Women Behind Bars

Women, Motherhood, and the State

The Punishment of Care: How Motherhood Shapes Women’s Experience in the System Motherhood is traditionally celebrated as care and nurturing. Yet within the criminal legal system, it paradoxically becomes a source of punishment and control. The system weaponizes motherhood to regulate women’s bodies, identities, and behavior, reinforcing social hierarchies and perpetuating systemic inequality. The system… Continue reading Women, Motherhood, and the State

Systemic Spotlight

Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together

After three weeks of naming the harm — the design, the extraction, the quiet violence baked into the system — it would be easy to believe the story ends there. But Black history has never been only a record of what was done to us. It’s also a record of what we built anyway. What… Continue reading Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together

Systemic Spotlight

The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See

When Freedom Costs More Than a Conviction Last week, I wrote about what happens when mental illness and Blackness collide inside a jail — how crisis becomes criminalized, how symptoms become charges, how the system responds with punishment instead of care. But the exploitation doesn’t stop at the jail door. It follows people into the… Continue reading The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See

Behind the Case, Systemic Spotlight

The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way

Every February, America dusts off its favorite Black icons, recites a few safe quotes, shows a few movies with popular Black actors and calls it Black History Month. But Black history isn’t something we visit once a year. It’s something we’re still living — in our laws, in our courtrooms, in our jails, and in… Continue reading The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way

Systemic Spotlight

Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars

Heat, Hunger, and Healthcare: The Human Cost of Texas Prisons Texas prisons are not just sites of confinement—they are crucibles of suffering. In the sweltering summer months, many facilities lack air conditioning, subjecting incarcerated individuals to deadly heat. Temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, and the physical toll is compounded by inadequate access to water, ventilation,… Continue reading Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars