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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Prisoners talk change
New York--At the end of June the Women’s Prison
Association and Home Inc. hosted the tenth National Roundtable for Women in
Prison. It was a unique gathering of former women prisoners, prisoner advocates,
criminal justice professionals and social services providers. The opportunity for the women prisoners to participate
was the highlight. It was the purpose of the roundtable to have an exchange of
ideas about what change would look like, how can we work together. For the former prisoners willing to talk, just the fact
of their sharing their story was an act of courage and a contribution. Helping
other women, still in prison or just getting out, was their first priority. The
social service providers pointed to those success stories and made their case
that better programs would make a difference. The academics presented their
research. The activists pointed out that for every prisoner who makes it on the
outside, there are a thousand who don’t. Thus, they argued, putting band-aids
on the problem is not a solution, we have to work to abolish prisons altogether. The former prisoners pointed to how they re-created
themselves from abused, neglected victims into strong women fighting for others.
But there is a danger in focusing so much on individual needs. What gets lost is
the fact that this social system creates the poverty and “crime.” The call
for a systemic change, a revolution, has to start and come back to the
individual. Becoming new people in the process of fighting what’s wrong
highlights the point of revolution, which is not a change as an event, but the
continual re-creation of our common humanity in each individual. —Urszula Wislanka |
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