Angela Davis Joins WDN on California Prison Visit

Published on: May 7, 2010

Written by: WDNStaff

Educator and activist Angela Davis accompanied WDN on our California Prison Visit this month.

On May 12, WDN members participated in a visit  to the world’s largest women’s prison complex, organized by our Criminal (In)Justice Circle, in partnership with the Race, Gender, and Human Rights Fund (RGHR) of the Women’s Foundation of California. The group heard, first hand, many unique voices as they shared with us personal stories and perspectives on the profound effects our prison industrial complex has on women, children, families, and communities.

This two-day event began in Oakland with a pre-prison visit briefing, where we heard from experts, activists, and organizers who work on the ground in the field of criminal justice. This session helped us to understand what we saw when we entered the prison.

Following the briefing, participants traveled to the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California, one of the two women’s prisons in the Central Valley Women’s Facility. We heard personal stories from women, especially mothers, some of whom had 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.

BACKGROUND

The Race, Gender, and Human Rights Fund (RGHR) and the Women’s Foundation of California 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  criminal justice 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 Circle was formed by the Women Donors Network  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.

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