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Prison Reform Trust

With prison populations soaring, the Prison Reform Trust is working diligently within the UK penal system to help humanize prison conditions and to help reduce unnecessary imprisonment for non-violent offenders. 

The Prison Reform Trust was founded in 1981 by a group of distinguished UK citizens that included a retired High Court judge whose main objectives were to help improve living conditions within the prisons, help prisoners stay connected with family and community, to help educate the public about the penal system and to create alternatives to sentencing offenders to prison. 

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No More Shackles – AB 2530 is Signed

On September 28th, 2012, Governor Jerry Brown of California has finally signed AB 2530, which is a bill that bans shackling of pregnant women in California’s state prisons, juvenile detention facilities and county jails.

For years, pregnant women who are incarcerated, have had to wear chains around their pregnant bellies while appearing in court, shackles around their ankles while seeing doctors and very often have been shackled and handcuffed while giving birth. What an outrage!!

 

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The Documentary Film – "The Grey Area"- Feminism Behind Bars

Please take a moment to read these sobering facts about women in the criminal justice system: (Women’s Prison Association, 2009)

• Over 200,000 women are in prison and jail in the United States, and more than one million women are under criminal justice supervision.

• The number of women in prison has grown by over 800% in the past three decades.

• Two thirds of women in prison are there for non-violent offenses, many for drug- related crimes.

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Women's Prison Shakespeare Program

One may not think that reading a Shakespeare monologue while being incarcerated in prison could eventually lead to obtaining a higher education degree, however, with the Women’s Prison Shakespeare Program, located within the Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Complex in Michigan state, women have achieved these dreams.

Reading Shakespeare helps these women build real world skills, such as public speaking, and creative thinking – skills that are necessary when these women are released into the community. Reading aloud also allows the women to express emotions that they may not be able to express otherwise.

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Inmate Tutors Help Inmates to Read

Many inmates that are incarcerated have limited educational exposure. In fact the illiteracy rate among incarcerated prisoners is staggeringly high. 

At the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) located in Chowchilla, Ca Literacy Coordinator Ms. Cindy Greer meets with two dozen inmates to assign work projects. These assigned projects are for literacy tutors. The tutors, who are women incarcerated prisoners themselves, help their fellow women prisoners to become better readers and to help them pass requirements to obtain their GED.

 

 “This program gives students who have never been successful in reading an opportunity to succeed,” said Ms.Greer, Literacy Coordinator.

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Center For Restorative Justice Works

Did you know that California has the largest prison system in the nation? There are over 46 adult prison/correctional facilities that incarcerate almost 200,000 men and women – and this leaves nearly 200,000 children without one or more parent. Those are shocking numbers!

Children of incarcerated parents are often left in either foster homes or with grandparents. They can spend years not knowing what it is like to grow up with a family bond.

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Cultivating Dreams – An Organic Garden for Women in Prison at CIW

Within the California Institution for Women, a women’s correctional facility located in Corona, California, a student-run nonprofit organization called, Cultivating Dreams, helps the incarcerated women tend to an organic garden.

This dynamic program is a collaborative effort of volunteers from the Claremont College community and both students and women inside the prison work together to manage and maintain the gardens. All of the fresh produce goes right into the kitchen of the prison, where the women get the rewards of being able to eat healthy organic food that they have grown.

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Sin by Silence – AB 593 The Sin by Silence Bill

Domestic violence is rampant in the United States. Thousands of women are incarcerated, often for life, for killing a partner that threatened their lives or the lives of their children. And today, these women are trapped behind bars because the only way to protect themselves was by killing their abusers.

A California state prison study found that 93% of the women who had killed their significant others had been battered by them; 67% of these women indicated the homicide resulted from an attempt to protect themselves or their children. These numbers are staggering and sobering.

“From behind prison walls, Sin by Silence reveals the lives of extraordinary women who advocate for a future free from domestic violence.”

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National Women's Prison Project, Inc – Mother's Day Luncheon

More and more women are being incarcerated into U.S. prison systems. The numbers are staggering! And many of these women are in prison for non-violent crimes, self-defense or for defending their children to abusive spouses. Most women that are incarcerated are mothers whose children are being cared for by either family members or state housing/foster homes.

What the majority of these incarcerated women want – is to be released from prison, return to their children, secure meaningful employment and to be a successful part of society. And this is extremely difficult to accomplish with over-crowded prisons, over-burdened justice systems and an increase in private prisons profiteering from the prison business.

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Women's Prison Book Project

Women prisoners face special challenges while incarcerated. Eighty percent of women prisoners are doing time for non-violent crimes such as shoplifting, prostitution, drug-related convictions and fraud. Many of  women prisoners convicted of violent crimes were defending themselves or their children from domestic violent abuse. Nearly two-thirds of women in prison have at least one child under the age of eighteen and before going to prison, had primary custody of their children.

The Women’s Prison Book Project founded in 1994, is a grassroots all-volunteer organization that is dedicated to providing free reading material to women prisoners. Women prisoners who are mothers need reading material that pertains to family, children and women’s health issues. Lesbian and transgender prisons lack any information that is relevant to their lifestyle.

 

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