Impact of women's incarceration on mothers and families; homelessness and criminalisation; opportunities and news from around the world
May 2024 newsletter from Women Beyond Walls - together we can build collective power and amplify voices to end the over-incarceration of women and girls worldwide.
Dear Friends
“Bring Moms Home for Mother’s Day” was the message delivered by thousands of people at the 10th Anniversary ‘Free Her’ March and Rally in Washington last month. Calling attention to the rally, the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls poignantly notes that, “behind every incarcerated mother, there is an invisible sentence served by her children.” Approximately 150,000 women incarcerated in the USA are mothers separated from their children. Racial and ethnic disparities are also important to note for these incarcerated mothers - the US Department of Justice found that amongst American children that have a mother in prison, 30% are Black and 19% Hispanic.
The over-incarceration of mothers is by no means an issue exclusive to incarcerated women in the US - in Uganda, for example, an estimated 200,000 children have a parent in prison at any one time, the consequences of which for children include: poor access to education and healthcare, decreased development in childhood, trauma separation and stigmatisation in the community because of their parents' incarceration. As an adverse childhood experience, incarceration of parents is considered a traumatic event affecting children and young people’s mental health, insecurity in relationships, and a cumulative effect of stressors like poverty, housing instability, violence, drug use and behaviours exposing them to the criminal justice system themselves.
Recognising International Day of Families this month, we reflect on the impact of incarceration of women on their families. Imprisonment of women globally means the temporary uprooting of the lives of children and families, and in worse cases, the incarceration of mothers leads to their termination of parental rights. As Centre for Women’s Justice research shows, even short sentences for incarcerated women can be extremely damaging to the relationships between mothers and their children, and that “the rights of the child should be considered by a court sentencing a mother” as “the imprisonment of mothers imposes significant suffering on children, who have committed no crime.” When very few women are incarcerated as a result of violent offences, or present a significant risk to the public, this long-term damage to families is disproportionate and inequitable.
News from around the world
Taiwan: At the end of April, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty challenged the Taiwan Constitutional Court over the death penalty as an unlawful punishment. This landmark legal challenge to the death penalty in Taiwan could see it deemed unconstitutional and abolished, meaning that the 37 individuals currently on death row in Taiwan would no longer face execution. A judgement is expected to be made in the next three months.
Pakistan: Justice Project Pakistan has released an analysis and overview of narcotics offences in Pakistan. The analysis notes key human rights concerns including over-incarceration and prison overcrowding and its impact on drug dependent incarcerated people, the use of the death penalty for drug related offences and lack of harm reduction measures.
UK: Women incarcerated in HMP East Sutton Park in Kent have designed and built a garden which will be exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year. One previously incarcerated woman who worked on the project felt that “often we are invisible or even hidden” which made the project even more special and gave her “a purpose.”
UK: According to the Ministry of Justice, self-harm increased by 11% amongst incarcerated women in the UK in 2023 - a rate which is almost nine times higher in women’s prisons than in men’s prisons. Read the recent response from Sonya Ruparel, CEO of Women in Prison UK, to these statistics and findings here.
Nigeria: PRAWA Nigeria recently hosted a Unicef sponsored two-day event, the ‘Review and Validation Workshop - An Assessment of the Situation of Children and Young Adults Deprived of Liberty in Nigeria.’ Key recommendations from the workshop, attended by organisations representatives working toward a fair justice system in Nigeria, included enhancing legal aid and expediting justice for children and young adults, improving conditions of detention facilities, promoting education and rehabilitation as alternatives to imprisonment, and addressing root causes of criminal activity such as poverty and lack of parental care. More information can be found on their Instagram account.
Türkiye/Turkey: Prison Insider, whose work aims to inform and highlight action needed to promote human rights for incarcerated people and improve prison conditions globally, has published its country profile on Türkiye.The profile details systematic and widespread issues across Türkiye’s prisons, and specifically highlights discrimination towards women and LGBTQI+ people.
USA: At the end of April, the Supreme Court of the United States heard the case of Johnson V. Grants Pass which will decide whether cities are allowed to punish people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket, even when adequate shelter alternatives aren’t available, a decision which will be made by the end of June. With an estimated 106,119 homeless women in the USA, women will be significantly impacted by the upcoming decision to be made around this criminalisation of poverty, including those in the Invisible People documentary in the city at the forefront of the legal battle.
Australia: The family of Selesa Tafaifa, a Samoan-Australian woman who died after being placed in a ‘spit hood’, have called on authorities to enact change in a plea after the inquest into her death finished hearing evidence earlier this month.
Opportunities
The FEANTSA Forum, an event to discuss the latest practices, strategies, research, services, and policies in the fight against homelessness will take place on the 17th-18th of June 2024 at the ARCOTEL Wimberger, in Vienna, Austria. The forum will include sessions on the decriminalisation of homelessness.
⏰ Calls for contributions to the 2nd report on harm reduction to inform the Special Rapporteur's thematic report to the General Assembly in October 2024 are still open, deadline 27 May 2024.
Visit this e-learning platform hosted by IDPC and the Heath Foundation to learn about drug decriminalisation.
Centre for Women’s Justice are looking for friends and relatives of incarcerated women, as well as recently released women, who have experience of HMP Wandsworth and Eastwood Park (UK) and who want to share their impressions of treatment and conditions in the prison. The appeal addresses concerns over the treatment of vulnerable incarcerated women and the need for “as much evidence as we can get of conditions that prevail in our prisons and how they affect both those detained and those who care about them.”
In Ireland? Sign the petition to properly investigate, and hold accountable, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Federal Correctional Institution Dublin following its immediate closure due to sexual abuse and neglect of its incarcerated women.
Just Detention International are fighting for the Sexual Abuse Services in Detention Act in the USA, an initiative which establishes a grant program aimed at financing emotional support services for incarcerated survivors of sexual abuse - follow the link to get involved by calling for US Senators to sponsor the legislation.
Sign up to The Justice Funds newsletter to get a curated list of funding opportunities in your inbox every two weeks.
Media and literature recommendations
Earlier this month Harriet Wistrich, Director and Founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice, released her work Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men which shares the stories and challenges of women she has represented in the criminal justice system.
“The rise in Australia’s prison population serves as a stark indictment of this nation’s misguided love affair with prisons and punishment.” - Debbie Kilroy and Tabitha Lean for ‘Pears and Irritations: John Menadve’s Public Policy Journal.
Centre for Women’s Justice released a series of short films last year titled ‘Stop Criminalising Survivors’, “intended to raise awareness about the need to prevent the unjust criminalisation of victims/survivors of domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls.” Earlier this month the Centre for Women’s Justice worked with Women’s Aid and Women in Prison to support a joint meeting and parliamentary screening of the films.
The incarceration of women is growing at alarming rates worldwide and in Latin America it is driven by strict drug laws, with devastating consequences for the women impacted and their families. In response to the growing crisis of women's incarceration in Latin America, in 2015 a Working Group on Women, Drug Policy and Incarceration was formed, led by the Washington Office on Latin America ( WOLA ), the Consortium. International on Drug Policies ( IDPC ) and the Colombian NGO, Center for Law, Justice and Society Studies – Dejusticia This is a report reflecting on almost ten years of collective research and joint advocacy by the group.
Read an article on the Washington ‘Free Her’ march and rally that took place in April.
Prison Policy Initiative has released a report entitled Women’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2024 with a detailed view of the experience of incarcerated women and girls in the United States. The report examines government agency data, as well as self-reported data from surveys of women in prison.
Julie Wayua of ICJ Kenya is advocating for legal reforms on the criminalisation of “petty offences” linked to poverty.
Jack Lueders-Booth has published a book with a series of polaroid pictures, alongside his subjects' stories and poems, taken in a US women’s prison where he was teaching photography. A selection of the portraits and reflections from Lueders-Booth have been shared in an article from The Guardian.
We have been sent so many wonderful resources and updates to share this month! Thank you all. If you have any events/resources/reports you want us to consider highlighting in future newsletters, please don’t hesitate to contact us on hello@womenbeyondwalls.org.
With gratitude to the community,
The Women Beyond Walls Team