incarceration

It is rare for women who have graduated from the program to return to prison.

Throughout the pandemic, the DOC granted 158 inmates conditional medical release because of health issues that put them at risk of contracting COVID-19. Late last month, as first reported in the Reformer, the agency notified 18 of them that they would need to return to prison to serve out the rest of their sentence.

While one in four people in Minnesota (and across the nation) has a criminal record, four in four have a criminal history: that is, we are all criminals — and we’re also so much more.

I was let out of my cell for only an hour a day … for weeks on end.

Data reveals the roots of why people are incarcerated — and indicates why prison might not be the solution.

Since mass incarceration, mass surveillance, and mass policing clearly have not ended murder, assault, or rape, the authors write, isn’t it time to think of better ideas?

“If you are imprisoned and you are innocent of a crime, you can imagine that it just compounds the trauma.”

“We punish those who are already victims of their own circumstances and put them into even worse circumstances.”

I wish more people would be involved with this work and understand that people who commit crimes need help. We are not monsters.

Getting funded requires a culture shift in society, she says. “A recognition that incarceration does not work. We do not acknowledge the reality of where the harm is coming from.”

I am not even allowed to have pepper spray. I am a trans woman, so I already feel vulnerable, and now I cannot defend myself.

“It became clear to me that any program addressing the violence women had committed would also need to address the aggression and violence they had personally experienced.”