California Prison Visit

Published on: February 11, 2010

Written by: WDNStaff

The Women Donors Network’s Criminal (In)Justice Circle invites you to attend a

California Prison Visit

Co-sponsored by the Race, Gender, and Human Rights Fund (RGHR) of the Women’s Foundation of California

Two Day Event

Tuesday, May 11, 9:00am

through Wednesday, May 12, 7:00pm (approximate times)

Registration Fee: $350

Registration includes breakfasts, lunches, chartered transportation to and from Chowchilla

Venues:   Oakland Conference Center of the California Endowment

 Pre-Prison visit briefing, Tuesday May 11 

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Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California

Prison visit, Wednesday, May 12

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 We will spend Tuesday night near Chowchilla

What are the real impacts of our criminal justice system on families, communities, and inmates themselves? Our politicians claim that high rates of incarceration keep us safer, but the data used to support this theory is imprecise at best. Do the rates of incarceration in this country (comparable only to the rate of incarceration in Russia) truly contribute to our falling crime rates? Or do these political assertions foster our fears and make us blind to the injustices of our criminal justice system?

The Women Donors Network and the Women’s Foundation of California invite you to participate in a unique opportunity for deeper education, experiential learning, and action planning around an issue that many of us care deeply about – our criminal justice system and its effects on inmates, families, and communities. This event will provide an opportunity to strengthen the partnership between our two organizations. (This event will be open not only to WDN members but also to members of WFC.)

On the first day of this two-day event, we will hear from experts, activists, and organizers who work on the ground in the field of criminal justice. This session will give us the basis to fully understand what we are seeing when we enter the prison and to ask critical questions. We are committed to using this opportunity to really evaluate what we as an organization can contribute to the field of criminal justice and how our new Criminal (In)Justice Action Circle can enhance its impact in a very thoughtful and intentional way.

On day two, we will be visiting one of the two women’s prisons in Chowchilla, California, the Central Valley Women’s Facility. Together these two Chowchilla prisons make up the largest women’s prison complex in the world. Our visit will take place immediately following Mother’s Day. We’ll hear personal stories from women, especially mothers, some of whom will have just participated in Get On The Bus (GOTB), a program of The Center for Restorative Justice Works that brings children and their guardians/caregivers from throughout the state of California to visit their mothers in prison on Mother’s Day.

Please join us!

RGHR and the Women’s Foundation of CA have been funding criminal justice reform efforts since 2002.  The Fund’s long-term goal is to reduce the overuse of incarceration to solve social issues, along with the number of prisons and the prison population in California. Since its inception, the RGHR Fund has awarded more than $1.7 million in funding to organizations and coalitions engaged in policy advocacy, community organizing, direct service, public education, movement building, litigation, and media strategies focused on CJ reform and working at the intersections of race, gender and human rights. The RGHR Fund is deeply committed to advancing criminal justice reform by working strategically with diverse partners to foster systemic change in order to create a more just and humane world. 

The Criminal (In)Justice Education Circle was formed by the Women Donors Network (WDN) in 2008.  A goal of the Circle is to educate others and advocate for a just system, so that even those who are not directly impacted by incarceration or the criminal justice system recognize why the issue is so critical. Another goal is to bring a gender lens to the U.S. criminal justice system, especially as the issues affect women and children. Towards those ends, the Circle investigates criminal justice issues both nationally and on a local level with a specific focus on women, children, and families and engages in targeted mapping projects, team research, and site visits.

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Kathleen Andreson.

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