Check out this interview on Democracy NOW with Eve Ensler and Kimberle Crenshaw (LOVE). They discuss race, violence against women and prisons.
Badass feminist civil rights law professor Kimberle Crenshaw highlights some of the shortcomings of both the anti-incarceration movement and the anti-violence movement.
Yes, well, you know, one of the things that's so remarkable about this event and what Eve is bringing to our attention is the relationship between violence and incarceration. I like to call this a tale of two movements, because, frankly, there's been an anti-violence movement that really hasn't dealt with the consequences of violence for women who are incarcerated or how incarceration is often a precursor to violence, so that whole relationship hasn't been explored. There's also an anti-incarceration movement that more or less just focuses pretty much on men, how men wind up being incarcerated, some of the consequences.So this is an opportunity to actually look at women who fall between the cracks of both movements, who are the women who are both victims of violence, but also are victims of state violence, namely, because they have been subject to rape, battery, incest, a whole range of other things that happen to women in society, are more likely to be incarcerated, right? And once they are incarcerated, they're subject to a whole range of consequences that are sometimes particular to women, so this is bringing attention to women, to issues that really haven't come up on the agenda of either the anti-violence movement or the anti-incarceration movement, so it's a dramatic radicalization of both of these movements.
Good shit. Historically, it is indeed incarcerated women that fall between these two movements and tend to be overlooked. It is also pretty safe to say that the majority of these women are poor, working class, women of color.
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Awesome. Thanks for the link.
The only group that does any prison support where I live does it exclusively for women, I don't know if this is atypical, but I certainly don't see this problem here.