Recently in Prisons Category

This is just sad. Remember the man that took modelizing to an even more deplorable level? Well, he was found guilty of 1 count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault.

A Beverly Hills fashion designer, once touted as a future star of the catwalks, was found guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting seven girls and young women, capping a two-month trial that offered a sordid portrait of the fashion world.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days before finding Anand Jon Alexander guilty of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and other charges.

In general I don't really support incarceration, but since it is usually the only tool we have access to when sentencing for rape, it is sadly one of our only options. Anand Jon shouldn't be allowed to use his influence to manipulate women and then rape them. It is disgusting. It is necessary and should be noted when the criminal justice system takes the testimony of women seriously in rape cases.

But I do want to take an opportunity to talk about two factors that I think are also at play here that are not being talked about. The first is the way women are treated in the modeling industry and how they are often taken advantage of in unfair or abusive ways and the second is Anand Jon's race and citizenship.

An industry that functions off the objectification of women's bodies will create sexist work conditions if they are unchecked or deeply functioning within the constraints of capitalist patriarchy. Furthermore, women are frequently competing to get to the top and make a career out of modeling which also results in compromising situations whether by choice, by demand or by necessity. Unfortunately, I don't think Jon is alone in his sexual abuse of women in the modeling industry.

But I also think the fact that he is South Asian makes him an easy person to find guilty and throw our (deserved) disgust at, since he is not American, but an "other" that engages in those deplorable things that "others" do. Pushing the blame outside of the context of any type of homegrown abuse that happens within the US (or Western)-centric modeling industry gives us the ability to not be self reflective. This doesn't in any way minimize or justify Jon's deplorable behavior, but more to situate it within the historical power relations at play in the narratives surrounding the sexual assault of white women by brown men. Despite his own behavior that should be punished, I think it is high time we take a hard look at modeling as an institution and think about the sexist stereotypes it promotes that frequently fetishize and make normal the sexual abuse of women.

There are many frightening propositions on the CA ballot that we have covered , specifically prop 8 and prop 4. We already know how you are voting on them. Instead of give a full voter guide, which Ann did already, I want to just shed some light on a proposition that will truly harm the young people of California and is a racist and seriously detrimental piece of legislation, CA Proposition 6.

Proposition 6 Facts

"Worst of the Worst"

1) Drops the age to 14 that a child can be tried as an adult

2) California already spends four times as much $ per prisoner as it does per public school student, prop 6 moves millions of $ away from schools and into prisons

3) Creates over 50 changes in law with redundant spending and duplicated bureaucracy

4) Explicitly removes community representatives from juvenile justice coordinating councils so affected communities have no ability to bring a voice to the table

5) Mandates yearly criminal background checks on everyone living in Section 8 public housing and removes the 30 day eviction notice requirement, destabilizing communities through forced evictions

Prisons are a feminist issue as we have written about before. Please vote no on prop 6! Go here for more info.

Some good news for your mid-week: The Bureau of Prisons recently announced it has changed its policy and now bans the shackling of pregnant women during transportation, labor and delivery.

Maria Jones, who was incarcerated for violating drug laws, tells the story of having labor induced two weeks prior to her due date, but being "kept in shackles, leaving 18 inches between her ankles, and told to pace the hallway for several hours. 'It was so humiliating. My ankles were raw,' she said. 'I had shackles on up until the baby was coming out and then they took them off for me to push...It was unbelievable. Like I was going to go anywhere.'"

[...]The new policy represents a huge victory for the thousands of women incarcerated in federal prisons throughout the country -- a victory hard won by groups like The Rebecca Project for Human Rights and other organizations that have advocated for this change.

But this is only the beginning. In 47 states there is no legislation to restrict the practice of shackling pregnant women; state and local prisons are not subject to the new federal policy. And the U.S. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which increasingly detains immigrant women who have never committed a crime, has refused to specifically end the use of restraints on pregnant women.

So basically, it's a good start, but we need to keep advocating that state and local prisons, as well as ICE, also ban the practice of shackling pregnant women. As the ACLU notes, women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. This issue is not going away anytime soon.

Amnesty International has info on the situation at the state-level.

Texas Prison Bid'ness

Started in 2007, when two bills were introduced, one that increased capacity in private prisons in TX and another that would have rolled back tons of standards that were achieved under a previous lawsuit from the 80s. The first passed, the second did not.

The blog was created to have a resource about private prisons in TX for legislators, activists, etc. TX was the birthplace of private prisons in the USA. Highlighting the abuses that were going on in private prisons (deaths, sexual assaults, guard abuse).

Two other criminal justice blogs:

Grits for breakfast--daily criminal justice blogging in TX

Think Outside the Cage---Colorado criminal justice reform blog

Kenyon Farrow

Wrote a piece in 2004 pitched to an indie paper critiquing gay marriage, called Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black? It was censored by that paper, and then it took on a life of its own, after which he began his blog.

Other criminal justice/PIC blogs:
T Don Hutto

In May 2006, the Department of Homeland Security opened its first prison for immigrant families 30 miles north of Austin. It is the first family detention center in the country to be based on the penal model, though plans were quickly made to build more.

The T Don Hutto facility holds men, women (some pregnant), children, and infants, none of whom have a criminal past. Administered by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country's largest for-profit corrections company, Hutto lacks proper licensing and medical facilities, and has been proven to traumatize families.

This blog is dedicated to providing information on the growing movement to shut down Hutto and prevent this model of immigrant detention from spreading nationally.

Prisons as a Tool of Reproductive Oppression: Cross Movement Strategies for Gender Justice

Critical Resistance 10 Conference

Nerissa Kunakemakorn, Justice Now
The Prison Industrial Complex facilitates the destruction of reproductive capacity in three ways:
1) Overuse of hysterectomy and ovarectomy (often nonconsensually)
2) Poor reproductive healthcare provided to people in prisons
3) Imprisonment during the majority of one's reproductive years

More on #1:
-Often these radical procedures are used for fibroids and ovarian cysts, at much higher rates than on the outside
-There are documented cases of sterilization abuse, particularly after childbirth
-The new "gender responsive" prison strategies even discuss the cost effectiveness of sterilization after birth
-Some incarcerated people have been given hysterectomy's for cancers that were later found to be non-existent
-One doctor told a "lifer" (person sentenced to life in prison) that her ovary removal didn't matter since she was going to be in prison forever
-This is very closely connected with a history of sterilization abuse in communities of color (Native American women, Puerto Rican women, Mexican women in LA) More on this here.
-These procedures are disproportionately documented among people of color in prison
-Consent issues around sterilization procedures for people in prison (can someone in prison ever give consent? are there always coercive conditions?)

Elizabeth Barajas-Roman, Population and Development Program

In September of this year, a Texas woman was ordered to stop having children as a condition of her probation. The judge argued that since if she had been in prison for those ten years, she wouldn't have been able to get pregnant, it was a reasonable condition. If she becomes pregnant, she can be put back in prison for violating her parole. Clear connection between the prison industrial complex and population control.

Gabriel Arkles, Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Trans people face a whole different set of problems and barriers in prison. Not only are they targeted for incarceration (because of poverty, sex work, transphobia and racism) but once in prison they face particular challenges. Trans people are placed in prison not based on what their identification says, how they identify or how they present. Instead its usually based on what is between someone's legs. This puts trans people at risk for abuse, sexual or otherwise. Much of this logic (about not putting a trans woman in a woman's prison) is about not wanting there to be a possibility for pregnancy between prisoners. Again more evidence of the population control philosophy, and proof that they don't care about personal safety (or even preventing sexual activity) but just about preventing reproduction.

Other speakers: Maria Nakae, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice and Miss Major Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project

*Note: There is no internet access on the conference site, so these live blogs will be posted with significant delay. Sorry everyone!

Getting Real about Alternatives to Cops

Critical Resistance 10 Conference, Rose City Copwatch

Founded in 2003 in Portland Oregon
Building community power in opposition to police violence
-observing police behavior (videotaping police)
-agitation, disruption
-reconciling police abolition with concerns about safety

Examples:
-bad date line for dangerous johns
-Community committees in apartheid SA where the police had abandoned the neighborhood
-Peace for the streets by kids from the streets, Seattle WA "donut dialogues"

Alternatives vs Auxiliaries? How do we reconcile programs to make policing better or safer with a larger goal of prison abolition?
-Hate crimes, violence against women and their usage to legitimize and escalate policing (the idea of "vulnerable populations" who need defense)
-Ubuntu, an organization run by survivors in Durham NC
-Trust building and community building as ways of creating our own networks for safety
-Emergency healthcare: police are always a part of first response
-Philly Stands Up: Sexual Assault Survivor Support
-Gang intervention in a community: mothers in the community would make lunch and go eat it on the corners where young men were hanging out. It was a way to reach out to them and make them uncomfortable.
-Grandmothers used as a security system, tough love policing
-What is crime? How do we look at that critically? Criminalization of drugs, stealing, what about morality, ethics, crime defined by harm?

I will be heading to Oakland tomorrow for the awesome Critical Resistance 10 conference. I will be liveblogging, so stay tuned for those posts! If you're in the Bay Area the conference is free, so think about checking it out.

In September 1998, thousands gathered in Berkeley, California, for conference that founded Critical Resistance's movement to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC).­ Each participant, with their own experiences of oppression and resistance, watched as diverse struggles were unified: by humanity, hope, and the shared vision of a different world. We witnessed a vision of a world with truly safe, healthy, and whole communities; a world with unconditional access to self-determination and dignity for all; and, critically, a world without imprisonment, policing, and other forms of punishment and control.

Over the past decade, the movement to eliminate the PIC has faced tremendous challenges. We have witnessed rising levels of imprisonment in the US and around the world. We have endured passage of the USAPATRIOT Act of 2001, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, increasing surveillance and policing in our lives. Meanwhile, US-led wars continue to ravage communities around the globe. We have witnessed the increased repression and criminalization of migrants and immigrants, people of color, young people, and queer communities. We have seen California prepare to embark on the biggest prison building project in history as the Gulf Coast region continues to struggle and to prevail in spite of ongoing neglect and militarization.

We have seen only the beginning of what we can accomplish together. CR10 promises to propel this momentum forward, with united, strategic force.

I'll leave you with one statistic that really struck me and inspired me to go to this conference: The United States accounts for 5% of the world's general population and 25% of the world's prison population.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a report yesterday afternoon on the prevalence of sexual violence in juvenile detention centers. An estimated 4,072 accounts of sexual violence were reported during 2005 and 2006:

An estimated 36 percent of the allegations of sexual violence in juvenile facilities were youth-on-youth nonconsensual sexual acts, such as rape and forcible sodomy; 21 percent were youth-on-youth abusive sexual contacts, such as unwanted touching or grabbing with the intention to exploit sexually.

About 32 percent of all allegations of sexual violence reported in state juvenile systems and local or private juvenile facilities involved staff sexual misconduct, defined as any act of a sexual nature directed toward a youth, either consensual or nonconsensual; 11 percent involved staff sexual harassment, including repeated comments or demeaning references of a sexual nature to a youth.

Victims of substantiated incidents of youth-on-youth sexual violence were more likely to be male (73 percent) than victims of staff-on-youth violence (49 percent). Females were more likely to be victims of staff sexual violence than victims of youth-on-youth sexual violence (51 percent versus 27 percent).

Check out the entire report.

Regina McKnight - the South Carolina woman who was who was convicted of homicide after she gave birth to a stillborn baby - has had her conviction overturned.

McKnight was the first woman in South Carolina to be convicted of homicide by child abuse due to a stillbirth. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), says that McKnight "was convicted on junk science and was not fairly represented at trial."

NAPW, who has been instrumental in bringing attention to cases like McKnight's (of which there are far too many), has the full story.

Feministe, the Oklahoma Women's Network Blog, RH Reality Check and the ACLU also have more.

Remember the Jena 6 situation of 07? Well it hasn't gotten much better, just off the radar of the mainstream media. But that is why we blog. Jesse Ray Beard, the youngest of the Jena 6, is fighting to have the notorious Judge J.P. Mauffray and District Attorney Reed Walters removed from his case. I am going to reprint the press release here and you can read more about it here, here and here. It is clear that this situation is really fucked up and a very real example of how racism is still very vibrant, both in nuanced ways and in institutional-oh that's so 40 years ago-ways. Will keep you posted on any developments.

This is awful. I don't even know where to begin with it, but it is wrong on so many levels. A teenager who is pregnant is being held in custody so she can testify against her boyfriend who has abused her.

A judge ordered her to be placed in jail on a material witness warrant after the Crown prosecutors in her boyfriend's case expressed concerns she wouldn't testify at his trial.

The warrant was issued after police said they tried several times to serve her with a subpoena to attend court.

Mowatt is expected to be released after she testifies at her boyfriend's trial on Friday. Christopher Harbin, 25, is facing eight charges, including assault and forcible confinement.

Did it occur to the court at all that she might be afraid?

via.

Check out Samhita's post over at The Nation on the prison industrial complex. It's damn good.

A Northern California man was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to exposing himself to a woman on a train.

Prosecutors sought the lengthy prison sentence because Burton already had two prior convictions for indecent exposure and a previous conviction on six counts related to sexual assault, San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. [...]

"Our concern was, 'Are we being too lenient? Are we adequately protecting the public?'" Wagstaffe said. "We have a person here who has done this for many, many years. And with all likelihood, he will be doing it again."

This raises some questions for me. For all of our (warranted!) complaining and consciousness-raising about street harassment and public-transit perverts, we devote very little discussion to what (if any) penalties there should be for such behavior.

I'm still figuring out exactly where I stand on this. But I do know that sending the occasional flasher to prison isn't going to solve this problem. Mainly because many harassers/flashers are not in fact "perverts," they're just regular dudes who like to, you know, occasionally assert their patriarchal authority -- not generally thought of as a danger to society (outside of the feminist blogosphere, of course. Har har). We can't (and shouldn't) send all of these guys to prison for a decade.

How should our criminal justice system treat chronic harassers, then? Make these guys go to some sort of therapy, perhaps? Ban them from public transportation? Make them read some feminist literature in an attempt to teach them all women aren't their sexual property? The list of potential "punishments" goes on and on. But adding to an already bloated prison population doesn't seem like the right answer to me. I think there should be penalties for public harassing and flashing. I also think we (as a society) use incarceration too often. What do y'all think?

Two incredibly awful stories recently about young Latina transwomen and their run-ins with the U.S. criminal "justice" system:

Via Jessica Hoffmann:

Victoria Arellano/Arrelano (the spelling of her name varies from story to story), a trans woman with AIDS who died in a California immigration facility for men in July after being denied medication and otherwise improperly treated, was one of three immigrants to die in federal custody in a month, according to the Washington Post.

And from Amnesty International (via AngryBrownButch):

My name is Mariah Lopez. I am a young, transgender person of color. I also am an activist who does street-based outreach in the West Village, where I also socialize.

Let me tell you how the police often respond to this.

With verbal abuse.

Sexual harassment.

Unwarranted arrests.

Withholding food, water and medication in detention.

Humiliating and inappropriate strip searches.

Physical assaults.

This is what I have endured at the hands of police and corrections officers - and not just once. What occurs is a systemic abuse of power, one that is seemingly inflicted on whim. For my friends and me, it seems that something as inconsequential as an officer's mood can dictate whether we spend time in jail.

Read her whole statement. It's gut-wrenching.

I don't mean to diminish the injustices suffered by these two women by lumping their stories together. Rather, I think it's important to recognize that what's going on here is systemic. For each story like Mariah Lopez's or Victoria Arellano's that bubbles up through the alternative media or queer/feminist blogosphere, there are countless more that don't even make the radar. Jessica Hoffmann (who has been tirelessly pushing for more coverage of Arellano's story) summed it up nicely: "Immigrants' rights struggles and trans struggles and health-care struggles and feminist struggles and HIV/AIDS struggles--and all other struggles for justice--are interconnected. If we believe in justice, these struggles are ours." (Which is also why I apologize for not posting on either of these stories sooner.)

AI has an online action alert calling for an NYPD investigation into the abuses suffered by Mariah Lopez while in custody. I'll post updates on Victoria Arellano's case as I get them.

Currently, most California State Prisons do not have any policy regarding transgender inmates. I know you are shocked. In a climate where sexual violence is a norm, one would think that highly vulnerable populations would receive special treatment, but clearly this is not the case.

So I suppose this story is not shocking, but upsetting nonetheless. Alexis Giraldo, a formerly incarcerated trans woman at Folsom State Prision, lost her case against several prison employees (nurses, guards and social workers) when her charges of rape were dropped. Her lawyer said it was a "clear indication of rape" and that she had asked many different people for help, but no one came to her aid.

However, the San Francisco court ruled in favor of the prison staff.

Deputy Attorney General Jose Zelidon-Zepeda said there was no evidence of violence in Giraldo's communications with guards, counselors and nurses.

He pointed out that Giraldo had also engaged in consensual sex with her cellmate, argued that many of her assertions were contradicted by evidence, and attacked her credibility, saying her lawsuit was driven by greed.

The power differential between inmates fighting against injustices done to them within the system is already so great it tragically distorts the outcomes. Who are the courts going to support? It will cost them so much money to audit a prison or fire people and it will make the state look very very bad. It is so much easier to just let them go.

Now if they are not guilty of the crime at hand, I suppose I could have more empathy. But if one of the rationales for ruling in favor of the prisons was that she had already HAD consensual sex, well pardon me if I am not that impressed. You can have consensual sex and be raped by the SAME person. Just because you had sex with someone before, it does not mean you owe it to them again. If you are forcibly raped against your will, you deserve the protection of the law, irrelevant of past encounters. Men rape their wives. That actually happens and it is rape, and it doesn't matter whether they had consensual sex in the past. Furthermore, if you are locked in a cell, it is not like you can runaway.

Seven jurors voted to hold the seventh employee, Sgt. Darrel Ayers, responsible for inflicting emotional distress on Giraldo. But in civil trials, nine votes are needed for the plaintiff to win damages. Walston - who said he is considering whether to retry the case - had argued that Ayers failed to act after being told of Giraldo's complaints.

Giraldo asked Judge Chaiton to demand the establishment of laws that protect the rights of transgender inmates, but her pleas dropped as Giraldo is no longer within the prison system. Again, currently California State Prisons have NO POLICY to protect the rights of transgender inmates.

Disgusting.

I am a little late to this, but since the media seems to be spending more time covering Paris Hilton's experience with the criminal justice system over anything else (only to be replaced by the murder of a pregnant woman--a seeming trend--which is a whole different post on how the media has to stop trying cases on TV) it seems that a conversation has failed us about the actual problems in the criminal justice system. And specifically in California, home to proposals that seek to expand prisons as opposed to schools, but also home to several prison abolitionist campaigns.

My colleague, Jeremy Bearer-Friend from Justice Now and Movement Strategy Center, pointed me to a piece he wrote about the fact that the actual problems with the criminal justice system and the populations targeted by it are being ignored for the fate of a famous woman (whether the coverage be unnecessarily cruel or not).

He writes,

“it’s imperative to bring in an abolitionist angle.�

The real scandal here is that women of color are the fastest growing population of incarcerated people in the US, yet this story is never told or reported on. The current media frenzy over Paris demonstrates only the apartheid state we currently live under, with a media that is absolutely uninterested in reporting on the mass incarceration of people of color.

“De-incarceration has been a central goal of prison reform and prison abolition work in California. That Paris has the opportunity to remain within her community and recover from her substance abuse amongst her family is an opportunity that all addicts should be able to enjoy. The reaction to this story is not to lock up everyone for longer and prevent addicts from accessing treatment. The solution is to shut down a broken system and replace it with public health money that can treat addiction and substance abuse in an effective and healing way.�

So, people only want to hear about celebrity gossip? I just want to add to this the media LOVES to highlight the incarceration of people of color, just not from an abolitionist perspective. Often MSM is more focused on recreating some mythical monster beast that must be put behind bars to keep our good white children safe.

Am I wrong?

Photo by Audrey Cho as it appeared in The Chicago Reporter.

Salome Chasnoff is executive director of the alternative media nonprofit, Beyondmedia. Salome is a video and installation artist, media activist and educator, whose work is dedicated to expanding media access for marginalized communities. She has been an arts educator for the past 20 years in university and community settings, and an artist-activist in the prison moratorium movement for 8 years.

Beyondmedia, for the most part, works with young women between the ages of 13 and 25. They also partner with many women’s and queer youth groups.

Here’s Salome…

Rosalie Little Thunder is a long-time Native community and environmental activist. Of the Sicangu band of the Lakota Nation in South Dakota, Rosalie has been on the frontlines to save the wild herd of bison that roams Yellowstone National Park.

I spoke with Rosalie over the phone yesterday about her activism for the new year. There’s a deep trail between her home and Yellowstone. Here’s Rosalie…

I actually don't really know what to say about this (well I always say that, but I guess I can come up with something). But calling a woman a mule is just wrong. Furthermore, what little I know about women who are used as cocaine mules, the conditions are rather abusive. So technically a beauty pageant for cocaine mules could be seen as glamourizing the enslavement of women of color. At the same time, if this is enjoyable for the women, right on. But a greater discussion as to how these women end up in these jobs and what work is going on to support them still needs to happen.

Thoughts?

via Boing Boing.

The fastest growing population of the prison system is women.

Over 950,000 women are currently under some form of correctional supervision. Some prison reform advocates say time behind bars may pay the inmates' debt to society, but society is the loser in the long run, they add, because of the often devastating effect incarceration has on female prisoners' families.

Voice of America looks at the book by New York City journalist Cristina Rathbone, A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, which gives us an intimate look at one women's prison in Massachusetts.

The question the article asks is a real one. Do prisons punish or rehabilitate? And what opportunties do women have (because from working in the communities I have worked in, I see the options for men are VERY limited after jail) when they get out of jail?