Events

Monday, July 27 | 7:30 pm (eastern)

Defunding the Police, Building Community Safety

In this moment when calls for defunding the police are rising, we must ask ourselves: What does community safety look like without relying on the police? What does it look like when neighbors and neighborhood businesses have an investment in keeping each other safe?

Join Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, authors of Prison By Any Other Name, and Brooklyn-based community organizers Devante Tate and Ejeris Dixon for a virtual event at the Brooklyn Historical Society to discuss policing in Brooklyn, the movement to defund the police, and existing community safety strategies. They will explore the role that police play in our communities that police play in our communities, and imagine what real safety might look like for us all.

Registration link: https://www.brooklynhistory.org/events/virtual-program-defunding-the-police-building-community-safety/

Wednesday, August 19|8 pm (eastern)

Women and Children First (Chicago) will be hosting a virtual book event and discussion . Co-authors Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law will be joined by Beth Richie (author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America’s Prison Nation) and organizer Monica Jones for a conversation on gender and policing, moderated by Deana Lewis of Love and Protect.

More info, including a registration link, coming soon at https://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com/event/virtual-book-launch-prison-any-other-name-maya-schenwar-victoria-law-special-guests-beth

Follow me on twitter for the latest updates. Contact me here if you’d like to invite me to speak at your school, community group or event.

Audio and video clips from previous events:

Righting Carceral Feminism’s Wrongs in a #MeToo Era (NYC)

Tuesday, March 6, 2019 at Open Societies Foundation

If you missed it, you can still listen to it here.
 
Carceral feminism sees law enforcement as the primary solution to gender-based violence. When the United States passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, it was seen as a landmark bill to finally address domestic violence. The bill provided billions of dollars to fund more police officers and prisons, and introduced punitive sentencing to curb domestic violence.
 

More than two decades later, it has left many women in less affluent and marginalized communities even more vulnerable to violence. Since many communities of color are already overpoliced, victims are often reluctant to call the police for fear of being met with trauma and criminalization. With asha bandele, Mariame Kaba, Erin Cloud.

 

Keynote Panel: Women, Incarceration and Carceral Feminism

Missed the amazing panel about women, incarceration and carceral feminism? You can watch here.

While the vast majority of incarcerated people in the US are men, the rate of growth for women’s imprisonment has outpaced men by more than 50 percent between 1980 and 2014 and trans women have one of the highest rates of incarceration of any group. As a result, there are 8 times as many women–many of whom are mothers–incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails as there were in 1980.

Moreover, women of color, especially black women, are disproportionately incarcerated–at even greater disproportion than among men. Women, and in particular trans women and all women of color, continue to be subjected to high rates of violence, whether intimate partner violence, sexual violence, or transphobic violence, which can also lead to their incarceration.

This panel of local and national activists and scholars will discuss what this increasing rate of incarceration means for women, children, and families, including how to address violence against women in the age of mass incarceration.

 

Undocumented Architecture: Prisons, Migrant Justice & Counter-Narratives of Resistance

Missed the U.S. launch of Tings Chak’s Undocumented and the discussion about prison abolition and migrant justice and counter-narratives of resistance? You can now watch the video here. 
 
Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention explores the growing industry of immigration detention and questions the role of architectural design in such spaces. Using the conventional architectural tools of representation, Undocumented situates, spatializes, and confronts the voices of those who are detained and the anonymous individuals who design spaces of confinement. An architecturally-trained artist based in Toronto, Tings Chaks draws inspiration from anti-colonial, migrant justice, and spatial justice struggles. Undocumented grew out of the collective organizing work led by immigration detainees in the maximum-security Central East Correctional Centre and through the End Immigration Detention Network.

The discussion will be facilitated by a member of AMPLIFY(HER), the first-ever zine (self-published magazine) project by and for undocumented women from the Asian diaspora. AMPLIFY(HER) is a counter-narrative project that aims to empower and encourage women-led storytelling that is crucial to our identities and survival. AMPLIFY(HER) is a collaboration between RAISE and DRUM.

 

 

With Historic Release of Drug Offenders & Help for Reentry, US Takes “First Step” on Prison Crisis

Watch me on Democracy Now! talking about historic release of 6,000 federal drug war prisoners–and the impending deportation facing one-third: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/4/with_historic_release_of_drug_offenders

 

Conversations in Black Freedom Studies at the Schomburg Center

If you missed the discussion between Dan Berger (author of Captive Nation), Bryan Stevenson (founder and director of Equal Justice Initiative) and me about race, the criminal justice system, mass incarceration and resistance as part of the Black Freedom Studies at the NYPL’s Schomburg Center, you can see it here: http://t.co/8PGG4WEzJV

 

Prisoners and Formerly Incarcerated Persons v the USA

How can those of us outside support the struggle of those of us inside? From Troy Davis to Mumia Abu-Jamal and Bradley Manning, from the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers to the Georgia Prison Strike and the Formerly Incarcerated Persons (FIPs), anti-capitalist leadership has come from inside the Prisonhouse of nations, and from the families campaigning outside. Many rebellious young people and movement points of reference are locked up in what are in effect concentration camps. We want them back! We need them back!
 
Panelists: Eric Gjertsen, Frances Goldin, Theresa Shoatz, Rev. Edward Pinkney and Victoria Law
Moderated by Selma James
 
 
At the 2012 Left Forum which, once again, refused to address childcare issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ylqV_gsf9Vw