By Beatrice M. Spadacini
“Women don’t belong in cages,” said Sharon “BigShay” Smith, a member of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls (National Council) and a formerly incarcerated mother herself. “They belong home, with their families.”
It was the children of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who led this year’s rally, which marks the tenth anniversary of the National Council. Children are a powerful visual reminder that locking women up harms families, communities, and society at large.
The rally started on a sunny spring day at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church, a historic building, and the oldest Black church in DC. From there, hundreds of formerly incarcerated women coming from all states across the Union marched to Freedom Plaza, an iconic square surrounded by government buildings. Their children, husbands, sisters, and mothers walked beside them.
Locked up but not forgotten
The march drew attention to the almost 200,000 women who are currently locked up in US prisons and jails. Research on global prison population shows that the US has the highest incarceration rate of women in the world. Despite being home to 4% of the world’s female population, the US accounts for over 30% of the world’s incarcerated women. Though President Biden has reduced the highest number of sentences for non-violent drug crimes among any of his predecessors, activists say he should do much more.
“We have sisters who have been in federal and state prisons for 30, 40, and 50 years,” said Andrea James, Founder and Executive Director of the National Council, during her opening speech as she read out loud the news that President Biden had just pardoned 11 people and shortened prison time for five. “But what are we talking about here? We got thousands of women buried in prisons across the country that need to come home! Free the long timers! Free the elderly! Free all the women who have been raped in prisons!”
Sexual assault inside prisons and jails is a risk for both men and women, but especially so for female inmates as reported by The Appeal, a US news organization. In her remarks, James was also referring to a soon-to-be-closed women’s federal prison in Dublin, California where employees were found guilty of sexually assaulting inmates. Michelle West, one of the longest serving first-time female offenders with a double life sentence, is among the women scheduled to be moved from that facility. Her name was on many placards carried by the women at the march.
Female incarceration harms communities
A report on racial disparities by The Pew Charitable Trusts states that as of the year 2000, Black people made up almost half of the prison population while representing only 13% of the US population. In local jails, according to the Vera Institute for Justice, two out of three detained women are women of color, primarily Black and Hispanic.
Over half of the women held in American jails have not been convicted of a crime and are waiting for a court date. In the US justice system, “bail” is the amount of money that a judge sets for the defendant to be released from custody while waiting for trial. Many women in US jails do not have the means to pay for bail, and almost 80% of them are mothers. Most are single parents and their children’s primary caretakers.
When Betty Washington was incarcerated in 2011 for a non-violent crime committed by her ex-partner, she left behind three children in the care of her own mother. Originally from Montgomery, Alabama, Washington was sent to an out-of-state federal prison in West Virginia. Women’s prisons are fewer and farther apart than male prisons. The distance made it impossible for her children to come visit her. The separation was especially hard for her youngest daughter, who at the time was only three years old.
The alternative is to reimagine communities. “Healthy communities have jobs, housing, resources, and love.”
“I remember when I came home, my youngest daughter asked me if I was still her mommy,” says Washington who is a nurse by profession and one of the winners of the prestigious Soros Justice Fellowship for her advocacy work with aging prisoners. “We need to start looking at clemency more. Some of the women in prisons have been incarcerated for decades,” she adds.
Clemency, which is defined as an act of leniency or forgiveness, is one of the asks of the National Council. This is urgent, they say, because a lot of incarcerated women were given harsh sentences during the war on drugs in the 80s and 90s. Research shows many have a history of trauma.
Data in the Prison Policy Initiative report Women’s Mass Incarceration, The Whole Pie 2024 indicates that many women in state prisons suffer from addiction and mental health problems and have experienced homelessness in the year prior to their arrest. Parental neglect and sexual abuse in early childhood are common factors that can lead to destructive coping mechanisms.
Uplifting the voices of all incarcerated women
Despite the seriousness of the topic, the mood at the march was festive, and music was blasting for several hours in between speeches at Freedom Plaza. The music was energizing, and the celebration was in stark contrast to the violence unleashed by policemen on pro-Palestinian students simultaneously protesting across US college campuses and universities.
Activists took to the stage in between tunes like Gloria Gaynor’s classic I Will Survive, and Shackles by Mary. One of the women I met is Ashunte Coleman, co-founder of LIPS Florida, an organization that supports the reentry of trans women back into society. “As a Black transgender woman, I came here to represent my sisters in this fight. The hashtag #FreeHer is about all of us being free. We are there too,” said Coleman, who is originally from Mississippi but is currently living in Florida. Her work is inspired by the challenges she herself faced as a formerly incarcerated trans person.
“When I came home from prison, I went back to the streets to do what I was doing before I was incarcerated. There were no programs, so I created one that helps trans women like me transition back into society. We currently serve about 20 women. We assist with stipends and referrals and cover hotel costs for a few days because housing is one of the greatest challenges that trans women face when they come home.”
Inside prisons and jails, inmates are assigned a number, a practice that contributes to dehumanizing people. One of the ways that members of the National Council remember incarcerated women is by stitching their names on colorful handmade “clemency” quilts.
The idea, inspired by the AIDS quilts of the 90s, is an effective way to capture individual stories and remind people that every incarcerated woman is a human being that deserves clemency. “The quilts show what is going on. People don’t know that many women are buried inside prisons,” says Bigshay, who is especially fond of this project.
As an abolitionist organization, the National Council seeks to end the incarceration of women and girls. The alternative to locking women and girls up, they say, is to reimagine communities. “Healthy communities have jobs, housing, resources, and love,” says Bigshay. “When you put these ingredients together, you get thriving and happy communities.”
