Women’s prisons as sites of resistance: An interview with Victoria Law

(Before It’s News)

by Maya Schenwar, Truthout

When we think of protest behind bars, what comes to mind? For many people, that list would include the Attica uprising, the work of George Jackson, the struggles of the Angola 3 activists, the 2013 California prison hunger strike and other crucial instances of resistance – mostly organized by incarcerated men.

Too often, organizing work done by incarcerated women goes wholly unrecognized. In her book, “Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women,” Victoria Law focuses on the many forms of activism happening inside of women’s prisons, most of which never reach the dominant media.

In the following interview, Law shares stories of little-known actions, insights into what constitutes “activism” and ways in which individual acts of resistance are building toward a transformational new reality.

Maya Schenwar: You discuss in the book how, when you first got interested in resistance within prisons and noticed a dearth of information about women’s organizing, you were often told, “Women don’t organize.” I’ve definitely noticed that the actions that we hear most about – particularly in mass media, but even among outside activist communities – are focused on men. What are some of the factors that create and perpetuate this myth that women behind bars aren’t “politicized” or engaged in resistance?

Victoria Law: We don’t hear very much about what’s happening in women’s prisons. If we hear about what’s going on inside, it’s usually framed as “these are the conditions,” not “these are the conditions, and this is what people inside these jails and prisons are doing about it.”

Even in 2015, prisoner resistance is still largely thought of as male. Part of it is that more attention is paid to men’s jails and prisons – they do, after all, make up approximately 90 percent of those behind bars. Part of it is that support networks for men are different than for women – including trans women – behind bars.

For example, during the Pelican Bay hunger strike, we saw women family members stepping to the forefront to speak about the conditions their loved ones have been enduring. Although we know, barely, that people in California’s women’s prisons had also been fasting in solidarity – and we know that there is also a SHU (Security Housing Unit) at the women’s prison – we’re not seeing – or hearing – outside loved ones amplifying their voices and efforts to the same extent that women like Dolores Canales, Marie Levin and Daletha Hayden are doing for their male loved ones.

We don’t hear very much about what’s happening in women’s prisons. If we hear about what’s going on inside, it’s usually framed as “these are the conditions,” not “these are the conditions, and this is what people inside these jails and prisons are doing about it.”

In addition, even in this day and age, prison issues are frequently framed as men’s issues – unless it’s an issue like pregnancy, reproductive health or sexual abuse. So when we talk about solitary confinement, even though solitary confinement is used throughout women’s prisons and jails, coverage is often about what happens to men. The people spotlighted are men.

Sometimes, women will speak, like Evie Litwok and Donna Hylton about their experiences in solitary at a NYC hearing. But, unless it’s specifically a story about women in solitary or trans people in solitary, we don’t often see recognition that these conditions affect people of all genders. It’s not just solitary confinement where male becomes the default gender.

Finally, some of the ways women are challenging and resisting aren’t seen as fitting what we might think of as “resistance” or “organizing.” For example, currently and formerly incarcerated women have been involved in challenging policies around parenting – or maintaining their right to parent. It’s an issue that disproportionately affects incarcerated mothers because, when a father goes to prison, he often has a female relative willing to take care of his children.

When a mother goes to prison, she is less likely to have that same network of support and faces a greater chance that her children will end up in foster care. Children of incarcerated mothers are five times more likely to end up in foster care than children of incarcerated fathers, which makes fighting to maintain custody an issue that many incarcerated women face.

Some women have individually helped challenge these policies – I wrote about Mary Glover, the legendary jailhouse lawyer in Michigan’s women’s prison, who helped women with their custody cases during the 20 or so years she was behind bars. She also filed Glover v. Johnson, which required the prison to have equal educational and vocational programing for men’s and women’s prisons, a landmark 1970s case.

More recently, Arlinda Johns did the same for moms in the federal system. Moms have also organized to change policies around termination of rights – collecting and compiling testimony on the effects of permanent separation from their children, sharing their stories etc.

Some of the ways women are challenging and resisting aren’t seen as fitting what we might think of as “resistance” or “organizing.”

Maya Schenwar: Not all of the forms of resistance you discuss correspond to a normative idea of what “protest” means. For example, you chronicle the prisoner-led establishment of unique literacy programs at a prison in New York – a process that involved collaborating with prison officials (working “with the system”). You even discuss “listening” – in the service of community-building – as a type of action behind bars. Can you discuss why it is important to recognize this wide variety of activities as political acts?

Victoria Law: Prisons isolate people. They’re not meant to strengthen bonds between people or build community. People inside prisons can be punished for simple, humane acts like hugging or sharing. Prison rules and staff discourage people from helping each other out.

One example: A woman in an education program recently told me that one of her classmates has arthritis and thus cannot type the paper assigned to the class. Prison rules prohibit anyone else from typing her paper for her. “Do I type the paper for her so that she can pass the class or do I go by the rules?” the woman wondered.

California was refusing to release thousands of women prisoners who had been found eligible for parole, so supporters held a mass march and rally on Jan. 26, 2013, in Chowchilla, where what were then the world’s two largest women’s prisons were located. What happened next was that the state converted CCWF, the larger of the two, to a men’s prison, leaving women more crowded with poorer health care than ever.

While typing a paper doesn’t overturn this particular rule, the act of doing so not only helps the woman with arthritis, but also demonstrates caring and compassion in an environment designed to break it out of people. I’ve heard from women who have lost family members or custody of their children. … A listening ear makes all the difference in how they are able to process their grief.

Sometimes these acts of listening turn into something more widespread – for example, through the act of creating an environment in which women could share their experiences, the support group for women serving long sentences in Ohio realized that abuse and domestic violence were a pathway to long or life sentences and launched the first successful mass clemency campaign for battered women. But this wouldn’t have happened without that first step of listening.

Maya Schenwar: I think it’s so important that your book contains a chapter about grievances and lawsuits and the importance of the media in amplifying those efforts. How do these legal tools, which often stem from individual harms, contribute to larger goals of resistance? And how can we as the media serve to amplify them in a way that supports the work?

Victoria Law: We need to remember that, while a grievance might reflect one person’s experience of individual harm, that experience is frequently reflective of a larger, more systemic reality affecting everyone in that jail or prison. A woman filing a grievance against a particularly abusive officer, for example, is probably not the only person who has experienced abuse from that person. One woman’s complaint about inadequate or negligent health care probably reflects many other women’s experiences.

While a grievance might reflect one person’s experience of individual harm, that experience is frequently reflective of a larger, more systemic reality affecting everyone in that jail or prison.

These grievances are important because, under the 1995 Prison Litigation Reform Act, people in prison are required to exhaust every administrative remedy before filing a lawsuit in civil court. In other words, if the person hasn’t been filing grievances and appeals, the court won’t hear their case.

Individual – or even collective filings of – grievances don’t make the news. Lawsuits occasionally do. Covering lawsuits allows journalists to highlight some of the conditions that people in prison are litigating to change, conditions that may not be considered newsworthy otherwise because they happen all the time.

One of the ways in which media can serve to amplify these efforts is to talk with people most affected – the people inside and their family members and friends on the outside. Those are the people doing the on-the-ground work and who know exactly what’s happening.