls
My name is Deborah Nicholls. I am a married 42 year old from Northern Michigan. I have seven brothers and sisters, and a college education. I love all things art and crafts. I have a talent for painting with…
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Delores Garcia
No biography at this time.Denise Dunkley
No biography at this time.Denise Lopez
No biography at this time.Diana Block
Diana Block is a member of the planning committee of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and part of the editorial collective, which produces its newsletter, The Fire Inside. She is also a member of the steering committee of the…Read full bio
Diana Delgado
Diana Delgado is a 35 yr. old survivor of domestic violence and recovering addict. She is a single mother of 4 who has been incarcerated numerous of times due to addiction that stemmed from abuse. She is a member…
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Dolores H. Stanton
No biography at this time.Donna Henry
No biography at this time.Donnie Belcher
Donnie Belcher is a senior at DePaul University, majoring in Education. A published poet, Donnie also writes for the DePaula, the school newspaper, and Melanin, a new teen magazine written for and by African American young women. She serves on…Read full bio
Dora Packard
No biography at this time.Dorothy Roberts
No biography at this time.Dorsey Nunn
Dorsey Nunn is co-founder of All of Us or None and Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
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Dr. Beth Richie
Dr. Beth Richie is Professor and Chair of the African-American Studies department at University of Illinois-Chicago.Read full bio
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
No biography at this time.Gail T. Smith
Gail T. Smith, is the executive director of CLAIM (Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers). She earned her JD at New York University in 1985. She has represented thousands of mothers and their children’s caregivers in court, and has taught…Read full bio
Geneva Brown
Geneva Brown is an Associate Professor of Law at Valparaiso University Law School. She received her B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin and her M.A. degree from the University of Illinois-Chicago.
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Gina Autrey
Gina Autrey was born in a small town in South Carolina. She grew up in a loving home, with her parents and her sister. Throughout her childhood, she was never problematic or in any trouble; she was an honor student…Read full bio
Girl Talk
Girl Talk was a program that worked with young women involved in the juvenile justice system in Cook County from 1993 to 2006.Read full bio
Health and Medicine Policy Research Group
Health and Medicine Policy Research Group is an independent policy center with a twenty-three year history of evaluating local health policy. For more information, see their website at www.hmprg.org.Read full bio
Heather Johnson
Heather Johnson writes, "I am 31 year old, and I have been writing poetry and short stories since the age of 7. I became a published author last year with my book of poetry called Impressions, so check it out!…Read full bio
Heidi Lee Emmerton-Leathers
I'm a mom of three of my own and two great step-children. I have a loving husband named Earl! I live in Maine, where I have been my whole life! I have a bad past of domestic violence from my…Read full bio
Hilda Berghammer
No biography at this time.Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women
No biography at this time.Imani Henry
No biography at this time.Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is an independent non-profit organization that was founded in 2004 by human rights scholars and lawyers. .IHRDC believes that the development of an accountability movement and a culture of human rights in Iran…
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Iyrania Hill
No biography at this time.Jean Lathrop
Jean Lathrop, MA, co-director of YES!, has more than 30 years experience as an educator in high schools and colleges and as an initiator of numerous community efforts and still existing community organizations. For the past three years she has…Read full bio
Jenni Fagan
Jenni Fagan is a Scottish poet/novelist based in London. Her poetry collection 'Urchin Belle' was released in the UK and New Zealand. Her recent collection 'The Dead Queen of Bohemia' won 3AM Poetry Book of the Year 2010. Jenni is…Read full bio
Jennifer Price
No biography at this time.Jerrye Broomhall
Jerrye Broomhall was born in Sapulpa, OK in 1968 and graduated high school there in 1986. She went to the University of OK, but dropped out and moved to SF where she later became addicted to heroin. She supported…
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Joann Franklin
No biography at this time.Joanne Archibald
Before coming to Beyondmedia in 2007, Joanne worked at Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM) for 14 years, beginning as Advocacy Coordinator, and then working as Advocacy Project Director and Associate Director. She serves on the Advisory Board of…Read full bio
Joey L. Mogul
Joey L. Mogul is a partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. She is a co-author of Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the…
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Jordan Flaherty
Jordan Flaherty is a journalist and staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience, and his award-winning reporting from the Gulf Coast has been featured…Read full bio
Judith Greene
Judith Greene is one of the nation’s leading criminal justice policy experts whose essays and articles on criminal sentencing issues, police practices, and correctional policy have been published in numerous books, as well as in national and international journals.…
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Judy Harden
Judy Harden, Ph.D., a psychologist and educator, has studied, taught, and worked with criminal justice issues and women in prison in particular for the past 10 years. She co-developed the Vermont Women’s Prison Project, which works with currently and formerly…Read full bio
Justice Policy Institute (JPI)
No biography at this time.Karen Johnson
Karen Johnson I'm a 45 year old mother of 4; including an 8 year old with Autism. Currently, I'm serving a 6 year sentence at Dwight.Read full bio
Karen Shain
No biography at this time.Kari Lyderson
Kari Lyderson, is a reporter in The Washington Post's Midwest Bureau, an instructor in the Urban Youth International Journalism Program serving students who live in public housing and a freelancer for various publications including, In These Times, Clamor Magazine, Lip…Read full bio
Kathleen Desautels
Kathleen Desautels is a Sister of Providence and a human rights worker on the staff of the Chicago-based 8th Day Center for Justice. At age 64 she served a six-month sentence in Illinois Greenville Federal Prison for civil disobedience against…Read full bio
Kay Whitlock
Kay Whitlock is a Montana-based writer, organizer and consultant working for progressive social change. She is a co-author of Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, along with Joey L. Mogul and Andrea J. Ritchie.
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Kebby Warner
Kebby Warner is incarcerated in Michigan. After losing custody of her daughter, Helen, she became active in the struggle against the prison-industrial complex and is forming an organization called PACK (People Against Court Kidnapping) to protest incarcerated parents' lack of…Read full bio
Kenneth Glasgow
Kenneth Glasgow is the founder and director of The Ordinary People's Society.
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Kim Mikesell
No biography at this time.Kimberly Burke
No biography at this time.Laura Lungarelli
Laura Lungarelli has been doing animal rights and social justice activism for over ten years. She currently is examining her experiences in the criminal justice system through a critical race lens while working towards her Master’s Degree in Social Welfare…Read full bio
Laura Whitehorn
Laura Whitehorn, was released from prison in August 1999 after a little more than fourteen years. She lives in New York City with her lover, Susie Day, and is involved in work for the release of political prisoners. She is…Read full bio
Laurie Schaffner
Laurie Schaffner is the author of Girls in Trouble with the Law, (Rutgers 2006), a qualitative study of court-involved girls. Her other work includes Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes" (NY: Haworth Press, 1999), co-editorship of Regulating Sex: The…Read full bio
Leah Thorn
No biography at this time.Life Without: Youth With Incarcerated Parents Tell Their Own Stories
Producer: Melissa Mummert
Youth Directors:
JaQuila - JaQuila is enjoying being reunited with her mom, Linda, following her release from prison. JaQuila is anticipating going to middle school next year. Linda just got a job and is…
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Linda Evans
Linda Evans is a former political prisoner and anti-imperialist who served 16 years of a 40-year federal prison sentence for actions against the U.S. government. While in prison she was a founding member of Pleasanton AIDS Counseling and Education, an…Read full bio
Linda Field
Linda Field, CCWF, has been a regular contributor to The Fire Inside, the newsletter of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, since its first issue in 1996. Field is a battered woman who is serving time for defending herself and…Read full bio
Linda Michael
Linda Michael is a 56-year-old woman whom has been incarcerated for over two decades at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in Oklahoma.
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Lisa Newhouse
Lisa Ann Newhouse was born and raised in Dallas, TX. She has three grown boys, all graduated from high school or college. She has three grandchildren. Her birthday is December 10, 1966. She loves to write, cook, and read.…
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Louanne Larson
No biography at this time.Lucretia Clay-Ward
Lucretia Clay-Ward, is happily married and is working as a outreach worker and doing HIV casemanagement. Life is really good her, higher power has done so much for her, she can’t thank him enough.Read full bio
Margaret Byrne
Margaret Byrne is an attorney in private practice who represents battered women in clemency petitions and in the defense of criminal cases.Read full bio
Marilyn Buck
On Tuesday, August 3, 2010, long-time political prisoner and acclaimed poet and translator Marilyn Buck, 62, passed peacefully at her home in Brooklyn, New York.A few short weeks earlier, on July 15th, Marilyn had been released from the federal…
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Mary Field Belenky
Mary Field Belenky, Ed.D. is an educator, researcher, and writer who focuses her work on women's intellectual and ethical development. She studies projects and organizations that enable marginalized and silenced women to gain a voice, claim the powers of the…Read full bio
Mary Moran
No biography at this time.Meda Chesney-Lind
No biography at this time.Megan Bernard
No biography at this time.Melissa
I am Melissa. I'm 36 years old with two lovely, intelligent children who are now far away from me. I've made mistakes with drugs but try not to dwell on the past. i learn from my mistakes and take it…Read full bio
Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and a civil rights advocate, who has litigated numerous class action discrimination cases and has worked on criminal justice reform issues. She is a recipient of a 2005…
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Michelle VanNatta
Michelle VanNatta is currently Director of Criminology at Dominican University, believes in prison abolition and works with CLAIM (Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers).Read full bio
NAACP
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. Visit naacp.org for more information.Read full bio
Naoma Dye
No biography at this time.Pamela Thomas
Pamela Thomas is the Client Services Manager for the North Lawndale Employment Network's ex-offender program, where she supervises case managers and develops community resources for clients. Along with surviving the streets as a child, she also battled a very severe…Read full bio
Patricia Allard
Patricia Allard was an Open Society Institute Soros Justice Advocacy Fellow and is a research consultant at Justice Strategies. As an OSI Fellow she developed a ‘research to action’ initiative that resulted in child welfare reform, affecting over one…
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Patricia Elaine Mason
Patricia Elaine Mason is a prisoner and a fine poet who is trapped in the claws of the criminal justice system.Read full bio
Patricia Maresch
No biography at this time.Patricia O’Brien
Patricia O'Brien has a long history of activism, social work practice, education, and research focusing on women’s concerns in Kansas City, Little Rock, AR and in Chicago. As a social worker, she worked as a staff member in three different…Read full bio
Patricia Wright
Patricia Wright is a survivor of martial abuse 17 years after her ex-husband's murder she was arrested and charged with the crime. She is now serving time in Central California Women's Facility State Prison. This is a testimony of a…Read full bio
Pilar Maschi
Pilar Maschi, is the Former Prisoner and Family Coordinator of Critical Resistance. She is a former prisoner who is a single parent and lives in the South Bronx. Pilar founded a political education program in a drug recovery center for…Read full bio
Piper Kerman
Piper Kerman is an American memoirist. In 1998, she was indicted for money laundering and drug trafficking. She pleaded guilty and served 13 months in a minimum security prison located in Danbury, Connecticut.
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Rachel Galindo
Rachel Galindo is a 25 year old birthmother and artist. She has been incarcerated for nearly seven years and has not allowed prison conditions to stop her from doing the things she loves, such as reading, writing, drawing, running,…
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Rachel Lloyd
Rachel Lloyd is the Executive Director and Founder of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS), which she founded in 1998 to support American girls and young women survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. It is now the nation’s…Read full bio
Rachel Roth
Rachel Roth was a 2006 Soros Justice Fellow who writes about how prisons affect women's reproductive rights. She has worked as a professor and as a research fellow at Ibis Reproductive Health, and is the author of the book…
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Rachel Williams
Rachel Williams is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Iowa. She is the editing author of Teaching the Arts in Prison, published by Northeastern University Press in 2003. Currently she is conducting a two-year narrative workshop…Read full bio
Rebecca Seiber
Rebecca Seiber, Rebecca Seiber is 41 years old in 2008, and she has been incarcerated since she was 26 years old. She is 5'2", 130 lbs. green eyes brown hair. She is easy to correspond with.Read full bio
Robin Levi
Robin Levi is the Human Rights director of the Oakland-based nonprofit Justice Now, the first teaching law clinic in the country solely focused on the needs of people in women's prisons.
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Rose
No biography at this time.Salome Chasnoff
Salome Chasnoff is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, installation artist and media activist who has been guiding Beyondmedia’s artistic production since founding it in 1996. Her strong commitment to using media for liberation education and progressive organizing has drawn like-minded people…Read full bio
Sara Olson
Sara Olson is a Minnesotan in a California prison. She was a fugitive for 24 years, living in various places including the Country of Zimbabwe, Baltimore, MD and Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN Ms. Olson’s family – her husband and…Read full bio
Shanna Lemieux-Taylor
Shanna Lemieux-Taylor is 28 years old, married, and a proud mother of four beautiful children. She enjoys dancing, shopping, all sports activities, and camping. She completed some college courses and is working toward graduation. She grew up in Lewiston,…
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Sheryl Abel
No biography at this time.Silja Talvi
Silja Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She…
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Solitary Watch
Solitary Watch is an innovative public website aimed at bringing the widespread use of solitary confinement and other forms of torture in U.S. prisons out of the shadows and into the light of the public square.
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Sonya West
Sonya West was born October 15, 1971. She grew up on Chicago's West Side. She grew up in a family of six and is the baby girl. At the age of 18 she got caught up in a life full of drugs…
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Starhawk
Starhawk is a lifelong activist in peace and global justice movements, a leader in the feminist and earth-based spirituality movements, author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, Webs of Power: Notes from…
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Stephen John Hartnett
Associate Professor and Department Chair of Communication, UC Denver
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Stormy Ogden
Stormy Ogden is a California Indian woman, Kashaya Pomo, and a recognized member of the Tule River Yokuts tribe. She has a B.A. in Native American Studies from Humboldt State University and Certification as a Substance Abuse Counselor through Merritt…Read full bio
Tali Woodward
No biography at this time.Tammica L. Summers
Tammica L. Summers "I am 34 y.o. (but I look 24!). I'm 4'11", 120 lbs., Petite, Sweet, and Single! I was raised in Florida, but have traveled all over the world. I am a college graduate and was a civilian…Read full bio
Theresa Cruz
Theresa Cruz, CIW, is a battered woman who is serving a seven to life sentence for conspiracy to murder her abuser, even though her abuser is alive and well. She, her four children and her mother and have been fighting…Read full bio
Tina Cornelius
No biography at this time.Tina Reynolds
Tina Reynolds received a Master in Social Work from Hunter College in 2003, co-founded WORTH (Women on the Rise Telling Her Story) for women affected by the criminal justice system, and is a board member of both Justice Works Community…Read full bio
Tori Marlan
Tori Marlan, has been a feature writer for the Chicago Reader since 1995. She has won two Peter Lisagor Awards for exemplary journalism, an Association of Alternative Newsweekly's award for social reporting, and a Herman Kogan Award for writing on…Read full bio
Traci Schlesinger
Traci Schlesinger is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at DePaul University. She received her AA in Women Studies from Bergen Community College, her BA in Sociology from Fordham University, and her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University, where she…
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Tracy
Tracy, is 34 years old. She is sentenced 15 years and will parole after serving 7 years. She was a victim of domestic violence for 12 years.Read full bio
Trenda Kemmerer
No biography at this time.Victoria Law
Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, zinester and mother. In 1996, she helped start Books Through Bars - New York City, a group that sends free books to prisoners nationwide. In 2000, she began concentrating on the needs and actions…Read full bio
Wenona Thompson
Wenona Thompson served two and a half years in Illinois' Juvenile Justice system and went on to become the Coordinator for Girl Talk, a program for girls at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Wenona died on February 23, 2008…Read full bio