ABOUT THE PROJECT


The Women and Prison project is a website, installation + zine created entirely from the work + lives of America's incarcerated women. Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance is a project of Beyondmedia Education. Learn more about the project.

NEWS FROM THE WEB


Nov 30, 2011
Closed women’s prison has new job

Colorado Women’s Correctional Facility in Canon City has a new mission to provide job for inmates.

Nov 28, 2011
Treatment of female prisoners criticised

A number of women prisoners were ordered to strip naked in front of male staff and asked to sit on a special chair, known as the BOSS, which scans internal cavities for contraband.

 


 

Nov 28, 2011
Prison through the eyes of a child

A five-year-old boy who was born inside a Prey Sar Correctional Centre, says he would like to leave the prison and be free, but he doesn’t want to leave his mother.

FROM THE STORE


Women and Prison Promotional Poster

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$20.00 | A beautiful full color hand screenprinted poster designed by Firebelly Design. More details

Writers’ Block: Stories from the Inside

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$10.00 | Writers' Block: Stories from the Inside, a 36-page zine, is a compilation of deeply personal narratives, visceral creative writing and provocative scholarly essay taken from Beyondmedia's Women and Prison website. Printed in full color. More details

Newest Stories

Will the Justice Department Stand Up for Women Raped in Prison?
by Rachel Roth

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Eight years ago, Congress acknowledged the brutal fact of systemic sexual assault behind bars by unanimously passing the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The Justice Department is now poised to issue final rules to implement the law, which makes federal funding to prisons and jails contingent on improved staff training, availability of medical and psychological services for people who suffer sexual assault, investigations and publicly available data about reported assaults.


The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997: Its Impact on Prisoner Mothers and their Children
by Gail T. Smith

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Gail Smith outlines the reasons the ASFA of 1997 is harmful and detrimental to imprisoned women and their children. With most children of prisoners being in ‘temporary’ foster care, the ASFA actually makes these children legal orphans and breaks any ties that imprisoned mothers and their children once had.


A Case of Battered Justice: Theresa Cruz fighting Domestic Violence and State Violence
by Diana Block

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This article is a story about Theresa Cruz, a woman who was sentenced to seven years to life after allegedly planning the murder of a man who had abused and stalked her for five years. Cruz’s case is reviewed and for a short period of time she is released, only to be placed back into prison two weeks later. Cruz’s experience is an example of what many battered women have had to face in challenging the law.


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