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Editors' Note: Previous issues of DifferenTakes have examined how the prison-industrial complex serves as a form of population control and violates reproductive freedom. (See, for example, Ten Reasons Why Prisons are Bad for Reproductive Freedom.) In the following, activists Alicia Jay and Tina Reynolds explore how children are severely affected by parental incarceration and present positive ways the prison abolition movement can respond to support healthy families.
-Co-editors Elizabeth Barajas-Roman & Betsy Hartmann.
Alicia Jay graduated from Hampshire College in 2007 with a focus on abolition of the prison industrial complex and reproductive justice. For this article, she drew from her senior thesis, “Deconstructing the Warehouse State: Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex in the U.S.” She has worked as an intern at the Third Wave Foundation in New York and as a tutor at the Hampshire County House of Correction in Northampton, MA. Alicia recently worked as the Alumni Fellow at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and is currently the Leadership Coordinator at Young People For.
Tina Reynolds is co-founder of Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH). WORTH is an association of women who have been empowered by personal experiences to advocate for policy changes to issues affecting women in the criminal justice system. WORTH transforms the lives of women affected by incarceration and changes public perceptions and policy. Reynolds has received a Masters in Social Work from Hunter College and is a board member of JusticeWorks Community and the Peace Development Fund. In her work over the past 14 years, Reynolds partnered with formerly and currently imprisoned women to challenge and offer solutions to policies and other barriers women and families face during and after incarceration.
