Resistance Behind Bars
The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In 1974, women imprisoned at New York’s maximum-security prison at Bedford Hills staged what is known as the August Rebellion. Protesting the brutal beating of a fellow prisoner, the women fought off guards, holding seven of them hostage, and took over sections of the prison.
While many have heard of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, the August Rebellion remains relatively unknown even in activist circles. Resistance Behind Bars is determined to challenge and change such oversights. As it examines daily struggles against appalling prison conditions and injustices, Resistance documents both collective organizing and individual resistance among women incarcerated in the U.S. Emphasizing women’s agency in resisting the conditions of their confinement through forming peer education groups, clandestinely arranging ways for children to visit mothers in distant prisons and raising public awareness about their lives, Resistance seeks to spark further discussion and research into the lives of incarcerated women and galvanize much-needed outside support for their struggles.
This updated and revised edition of the 2009 PASS Award winning book includes a new chapter about transgender, transsexual, intersex, and gender-variant people in prison.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Law, cofounder of Books-Through-Bars-NYC, documents life for female prisoners, highlighting their refusal to "passively accept their conditions of confinement." Editor of a 'zine for female inmates, Law's empathy for the women she documents and her distrust of the penal system bursts from every page. Her focus here is not on individual crimes, but the system itself: its history, structure, and the prisoners' struggle to serve their time in safe, humane conditions. Drawing from academic writing, personal correspondence, and interviews with incarcerated women, Law argues that although "omen's resistance often lacks the glamour and excitement of the prison riots and work strikes for which male prisoners are known", it does exist. Inmates share their knowledge and miniscule wages with needy prisoners, petition for better medical care, file reports on sexual abuse by guards and create their own newsletters in spite of disenfranchisement. They face reprisals at every turn, including harassment by staff, unexpected prison transfers, placement in segregation, and delays in parole. This second edition adds more recent documentation of resistance at women's prisons, as well as a section focusing on transgender and gender variant prisoners. Law's documentation of prison conditions is distressing, but the stories of resistance are hopeful.
