Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

June 25, 2013

My Dear Friends, Supporters, Comrades:

I know we are all disappointed to the marrow of our bones and the depths of our hearts by the news that the Bureaucrats, Kafka like, have turned down my request for compassionate release.

Let me say, that we are planning ahead. The letter from the BOP (soon to be posted on the website) is flawed, to put it mildly. Both factually and medically it has major problems. We intend to go to court and raise these in front of my sentencing Judge Koeltl.

After guest blogging for Bitchmedia about Girls of Color in Dystopia, I'm shifting gears to examine the real-life dystopias (and hopefully victories against some of these realities) in U.S. politics.

My first post looks at Louisiana senator David Vitter's proposed ban on food stamps for those with felony convictions. The ban would be retroactive, meaning that it doesn't matter how long ago a person was convicted of the felony.

Aging Behind Bars: The Rise of the Elderly Prison Populationan excerpt from Aging Behind Bars:

Between 2007 and 2010, the number of state and federal prisoners age 65 or older grew 94 times faster than the overall prison population.

Between 1981 and 2010, the number of state and federal prisoners age 55 and over increased from 8,853 to 124,900.

In August 2012, I wrote an article about women incarcerated for fighting back, highlighting the cases of Marissa Alexander, CeCe McDonald and Patreese Johnson.

Patreese Johnson will be coming home in August after 7 years of incarceration by the State of New York. She will be released on parole with a felony charge on her record.

(originally posted on Jean Trounstine's website)

Not that this surprises me. I worked at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts in the 1990's when male guards rounded up women in the middle of the night for an "alleged" strip-search. They were sued. The women won. But the extent of the case at the jail in Chicopee where Sheriff Michael J.

In December 2012, I did a radio interview with Estelle from the French radio station Cases Rebelles. The interview aired earlier this year.

The translated (into French) transcript, complete with pictures and videos, is now available on-line: http://www.cases-rebelles.org/interview-vikki-law-fr/

I had the honor of being part of an event with Karen Shain, former Policy Director at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and, through WORTH's Birthing Behind Bars campaign, supporting LSPC's efforts to end the shackling of people in women's throughout all stages of pregnancy.

When talking about pregnancy, birth and parenting from behind bars, questions about prison nursery programs often arise.

Tenacious: Art & Writings from Women in Prison #28, the Mother's Day 2013 issue, is now available.

Join me on Friday, June 7th, starting at 6:30 pm, for a double discussion on ways to welcome and include children and caregivers in social justice movements as well as resistance and organizing going on inside women's prisons.

Friday, June 7th, 6:30 pm
Burning Books
420 Connecticut Street
Buffalo, NY

Click here for street directions and the snazzy flier!

Wow, what a wonderful review on Earth First! Newswire:

With an approach resembling the old underground chronicles of the Soviet samizdat press, Resistance Behind Bars carries no piece of frivolity in its tight, hard-hitting prose. Law moves from facts to facts, drawing out broad truths about the prison industry’s systematic oppression of women throughout the United States of America.