The programs of Families for Justice as Healing (FJAH) embody this principle, offering a community pantry, basic income, basic housing, healing stipends, and other forms of support to the section of Roxbury that is under the organization’s care. James believes that we need everyone’s voice in the conversation about how we get free. She insists that we need to listen better so that we might co-create a better world. If someone who is not directly impacted by carceral institutions is doing abolitionist work, they should be sure to listen to and work with those directly impacted. For FJAH, connecting to women in prisons is critical to the work they do. It allows them to be in close communication with the community of women they serve, who they hope will have an opportunity to continue as community members beyond prison walls.
QUOTE
We would send newsletters to women inside of Framingham [prison], and we would never get a response. Sometimes we send 200 newsletters, and we might get a response from one woman or two women. It was to the point where it was like, “Are they even getting these newsletters? What is happening here?” But then, when we started our canteen drive and one woman got $20 for their canteen for Christmas, that’s when they were like, “They’re really doing something over there. They’re not trying to ask us questions. They’re trying to give us something.” And the next thing you know, our [newsletter] list, from that specific canteen drive, went from 2 or 3 women in Framingham communicating with us to literally communicating with every single woman in Framingham. And we not only give $20; sometimes it’s $40 or $60 to put on their canteen for Christmas. And we try to keep it going throughout the year.
— Sashi James
ART
Form & Reform is a short documentary about the artistic advocacy of The People’s Paper Co-op (PPC) out of Philadelphia. Through the film, it is possible to see how formerly incarcerated women are using art to change public perception, resist the negative consequences of cash bail, and create welcoming experiences for women re-entering society.
READINGS
- The Painful Reality of Being an Incarcerated Mother
- How Mothers (and Others) are Making Prison Abolition Possible
ACTIVITY
Carceral logics are isolationist. For that reason, it can be difficult (and sometimes dangerous) to communicate across prison bars. There are strict rules of separation–some might say segregation–between those who work in prisons and those who are incarcerated in them. Identify three strategies for working across prison walls in order to build abolitionist futures.
Massachusetts Prison Abolition 