Contributor: 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 three daughters still reside in St. Paul and they travel as often as possible to visit her.
9 Submissions.
Fourth of July at CCWF July 2006 / Prison Industrial Complex
Olson tell of a Fourth of July and Life at CCWF When you come into the CDC, it’s a whole different world. It’s like t third world country. You’re completely cut off from civilization. I was freaked out when I got here. I was sure some of the prisoners were men. ‘Are they men? I asked. I had no idea You’re isolated.
Personal Narrative Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex Public Policy
Suicide City / Prison Industrial Complex
In March, 2008 I was released from Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California after over six years in prison. I won a writ, a portion of one anyway, in October, 2007 in Los Angeles that agreed with my attorneys that the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) had violated my double jeopardy right by adding a year to a sentence that a real court had already addressed. I got half-time, so six months were deducted from my sentence and the BPH commanded staff at CCWF to release me March 17, as the court had ordered.
Personal Narrative Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex Public Policy
The Conditions in Women’s Prisons / Prison Industrial Complex
Today in California, there are 22,000 women, inmates and parolees, whose convictions are for, on the whole, non-violent and drug-related crimes. Women normally plea-bargain their cases. Even for violent crimes, we are usually sentenced as aiders and abettors. Because we are fallen women, our sentences tend to be longer than those for men convicted of the same crimes. When it comes to murder, women primarily kill abusers who have been torturing them for many years. Public financing for women’s prisons is money misspent.
Abolition Activism Gender Movement Building Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex Public Policy
Environmental Essay / Prison Industrial Complex
The systems of federal and state and corporate imprisonment, the Prison/Industrial Complex, are growth industries in the United States. While there has been much attention worldwide to the human rights travesty of massive American incarceration, criticism has brought no reduction, only growth in the numbers. Incarceration is aimed at a certain group of people Blacks, Latinos, and the poor.
Abolition Activism Movement Building Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex Public Policy Racism
A Modern Modest Proposal / Prison Industrial Complex
The systems of federal and state and corporate imprisonment, the Prison/Industrial Complex, are growth industries in the United States. While there has been much attention worldwide to the human rights travesty of massive American incarceration, criticism has brought no reduction, only growth in the numbers. Incarceration is aimed at a certain group of people Blacks, Latinos, and the poor.
Personal Narrative Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex
Freedom Fantasy / Prison Industrial Complex
In March, 2008 I was released from Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California after over six years in prison. I won a writ, a portion of one anyway, in October, 2007 in Los Angeles that agreed with my attorneys that the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) had violated my double jeopardy right by adding a year to a sentence that a real court had already addressed. I got half-time, so six months were deducted from my sentence and the BPH commanded staff at CCWF to release me March 17, as the court had ordered.
Personal Narrative Prison Life Prison-Industrial Complex Public Policy
Mother’s Day in Chowchilla / Motherhood
Sara Olson tells the story of the Annual “Get On The Bus” event, uniting women prisoners with our children and loved ones.
Children of Prisoners Motherhood Personal Narrative
The California Prison Focus Dignity for Women Prisoners Campaign / Sexuality: Stigma and Punishment
Since the looming demise of male searches became public knowledge here, male guards have been doing them more than ever. Guards who rarely search much now command, “Hey, get over here! Let me pat you down.” Why? Because they can. A virtual concentration-camp system has materialized in California and elsewhere, out in the middle of nowhere, erecting these prisons out of sight and out of mind.
Gender Public Policy Racism Sexuality
Armageddon Now / Activism and Social Justice: Inside and Outside
I try to reach out through writing and talking with people within the prison. That is what, it seems to me, any activist must do: educate and organize as creatively as possible under any circumstances one might face.