book going to printer!

I just got word that all of my additions and updates to the new edition of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women have been sent off to the printer.

Since I last updated the statistics back in the summer/fall of 2011 (in between cooking amazingly delicious East African vegan dishes), some of these have changed yet again. Some have been for the better: for instance, now SIXTEEN states instead of TEN states have some legislation limiting or banning the shackling of pregnant incarcerated people while in labor & delivery. (Come on Massachusetts and Georgia! You know you want to follow suit and pass that pending legislation!)

Some of the changes have been for the worse: an amazing media organization for women and girls (which had its own prison project focusing on gender & incarceration) has closed its doors from lack of funding. Other groups that have worked with people in prison have also disappeared off the radar. The number of people in prison continues to rise.

And some remain the same ol', same ol' horrifying reality: A 2010 survey of women’s prisons found that only eight states provided prenatal medical exams, that nineteen provided proper prenatal nutrition and that only seventeen provided screenings and treatments for high-risk pregnancies. (A 1993 survey found that fewer than half of women's prisons provided prenatal care, only 15% provided special diets and nutritional programs for pregnant prisoners, and only 11% provided postnatal counseling. A woman who contributed her experiences to the first edition of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women and to Birthing Behind Bars told me that she was given no postnatal counseling to help her cope with being immediately separated from her newborn daughter.)

Yes, we have a way to go. But let's not be discouraged; let's celebrate our successes as yet stepping stones to achieving a world where we need no prisons, then continue talking, listening and acting.