Newest Stories

Women On the Inside
by Rachel Williams

This article comes from a program, called Women on the Inside, made up of a series of classes and workshops that took place in a Iowa Correctional Institution for women. Alongside long excerpts of her students’ work, Crane-Williams discusses the silencing of women in prison.

 personal-narrative  poetry  programs-in-prison

Where Love Flies Free: Women, Home, and Writing in Cook County Jail
by Ann Folwell Stanford

In this essay, Stanford weaves writing by her students at Cook County Jail into a meditation on the meaning of home and the impact of incarceration on all of us.

 activism  community  prison-life  programs-in-prison

The Scold’s Bridle: Alternative Publishing via Political Art
by Jenni Fagan

In the following words and images, Jenni Fagan examines the connections between the scold’s bridle and contemporary incarceration practices that deny women in prison the right to speak. She not only reveals that conditions faced by incarcerated women in the UK and US today mirror the torture endured by women in early modern Europe, but also illustrates the potential for change.

The Fire Inside
by California Coalition for Women Prisoners

The Fire Inside is a series of writings put together by the California Coalition for Women Prisoners as a quarterly newsletter. The newsletters feature writing by Charisse Shumate, Patricia Elaine Mason, Linda Field, N. Duran, Linda Evans, Debi Zuver, Theresa Cruz, Danielle Metz, Cynthia Russaw, Marilyn Buck, Anna Bell, Dylcia Pagan, Alicia Rodriguez, Ida Luz Rodriguez, Alejandrina Torres, Carmen Valentin, Laura Whitehorn, Susan Crane, and Silvia Baraldini. These letters, essays, poems, stories, and other writings are written by women inside prisons, to try and connect and break down the walls that the prison system creates between the outside world and inside the Prison Industrial Complex.

 community  personal-narrative  poetry

Scott Sisters: Mississippi Justice
by NAACP & Solitary Watch

Last year NAACP campaigned a petition to help free the Scott sisters. They were freed, but still face many challenges. See the petition and a current story on the release of the Scott sisters as well as links to more information about their story.

 activism  prison-industrial-complex  racism  state-violence