Monday, April 27, 2020: What about Incarcerated Women and Immigrant Women Detained in ICE Facilities: Potential Death Sentence

Today’s topic is the situation of incarcerated and detained women and the CoronaVirus. The pandemic and its impacts are the main news these days. We have seen and heard about people from all walks of life being infected. The mainstream outlets regularly report the impacts on famous people but we hear far too little about those in this country considered not important not to mention about whole countries considered inconsequential. Among the “not important” are the 2.3 million people in nearly 2000 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, nearly 2000 juvenile correctional facilities, over 300 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories like Guam and Puerto Rico.

Women at the Irwin County Detention Center in

Georgia hold signs asking for help.

Screenshot: The Intercept

Among the 2.3 million are 40 thousand ICE detainees in facilities across the country. According to federal government data, from April 2019, California detains the fourth highest number of people per day, after Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona. Over 70 percent of people are held in privately-run immigrant prisons. The GEO Group receives more taxpayer dollars for immigration detention than any other ICE contractor followed by Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic. Also important to keep in mind that incarcerating immigrants in not limited to the US. Global Detention Project (GDP) estimates that there have been at least 2,000 facilities used for immigration-related purposes in approximately 100 different countries over the last decade. We hear even less about women detainees.

In the current pandemic, incarcerated people are among the highest risk group. According to the recent report in Intercept, “Immigrants in ICE detention nationwide are intensely afraid of contracting Covid-19 and two Department of Homeland Security doctors warned Congress that the facilities pose ‘an imminent risk to the health and safety of immigrant detainees’” because of overcrowding and filth inside and to the public as well.

During today’s show you will be listening to Ana Alicia Huerta, Staff Attorney for Removal Defense Project of the United Farm Workers Foundation, which provides legal services and representation to folks at Mesa Verde. We will also hear from Leticia Hernandez, whose mother is currently detained at Mesa Verde. On March 11, the ACLU wrote to ICE office in San Francisco because of reported “shortages of cleaning and personal hygiene supplies, including bleach and other disinfectant products, shampoo, and soap. Several people detained at Mesa Verde have reported that to obtain personal hygiene products they must purchase them from the commissary at a high cost — thus, preventing many individuals from accessing these basic necessities. These deficiencies leave detainees at Mesa Verde at increased risk of contracting communicable diseases.” The ACLU implored ICE to “to immediately develop evidence-based and proactive plans for the prevention and management of COVID-19….”

We also will be in conversation with Ny Nourn, who experienced the “seamless” transfer from prison to ICE detention facility.

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min
Today's program was produced by Margo Okazawa-Rey. You can reach Margo at Margo@kpfpa.org.


What you can do to help:

The following organizations are working with immigrants. Click on links below to find out more about them:

Asian Law Caucus contact Ny Nourn at nyn@advancingjustice-alc.org to find out about Call in Actions #FlattenICE and #FlattenTheCurve every Tuesday to pressure Governor Newsom at (916) 445-2841 and ICE at  (415) 844-5455 to release prisoners. Calls work. People have been released with public pressure but many more people need to be freed.

CIYJA - Commissary Fund. And calls to ICE and the Governor's office to release prisoners at Mesa Verde and all detention facilities.

InterFaith Movement for Human Integrity

Centro Legal

Removal Defense Project of United Farm Workers Foundation

Fill out your 2020 Census.

Register to vote and VOTE.

Monday, August 8, 2016: SHOUT THEIR NAMES Town Hall

This week, Women’s Magazine features excerpts from SHOUT THEIR NAMES, a Town Hall held at the Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland on July 31st 2016. In response to preventable and tragic deaths, advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) held this Town Hall to call attention to the ongoing crisis occurring at California Institution for Women (CIW). The program features an overview of the situation at CIW and comments from the families of several women who have born the brutal impact of the crisis.

Dear Community,
In response to another preventable and tragic death, advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) are reaching out to ally organizations in the Bay to call further attention to the ongoing crisis occurring at California Institution for Women (CIW). CIW is at 130 percent capacity and has a suicide rate that is 8 times the national average for people in women’s prisons, and 5 times the rate for all California prisons.  We will be holding a Town Hall on Sunday, July 31st at the Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland and want to invite your organization to endorse and be part of it.

The injustice and conditions of abuse and violence at CIW are happening inside and outside of prison walls across the country. Too often, lives are being lost to state violence and the majority of lives stolen are Black and Brown, queer and transgender. At CIW, people are dying as a result of direct neglect by cops, and from medical and mental health neglect. Outside, women are being killed by police. In 2013, Kayla Moore, a Black trans woman was killed by the Berkeley police in her home. On May 19, 2016, a Black woman named Jessica Nelson Williams was killed by San Francisco police in the Bayview neighborhood. There are no shortage of examples of punishing people and communities who have survived generations of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia with policing, incarceration and neglect.

Just a few weeks ago Shaylene Graves, a 27 year old Black woman, died from this state violence. She was six weeks away from her release. Before Shaylene, Erika Rocha committed suicide. Erika was 35 years old and had been incarcerated for 21 years. She was one day away from her Youth Parole Hearing. Last November, five people at the CCWF women’s prison were physically abused, sexually harassed and placed in solitary confinement by prison guards. They are planning to bring a suit against the CDCR.

Legal advocates with CCWP are working with and supporting survivors inside and family members outside to get much needed attention and support to those suffering behind these walls. We are reaching out to you because more needs to be done.

We hope that the Town Hall Meeting on Sunday, July 31st, 2016 from 3-5pm at the East Side Arts Alliance can help us connect these struggles and bring more attention to the ongoing crisis at CIW. We hope that you will endorse the event, share the information with your networks and come to Eastside Arts Alliance on July 31st. To endorse the town hall, please email info@womenprisoners.org.

Join us in demanding justice for Shaylene, Erika and all lives stolen by the CDCR and the police. BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME ALIVE!

In Solidarity,

California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:50 min

This program was recorded by Mary Salome and Emily Charles of Queer in Your Ear Productions. For the full recording of the Town Hall go to: https://soundcloud.com/queer-in-your-ear

Also on today's show:
Women's Community Calendar

Monday, May 4, 2015: Mariposa & The Saint: From Solitary Confinement, a Play through Letters

Mariposa and the Saint: From Solitary Confinement, a Play Through Letters

In 2012, Mariposa was sentenced to fifteen months in solitary confinement. Three years later she is still there. Through letters with longtime friend and current collaborator, Julia Steele Allen, Mariposa brings her experience to the stage.

Kate speaks with writer/actor Julia Steele Allen about Mariposa and the Saint, the play she co-wrote with Sara (Mariposa) Fonseca, who is incarcerated in solitary confinement at the California Institution for Women.  Julia talks about the play, her collaboration with Mariposa, and the work of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.

Listen now or Get MP3. 24:06






Join CCWP for two benefit performances of Mariposa & the Saint and a conversation about the shocking conditions in California’s women’s prisons and what can be done to change them.

Thursday, May 7th at Stagewerx, 446 Valencia St. at 16th, San Francisco

$15 advance thru Brown Paper Tickets, $20 at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds

Doors open at 7:00, Play begins promptly at 7:30

Sunday, May 10th at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley

$15 advance thru Eventbrite, $20 at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds

Doors open at 7:00, Play begins promptly at 7:30

Also Jackie Barshak previews upcoming women-produced films at the SF International Film Festival running until May 7th.

Listen to Jackie's previews or Get MP3. 4:34 min

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:
Nepal--Women Bear Brunt of Disaster

Monday, March 30, 2015: Rhodessa Jones' "Birthright?"

Rhodessa Jones of the Medea Project Theater for Incarcerated Women and Adrienne Bousian of Planned Parenthood are in studio to tell us about their upcoming collaboration, Birthright?, opening at Brava on April 9.  The show celebrates 25 years of the Medea Project and 100 Years of Planned Parenthood.

Listen now or Get MP3. 26:51 min.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min

Brava! For Women in the Arts and Cultural Odyssey present in collaboration with Planned Parenthood Northern California 

BIRTHRIGHT?

April 9-19, 2015   

Thursday through Saturday at 8 PM  Sunday at 3 PM

 with a Special Gala Show Saturday, April 11

$40-50 Gala Tickets
$20-30 All other performances
$5 discount for Seniors & Students
$10 admission all shows for children under 10

BUY TICKETS

BIRTHRIGHT? celebrates THE MEDEA PROJECT: THEATER FOR INCARCERATED WOMEN’S 25th ANNIVERSARY!

Women’s health is at the center of a political maelstrom cloaked in religious ideology, abuse of power and a blatant disregard for the women and families impacted by the fall out. Rhodessa Jones and THE MEDEA PROJECT will unearth the questions, issues, and pros and cons of the debate surrounding women’s reproductive rights.  To honor and 25thAnniversary of THE MEDEA PROJECT excerpts from past shows will also be interwoven throughout the evening paying homage to the innovative and empowering concept of “art as social activism”.

About The Medea Project:

In 1989, while conducting exercise classes at the San Francisco County Jail, Cultural Odyssey Co-Artistic Director Rhodessa Jones and prison officials observed that African American and Latina women inmates were more likely to honestly confront their personal problems by telling autobiographical stories than through traditional counseling techniques. Based on this observation, Rhodessa, together with representatives of the Sheriff’s Department and the San Francisco Health Department founded The MEDEA Project in 1990 to explore whether an arts-based approach could reduce recidivism and divert women from the criminal justice system. Since that auspicious beginning THE MEDEA PROJECT has become a model for transforming and rehabilitating female inmates, and working with ex – inmates as well as HIV positive women utilizing the performing arts.

About Planned Parenthood:

Founded in 1962, and with roots dating back to the 1920s in San Francisco, Planned Parenthood provides essential reproductive health care and sexuality education programs in adherence to the belief that all people have the right to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive and sexual lives. Its mission is to promote and protect sexual health, reproductive freedom, and social justice through services, education, and advocacy by providing urgently needed reproductive health services at 20 health centers and 10 satellite sites across 17 counties and conducting robust preventative health education efforts that reach deeply into their communities of service.

Also on today's show:

India's Daughter