Recommended Reading
Organized by publication date. Click on a category to expand the list.
- Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women, 2019
- Doubly Punished: Survivor Stories for Justice, Herstory Writers Workshop, 2018
- I Dream About You: Stories of Addiction, Incarceration, and Family Love, Herstory Writers Workshop, 2016
- Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Victoria Law, 2012
- VOICES: Memoirs from Long Island’s Correctional Facilities, Herstory Writers Workshop, 2012
- Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons, Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi, 2011
- Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, Piper Kerman, 2011
- Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States, Rickie Solinger, Paula Johnson, Martha Raimon, Tina Reynolds, and Ruby Tapia, 2010
- Memoirs from Herstory Inside Suffolk County’s Correctional Facilities, Herstory Writers Workshop, 2009
- The Resilience of the Written Off: Women in Prison as Women of Change, Kathy Boudin, 2007 (posted with permission from the Women’s Rights Law Reporter and the author)
- Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution (Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters), Wally Lamb, 2004
- Alive Behind the Labels: Women in Prison, Kathy Boudin and Roslyn D. Smith, chapter in Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New Millennium, Robin Morgan, 2003
- Lives on the Line: Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones and the Impact of COVID-19 Behind Bars, Essie Justice Group, Color of Change & Prison Policy Initiative, 2020
- States Must Do More to Protect Youth Behind Bars During COVID-19 Pandemic, No Kids in Prison, 2020
- A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons, The Marshall Project, 2020
- Failing Grades: States’ Responses to COVID-19 in Jails & Prisons, Prison Policy Initiative, 2020
- Unmasked: Impacts of COVID Policing, COVID19 Policing Project hosted by the Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability, 2020
- COVID-19 and Women in the US Criminal Legal System, Cynthia Golembeski, Carolyn Sufrin, Brie Williams, Precious Bedell, Sherry Glied, Ingrid Binswanger, Donna Hylton, Tyler Winkelman, and Jaimie Meyer, 2020
- If Prison Walls Could Talk: Personal Stories About COVID-19 and Incarceration, Vera Institute of Justice, 2020
- COVID-19 Resource List, Women & Justice Project, 2020
- Aging in Prison: Reducing Elder Incarceration and Promoting Public Safety, Center for Justice at Columbia University and Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) Campaign, 2015
- Life Goes On: The Historic Rise in Life Sentences in America, The Sentencing Project, 2013
- Dignity Denied: The Price of Imprisoning Older Women in California, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, 2005
- The Walls Are Closing In On Me: Suicide and Self-Harm in New York State’s Solitary Confinement Units 2015-2019, #HALT Solitary Confinement Campaign, 2020
- Prison Within Prison: Voices of Women Held in Isolated Confinement in New York, Correctional Association of New York, 2018
- Boxed In: The True Cost of Extreme Isolation in New York’s Prisons, New York Civil Liberties Union, 2012
- How Incarcerated Parents Are Losing Their Children Forever, The Marshall Project, 2018
- Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families, Ella Baker Center, Forward Together, and Research Action Design, 2015
- Separation by Bars and Miles: Visitation in State Prisons, Prison Policy Initiative, 2015
- Prison, Foster Care and the Systemic Punishment of Black Mothers, Dorothy Roberts, 2012
- Moving beyond generalizations and stereotypes to develop individualized approaches for working with families affected by parental incarceration, Phillip Genty, 2012
- Mothers Behind Bars: A state-by-state report card and analysis of federal policies on conditions of confinement for pregnant and parenting women and the effect on their children, The Rebecca Project for Human Rights and National Women’s Law Center, 2010
- Lessons from a Mother’s Program in Prison, Kathy Boudin, 2008
- Part Two: Being a Mother from the Inside in Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States, Rickie Solinger, Paula Johnson, Martha Raimon, Tina Reynolds, and Ruby Tapia, 2010
- Rebuilding Families, Reclaiming Lives: State Obligations to Children in Foster Care and Their Incarcerated Parents, Patricia E. Allard and Lynn D. Lu, 2006
- Parenting from Inside/Out: The Voices of Mothers in Prison, Kathy Boudin and Rozann Greco, The Children’s Center, 1993
- Documentaries created by young filmmakers with incarcerated parents, Echoes of Incarceration
- Dad Bakes, Katie Yamasaki, 2021
- Milo Imagines the World, Matt de la Peña, 2021
- See You Soon, Mariame Kaba, 2022
- All I Ever Wanted: Stories of Children of the Incarcerated, Herstory Writers Workshop, 2015
- Children on the Outside: Voicing the Pain and Human Costs of Parental Incarceration, Justice Strategies, 2011
- Children of Incarcerated Parents: The Child’s Constitutional Right to the Family Relationship, Chesa Boudin, 2011
- A Call to Action: Safeguarding New York’s Children of Incarcerated Parents, New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents at The Osborne Association, 2011
- Recommended Books For and About Children of Incarcerated Parents, New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents at The Osborne Association
- All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated, Nell Bernstein, 2007
- Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights, San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, 2005
- The Facts Report: The Geography of America’s Dysfunctional & Racially Disparate Youth Incarceration Complex, No Kids in Prison, 2020
- The Schools Girls Deserve: Youth-Driven Solutions for Creating Safe, Holistic, and Affirming Public Schools, Girls for Gender Equity, 2020
- Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison, Equal Justice Initiative, 2019
- Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019, Prison Policy Initiative, 2019
- All Children Are Children: Challenging Abusive Punishment of Juveniles, Equal Justice Initiative, 2017
- Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique Morris, 2016
- Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected, Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, and African American Policy Forum, 2015
- Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story, Human Rights Project for Girls, Georgetown Law Center, and Ms. Foundation for Women, 2015
- Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison, Nell Bernstein, 2016
- Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020, Prison Policy Initiative, 2020
- U.S. Prison Decline: Insufficient to Undo Mass Incarceration, The Sentencing Project, 2020
- States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context 2018, Prison Policy Initiative, 2018
- Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform, Vera Institute of Justice, 2016
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson, 2015
- Magdalene Laundries: The First Prisons for Women in the United States, Michelle Jones and Lori Record, 2014**
- The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, National Research Council of the National Academies, 2014
- One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections, The Pew Center on the States, 2009
- Abolition. Feminism. Now., Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie, coming in 2021
- Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, 2020
- Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2020
- The Abolitionist Library, The Digital Abolitionist
- Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair, Danielle Sered, 2019
- Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators, Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan, 2019
- Responding to Violence, Restoring Justice, Tiloma Jayasinghe and Erin Ward, 2018
- Ending Child Sexual Abuse: A Transformative Justice Handbook, Generation Five, 2018
- The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues, Angela Davis, 2012
- Toward Transformative Justice: A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and other forms of Intimate and Community Violence, Generation Five, 2007
- Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis, 2003
- An Unjust Burden: The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System, Vera Institute of Justice, 2018
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, Andrea J. Ritchie, 2017
- Say Her Name: Resisting Policy Brutality Against Black Women, African American Policy Forum, 2015
- Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System, The Sentencing Project, 2015
- Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies, The Sentencing Project, 2014
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander, 2012
- Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization in the United States, Anannya Bhattacharjee and Jael Silliman, 2002
- LGBTQ People Behind Bars: A Guide to Understanding the Issues Facing Transgender Prisoners and Their Legal Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality, 2018
- Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails Transgender People, Center for American Progress & Movement Advancement Project, 2016
- Coming Out of Concrete Closets: A Report on Black & Pink’s National LGBTQ Prisoner Survey, Black & Pink, 2015
- Standing with LGBT Prisoners: An Advocate’s Guide to Ending Abuse and Combating Imprisonment, National Center for Transgender Equality, 2014
- Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock, 2012
- Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, 2011
- “It’s War in Here:” A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Intersex People in New York State Men’s Prisons, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, 2007
- Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) Resource Guide, Survivors Justice Project, 2022
- Criminalizing Survival: A Resource of Curricula and Activities, Survived & Punished, 2018
- Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2016
- Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, Beth Richie, 2012
- From Protection to Punishment: Post-Conviction Barriers to Justice for Domestic Violence Survivor-Defendants in New York State, Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School and Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York, 2011
- Sexual Abuse of Women in United States Prisons: A Modern Corollary of Slavery, Brenda Smith, 2005
- Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Battered, Black Women, Beth Richie, 1996
- Reproductive Justice Disrupted: Mass Incarceration as a Driver of Reproductive Oppression, Crystal M. Hayes, Carolyn Sufrin, and Jamila B. Perritt, 2020
- Prisons neglect pregnant women in their healthcare policies, Prison Policy Initiative, 2019
- Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger, 2017
- Jailcare: Finding the Safety Net for Women behind Bars, Carolyn Sufrin, 2017
- Reproductive Injustice: The State of Reproductive Health Care for Women in New York State Prisons, Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of NY, 2015
- “If They Hand You A Paper, You Sign It”: A Call to End the Sterilization of Women in Prison, Sara Ainsworth and Rachel Roth, 2014
- Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973-2005: Implications for Women’s Legal Status and Public Health, Lynn Paltrow and Jeanne Flavin, 2013
- Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective & others, 2007
- Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, Dorothy Roberts, 1998
- The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race and Women, Prison, and the Drug War, Drug Policy Alliance, 2018
- Roadmap for Promoting Health and Justice: A Smarter, More Effective National Drug and Alcohol Policy, Legal Action Center, 2016
- A 25-Year Quagmire: The War on Drugs and Its Impact on American Society, The Sentencing Project, 2007
- Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policies on Women and Families, American Civil Liberties Union, Break the Chains, and Brennan Center at NYU School of Law, 2005
- Sending New Yorkers to Jail: Police Unions, Campaign Contributions, and the Political Fight to Rollback Bail Reform, Center for Community Alternatives, Citizen Action of New York, and Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, 2020
- Selling Off Our Freedom: How Insurance Corporations Have Taken Over Our Bail System, Color of Change and ACLU Smart Justice Campaign, 2017
- Detaining the Poor: How money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time, Prison Policy Initiative, 2016
- Advocating for Women Living With HIV in Prisons or Jails in the US, The Well Project, 2019
- Positive Women’s Network Policy Agenda, Positive Women’s Network, 2018
- HIV Services for Women in New York State Prisons, Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York, 2015
- Breaking the Walls of Silence: AIDS and Women in a New York State Maximum Security Prison, Women of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility’s A.C.E. Program, 1998
- Locked Out: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights Due to A Felony Conviction, The Sentencing Project, 2020
- Race, Voting, and a Gaping Loophole: A Critical Look at the 14th Amendment, Equal Justice Initiative, 2018
- Racism & Felony Disenfranchisement: An Intertwined History, Brennan Center for Justice, 2017
- Getting Back on Course: Educational Exclusion and Attainment Among Formerly Incarcerated People, Prison Policy Initiative, 2018
- Boxed Out: Criminal History Screening and College Application Attrition, Center for Community Alternatives, 2015
- Changing Minds: The Impact of College in a Maximum-Security Prison, Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Women in Prison at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, 2001
- Out of Prison & Out of Work: Unemployment among formerly incarcerated people, Prison Policy Initiative, 2018
- Helping Moms, Dads, and Kids to Come Home: Eliminating Barriers to Housing for People with Criminal Records, Legal Action Center and National HIRE Network, 2016
- A Place to Call My Own: Women and the Search for Housing After Incarceration, Coalition for Women Prisoners, Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York, 2013
- My Sisters Keeper: A Book for Women Returning Home from Prison or Jail, Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of NY, 2008
- After Prison: Roadblocks to Reentry: A Report on State Legal Barriers Facing People with Criminal Records, Paul Samuels and Debbie Mukamal, 2004
Too often, we are treated as passive – often problematic – objects of expert and institutional treatment. Yet, the most effective prevention and health care work has come through our own active involvement, from the development of AIDS education, counseling and support, to peer facilitated prenatal classes to other critical health-related initiatives.
in “Reproductive Injustice: The State of Reproductive Health Care for Women in New York State Prisons”