GWSS PRACTICUM: IN THE FIELD

Monday, December 6, 2010

Life in Prison: California Medical Facility

Sunday, November 7, 2010

http://womenandprison.org/motherhood/view/pregnancy_in_prison_a_personal_story/

Dear GWSS Prac. Students,
wow, Friday was really something else. I really felt like the work our group did was powerful and productive. What I gathered is the following:
Projects to pursue:
a video viewing system for women
Mothering along a continuum from being a young new mother to mothering children who are grown
the expansion of parenting classes and resources for parents and children (Gas fare, stationary, phone money)
The creation and production of a panel on mothering where all of the different voices related to childhood, childrearing, and mothering from prison can be heard and perhaps shared with the public.
This might even be in the form of a public reading-the inside students could write monologues and the outside students could share them? Or maybe we can film or record the voices of people who would make up the panel and make a CD or an MP3 that we could share.

Some Facts from:
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/64

(2008 - parents in prison) "The scale of the effects of parental incarceration on children can be revealed simply by statistics showing the number of children with a parent in prison or jail. Among white children in 1980, only 0.4 of 1 percent had an incarcerated parent; by 2008 this figure had increased to 1.75 percent. Rates of parental incarceration are roughly double among Latino children, with 3.5 percent of children having a parent locked up by 2008. Among African American children, 1.2 million, or about 11 percent, had a parent incarcerated by 2008."

Source:
Western , Bruce; Pettit, Becky, "Incarceration & social inequality," Dædalus (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer 2010), p. 16.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00019
(2007 - prison population by race and sex) "Similar to men in the general prison population (93%), parents held in the nation's prisons at midyear 2007 were mostly male (92%) (not shown in table). More than 4 in 10 fathers were black, about 3 in 10 were white, and about 2 in 10 were Hispanic (appendix table 2). An estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; nearly half (46%) were children of black fathers.
"Almost half (48%) of all mothers held in the nation's prisons at midyear 2007 were white, 28% were black, and 17% were Hispanic. Of the estimated 147,400 children with a mother in prison, about 45% had a white mother. A smaller percentage of the children had a black (30%) or Hispanic (19%) mother."

Source:
Glaze, Lauren E. and Maruschak, Laura M., "Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jan. 2009), NCJ222984, p. 2.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Information about Welfare

http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/poverty/welfare-to-work.aspx

Department of Human Services Bridge Card poster

Record number of people in Genesee County signing up for welfare. Among them are people who wouldnt traditionally need help.

FLINT (WJRT) -- (09/01/10) -- A growing number of people need state assistance, and a new initiative in Genesee County is trying to bust myths about welfare.

According to the Department of Human Services, a record number of people need help with money, food, clothes and shelter. The DHS says many of those needing help are people they wouldn't traditionally see.
"People who have worked all their lives that are now asking for help. Traditionally, it was more in the urban areas that were coming in for assistance," said Genesee County DHS Director Sheryl Thompson. "Now we're seeing it all over the suburbs. People who really have to humble themselves because they didn't want to come for help."
According to Thompson, 109,000 people are on the state's food assistance program in Genesee County - nearly 1 in 4 residents. That number is up from 80,000 a year ago.
In an effort to reach out to people who need help but are afraid to ask for it, the state is trying to bust the myths about welfare.
Thompson says they are handing out more flyers and posters throughout the county to better educate people and break the myth that welfare is a drain on the system.
"That's helping people to keep jobs. That's helping people, grocery stores stay open," Thompson said. "In turn, they're going to spend money, and we're just trying to let people know it's meant to help."

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Tags:

assistance, welfare, state government, local, autumn perry

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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Stop Street Harassment

http://hollykearl.com/

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Angela Davis Rocks

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/19/angela_davis_on_the_prison_abolishment

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/10/mountains_that_take_wing_a_new_film_gives_a_snapshot_of_living_history.html