YWCA

• 'Governor, let me see my kids before I die': Pressure mounts to release elderly women from prisons [The Guardian]
  California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is facing mounting pressure to grant early release to 25 elderly and immunocompromised women in jails with rising COVID-19 cases. Listen to the voices of the women themselves telling their own stories.

• Immigrants who defend themselves from sexual violence face prison, deportation [Truthout]
  Immigrant women face a pipeline from abuse to prison to deportation, as abusers use the threat of deportation to keep control over them.

• Beyond Cyntoia Brown: How women end up incarcerated for self defense [Rolling Stone]
  The imprisonment of Cyntoia Brown, who killed an abusive man while she was sex trafficked at 16, generated national outcry, leading to her pardon. But Cyntoia is not alone, victims of sexual violence are often prosecuted as perpetrators for defending themselves.

• A teenager didn’t do her online schoolwork. So a judge sent her to juvenile detention [ProPublica]
  15-year-old Grace was jailed for violating her probation by not completing her online homework when her school switched to remote learning. The case violates the advice of education and medical experts to keep youth out of incarceration during COVID-19.

• Masked racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex [Colorlines]
  Civil rights icon Angela Davis explains the Prison Industrial Complex, how for-profit prisons make millions of dollars, and how they consume the social wealth that would otherwise exist in communities of color.

• Passing the mic: Formerly incarcerated women — on telling their own stories [KQED]
  Last year the Anti-Recidivism Coalition started an initiative called ARC Creatives to allow space for formerly incarcerated artists to tell their own stories — in their own voices. Watch the short films these talented Black women created.

• Black female inmates and COVID-19: Medically compromised, vulnerable and neglected [NBC News]
  Prisons lacked meaningful health and safety measures even before COVID-19, and with Black women incarcerated at twice the rate of white women, they face significantly more dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

Did you know that YWCA serves formerly incarcerated parents, who are working to bring stability to their lives and unification to their families at our Passage Point location? You can join us at our virtual 2020 Inspire Luncheon on September 10 to help support Passage Point and the other families that YWCA serves.