Workbook

Created by:

Iresha Picot

Women in Prison: How it is With Us? Assata Shakur (Excerpt)

Politicians are considered liars and crooks. The police are hated.

Yet, during cop and robber movies, some cheer loudly for the cops.

One woman pasted photographs of Farrah Fawcett Majors all over

her cell because she is a baad police bitch. Kojak and Barretta get their share of admiration. A striking difference between women

and men prisoners at Rikers Island is the absence of revolutionary rhetoric among the women. We have no study groups. We have no

revolutionary literature around. There are no groups of militants

attempting to get their heads together. The women at Rikers seem vaguely aware of what a revolution is but generally regard it

as an impossible dream. Not at all practical.

While men in prison struggle to maintain their manhood there is no

comparable struggle by women to preserve their womanhood. One

frequently hears women say, Put a bunch of bitches together and youve got nothing but trouble; and, Women dont stick together, thats why we dont have nothing. Men prisoners constantly refer to each other as brother. Women prisoners rarely refer to each

other as sister. Instead, bitch and whore are the common terms of reference. Women, however, are much kinder to each other than

men, and any form of violence other than a fist fight is virtually

unknown. Rape, murder and stabbings at the womens prison are non-existent.

For many, prison is not that much different from the street. It is, for

some, a place to rest and recuperate. For the prostitute prison is a

vacation from turning tricks in the rain and snow. A vacation from

brutal pimps. Prison for the addict is a place to get clean, get

medical work done and gain weight. Often, when the habit

becomes too expensive, the addict gets herself busted, (usually

subconsciously) so she can get back in shape, leave with a clean

system ready to start all over again. One woman claims that for a

month or two every year she either goes jail or to the crazy house

to get away from her husband. For many the cells are not much

different from the tenements, the shooting galleries and the welfare

hotels they live in on the street. Sick call is no different from the

clinic or the hospital emergency room. The fights are the same

except they are less dangerous. The police are the same. The

poverty is the same. The alienation is the same. The racism is the

same. The sexism is the same. The drugs are the same and the

system is the same. Rikers and is just another institution. In childhood school was their prison, or youth houses or reform

schools or children shelters or foster homes or mental hospitals or

drug programs and they see all institutions as indifferent to their

needs, yet necessary to their survival.

The women at Rikers Island come there from places like Harlem, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, South Bronx and South Jamaica.

They come from places where dreams have been abandoned like

the buildings. Where there is no more sense of community. Where

neighborhoods are transient. Where isolated people run from one

fire trap to another. The cities have removed us from our strengths,

from our roots, from our traditions. They have taken away our

gardens and our sweet potato pies and given us McDonalds. They have become our prisons, locking us into the futility and decay of

pissy hallways that lead nowhere. They have alienated us from

each other and made us fear each other. They have given us dope

and television as a culture. There are no politicians to trust. No

roads to follow. No popular progressive culture to relate to. There

are no new deals, no more promises of golden streets and no place

else to migrate. My sisters in the streets, like my sisters at Rikers Island, see no way out. Where can I go?, said a woman on the day she was going home. If theres nothing to believe in, she said, I cant do anything except try to find cloud nine

Study Guide: Vocabulary Words

Abolition: is a political vision with the goal of eliminating

imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives

to punishment and imprisonment.

AT: Automatic Transfer; passed in 1992, the law permits minors to be

tried as adults.

Clemency: This process allows a prisoner or a prisoners representative to file a petition with the governor, asking for mercy and documenting

how the sentence represents a grave injustice from which she should be

released.

Inmate: A term for prisoner, from the institutional perspective. A

resident of an institution that houses a number of occupants, especially a

person confined to that institution, such as a prison or a hospital.

Deriving from the word insane, the term implies mental dysfunctions.

Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: a court decision setting where

judicial discretion is limited by law. Typically, people convicted of

certain crimes must be punished with at least a minimum number of

years in prison.

Parole: The release of a prisoner whose term has not expired on

condition of sustained lawful behavior that is subject to regular

monitoring by an officer of the law for a set period of time. Parole

violations are a common cause of recidivism.

Political Prisoner: Anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, such as

under house arrest, because their ideas, affiliations, and or actions are

viewed as challenging or posing a real or potential threat to the

established state.

Prison Industrial Complex: Often referred to as the PIC, it refers to industries that do business with correctional facilities, those that benefit

from prisoners free or low-cost labor, and related interest groups. As described by Angela Davis, ...as the U.S. prison system expanded [in the 1980s], so did corporate involvement in construction, provision of

goods and services, and use of prison labor. Because of the extent to

which prison building and operation began to attract vast amounts of

capital - from the construction industry to food and health care provision

- in a way that recalled the emergence of the military industrial complex,

we began to refer to a prison industrial complex. (Are Prisons Obsolete?, Open Media, 2003, p. 12).

Shackling: The process in which women in prison are cuffed to a

hospital bed to deliver their babies.

Solitary Confinement: a form of torture in prison, in which a prisoner is

isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of

members of prison staff.

Source: http://womenandprison.org

Name__________

Date___________

Worksheet

Automatic

Transfer

Clemency

Inmate

Parole

Political Prisoner

Prison Industrial

Complex

Shackling

Abolition

Solitary

Confinement

Mandatory-

Minimum

1.Marilyn Buck was incarcerated for over twenty-five years due to her

involvement with politically conscious organizations that threaten the

status quo and the western world. Marilyn is considered a

_____________.

2. INCITE! Critical Resistant is an organization that put out a

statement in 2001 to ________________ the prison industrial complex.

2. In 2000, after serving six years for going on the run with her boyfriend, who was a wanted drug dealer, Kemba Smith was granted a

___________ by President Bill Clinton.

3. Sarah Kruzan was given an ________ to an adult prison, when at the

age of 16, she was sentenced to life in prison for killing her pimp, who

subsequently raped her at the age of 13.

4. There are currently eight hundred ____________in Philadelphia

Prisons.

5. On October 1, 2003, Shaneen Allen, a single mother, bought a gun

across state lines from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. She faces a

_________ of three years in prison.

5. Laura White horn, a member of such radical groups as the May 19th

Communist Party and John Brown Anti-Klan movement, was

___________ in 1999, after serving fourteen years.

6. The increasing growth of and reliance on the _____________ in the

United States and the use of a strengthened drug policy to

disproportionately affect women of color are examples of a system that

utilizes violence and punishment as a means of social control.\

7. In New York State, approximately 4,000 women are incarcerated in

any given year. Of those, around 40 will be pregnant and 30 will give

birth while incarcerated while been ____________.

Autobiographi

Marilyn Buck

Post-war 1947

born on the white

side of the tracks

Texas segregation

civil rights preacher's child

fled Texas with honor's diploma

for UC Berkeley and free

speech

though I did not know then

that's why I left

Vietnam war 1965

what war

are you fighting for

make love not war

college books tossed into a

trunk in some room

I've never seen since

fires of internationalism called

me

a girl

to enlist

in the anti-war

war against Amerikka

my own women's liberation on

the line

war in Amerikka

war against the warmakers

white-skinned haters

capitalist consumers of

human lives

following the tradition

Nat Turner John Brown

Wobblies subversives

resistance in the belly of the

beast

clandestine war 1973

captured by the killers

spirit killers nationkillers

a political prisoner

enemy of the state

terrorist and traitor

white woman dangerous

to white Amerika

condemned to years

and years of absence

a lifetime

warmakers

wait for its prisoners to die

or go crazy

or simply wither away into

insignificance

I rest, a grain of sand

significant on the beach head

that meets the sea

to face the storm

I wage resistance

to stay alive

I learn to search out freedom in

the breath

my cells send out dendrites

to absorb the world and its

offerings

I offer back

poems

and occasional grains of sand

mixed into clay and fired

into sturdiness

World Search Puzzle

Female Political Prisoners

A I A Z R D U Q V P E K P L Y

C G S C T I M V A U A X A R R

I O L H I B J L F T C U D U J

R N L A H R R C H Y R W K A A

F E O T D S F Y T A I A K Q N

A P F I O Y B A W Z H N W Q E

E Q Y Z D O S H E S C K X V T

N W M Q U A I S A I W E S F A

I Z R D W T H T C U B D V V F

N V I O E D A E D O M B I W R

A N C H L S Y U N I T Y E G I

J P O A S A V Y B Y G T J D C

W R D A T T O C S E I M A J A

N N U D O I B A A D N A H E N

M A R I L Y N B U C K W D Y B

ASSATA SHAKUR

DEBBIE AFRICA

GLADYS SCOTT

JAMIE SCOTT

JANET AFRICA

JANINE AFRICA

KATHY BOUDIN

LAURA WHITEHORN

MARILYN BUCK

NEHANDA ABIODUN

Whats in a Name?

Prisoner/Inmate Human

Imprisoned

Subject to abuse and torture

Denied basic human rights

Inmate *Confined to a

housing or residence

i.e. a hospital.

*An object, not

typically referred to an

a human but rather as

an object

Prisoner

*A person

deprived of

their liberty and

rights.

*Men or

women who

have been

captured by the

enemy in times

of war or

people who

have been

sentenced by a judge to serve a

term of

imprisonment

for a particular

period of time

in a prison.

Exercising our Write! This conference forced me to face a reality. I was there because I had spent some time in prison writing and thinking. Thinking and writing. Trying to put on paper some cogent ideas that might enable others to understand why I did some of the things that I had done and the process that had brought me/us to the point we were at. I had also come to the conclusion that if we didn't write the truth of what we had done and believed, someone else would write their version of the truth. If we can't write/draw a blueprint of what we are doing while we are doing it, or before we do it, then we must at least write our history and point out the truth of what we did, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Safiya Bukhari, Coming of Age: A Black Revolutionary

(September 21, 2002),

Writing exercise: Writing can take on great meaning for people

who have been incarcerated or have loved ones behind bars. It

helps people affected by prison stay connected to life on the other

side of the wall. Reflect on Bukharis words of writing being an act of revealing truths, and imagine that you were writing to a Woman

in prison. What would you want to say to her? What questions

would you ask?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

A Not So Coloring Page

Protecting Our Children: Ensuring the Rights of Incarcerated

Mamas

Iresha Picot

Melinda is currently serving a thirty-six month sentence in state

prison. She leaves behind two small children with her elderly aunt,

whom after eight months in the aunts care, can no longer care for

the children. They are placed into foster care and Melinda loses

contact of them. Upon her release from prison, Melinda has

learned that she has lost all parental rights of her children under

the 1997 Bill Clinton initiative Adoption and Safe Families Act

(ASFA). While the ASFA was to ensure that children be moved

out of foster care into adoption, this act has made it far more likely,

that incarcerated mothers of children in foster care will lose their

children permanently. The state can terminate parental rights in

certain circumstances, with a shorter timeline for parents to

complete services and regain custody or face termination. If a

child is in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months of a parents

incarceration, the state can move to terminate the parents rights

except under certain circumstances (i.e. kinship). In addition, for

women who are incarcerated for longer than two years (women in

state prison serve an average of 36 months), this law can almost

guarantee the loss of custody of their children. In most cases,

after parental rights are terminated, they cannot be regained.

According to the 2008* Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1.7 million

children under age 18, had a parent in state or federal prison. The

number of children with a father in prison increased from 881,500

in 1991 to more than 1.5 million in 2007, a 77 percent

increase. During that time, the number of children with a mother

in prison increased by 131 percent, from 63,900 to 147,400. Over

half of the parents incarcerated stated that they were the

caregivers of their children.

Prison Abolitionists today have attributed the dehumanization and

economic profits of Black and Brown bodies in the Prison

Industrial Complex to that of Slavery. The thief of children from

their incarcerated parents is with no exception. During slavery,

children were ripped away from their mothers and sold into slavery

without ever seeing their children again. This Adoption and Safe

Families Act is no different. Moreover, with Black Women being

the fastest growing group in prison, and being sentenced to prison

six times more likely than white women, we can almost be sure as

to whom this affects the most.

Forty-eight states besides Hawaii and Vermont have implemented

ASFA. Last year, New York passed The Adoption and Safe

Families Act (ASFA) Expanded Discretion Bill. The new law allows

for foster care agencies and courts to take into account the special

circumstances of parents in prison or residential treatment when

determining a child's fate. I think all states should push this law to

amend this act and demand the government for reunification of

incarcerated parents with their children.

Call your senators to sponsor this bill and take it all the way to the

Governor! I propose that people help to amend this bill in their

own states!

Iresha Picot, M.Ed, BSL, is a Virginia Sista, currently

living in Philadelphia. A Therapist, Doula and Activist in

several prison abolitionist organizations, Iresha created

this workbook as a part of a service learning program

for Books through Bars. You can reach Iresha at

Iresha.Picot@gmail.com

Abolition: is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.AT: Automatic Transfer; passed in 1992, the law permits minors to be tried as adults.Clemency: This process allows a prisoner or a prisoners representative to file a petition with the governor, asking for mercy and documenting how the sentence represents a grave injustice from which she should be released.Inmate: A term for prisoner, from the institutional perspective. A resident of an institution that houses a number of occupants, especially a person confined to that institution, such as a prison or a hospital. Deriving from the word insane, the ter...Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: a court decision setting where judicial discretion is limited by law. Typically, people convicted of certain crimes must be punished with at least a minimum number of years in prison.Parole: The release of a prisoner whose term has not expired on condition of sustained lawful behavior that is subject to regular monitoring by an officer of the law for a set period of time. Parole violations are a common cause of recidivism.Political Prisoner: Anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, such as under house arrest, because their ideas, affiliations, and or actions are viewed as challenging or posing a real or potential threat to the established state.Prison Industrial Complex: Often referred to as the PIC, it refers to industries that do business with correctional facilities, those that benefit from prisoners free or low-cost labor, and related interest groups. As described by Angela Davis, .....Shackling: The process in which women in prison are cuffed to a hospital bed to deliver their babies.Solitary Confinement: a form of torture in prison, in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff.Source: http://womenandprison.orgName__________Date___________WorksheetAutomatic TransferClemencyInmateParolePolitical PrisonerPrison Industrial ComplexShacklingAbolitionSolitary ConfinementMandatory-Minimum1.Marilyn Buck was incarcerated for over twenty-five years due to her involvement with politically conscious organizations that threaten the status quo and the western world. Marilyn is considered a _____________.2. INCITE! Critical Resistant is an organization that put out a statement in 2001 to ________________ the prison industrial complex.2. In 2000, after serving six years for going on the run with her boyfriend, who was a wanted drug dealer, Kemba Smith was granted a ___________ by President Bill Clinton.3. Sarah Kruzan was given an ________ to an adult prison, when at the age of 16, she was sentenced to life in prison for killing her pimp, who subsequently raped her at the age of 13.4. There are currently eight hundred ____________in Philadelphia Prisons.5. On October 1, 2003, Shaneen Allen, a single mother, bought a gun across state lines from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. She faces a _________ of three years in prison.5. Laura White horn, a member of such radical groups as the May 19th Communist Party and John Brown Anti-Klan movement, was ___________ in 1999, after serving fourteen years.6. The increasing growth of and reliance on the _____________ in the United States and the use of a strengthened drug policy to disproportionately affect women of color are examples of a system that utilizes violence and punishment as a means of socia...7. In New York State, approximately 4,000 women are incarcerated in any given year. Of those, around 40 will be pregnant and 30 will give birth while incarcerated while been ____________.AutobiographiMarilyn Buck