Women Behind Bars: Realities & Resistance Beyond Orange is the New Black

Tuesday, 10/18: 11:10am in Room 4202 @ St. Francis College

180 Remsen Street /Brooklyn

The popularity of Orange is the New Black has led to a growing interest in women’s imprisonment. But why are there 8 times as many women behind bars as there were in 1980? What structural issues are causing the dramatic rise of women’s incarceration? Why are women of color disproportionately impacted? And how are women themselves challenging and organizing against prison conditions? How can people on the outside support their actions and resistance? Victoria Law is a journalist and author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, for a discussion on pathways to prison as well as women’s realities and resistance behind bars.

Part of the Fall 2016 Senior Lecture Series.

Co-Directors Fall 2016 Profs. Athena Devlin (American Studies) + Emily Horowitz (Sociology)
Events Sponsored By: American Studies, History, Crime & Popular Culture, Peace & Justice, Provost’s Office, Sociology & Criminal Justice and the Women’s Center

Audio and video clips from previous events:

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

https://www.facebook.com/events/153375358428781/

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

Race & the Criminal Justice System: Political Prisoners, Resistance & Mass Incarceration

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