Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Thursday, December 04, 2008

Fallen Women:

By Silja JA Talvi

Three years ago, I journeyed back to Santa Fe to return to a city where I had once lived—and that always seemed to call me back.

I headed out from Seattle with a snowboard for the freshly blanketed mountains, as well as an insatiable appetite for the food I could not find in the Pacific Northwest. But most of all, I traveled back because the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility had agreed to let me come and spend a day in the state’s only women’s prison in Grants.

I was eager for the experience, not just because much of my work in journalism had centered on criminal justice and prisons, but also because my editor at the Santa Fe Reporter, Julia Goldberg, had given me the kind of assignment that investigative reporters like myself treasure the most: Just go out there and see what you find.

Owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now the nation’s biggest private prison company, New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility (NMWCF) opened its doors in 1989 as the first privatized female prison in the country. From the beginning, the facility locked up women from all classification levels—from drug possession to murder and everything in between—and from all parts of the state, no matter how distant.

Even back in 1989, the strategy of locking up women far from their communities of origin—to an isolated rural town inaccessible by public transit—should have been seen as a problem. NMWCF’s original population consisted of 149 women. Today, roughly 650 female prisoners at Grants are estimated to have 1,800 dependent children, many of whom don’t see their mothers for years on end and who sometimes end up in foster care.

It also should have been recognized, without too much intellectual effort, that a 28-year-old homeless heroin addict serving time for street prostitution would have very different psychological, medical and counseling needs than a 56-year-old woman who shot her chronic alcoholic husband—a man who took to using his fists once he got drunk enough.
SF Reporter

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read this entire article. I shouldn't be shocked that there exists a brainwashing organization that is in cahoots with CCA, called the "God Pod," Neither should I be shocked that a judge stopped a law suit against such shinanigans. Having come from a long line of patriots I have never given up on this country, but; This makes me not proud to be an American.

Anonymous said...

I agree they need two different psycological counseling excuse me I'm going to change that to they need another women survival technigues that could teach them that their not a bad person that needs to get good. But a sick person that needs to get well. I'm a recpvery addict who supported my habit by prostitution. I've been to prison. BIG QUESTION WHY CAN'T WE SHARE OUR STORIES. NO BECAUSE WE HAVE A CRIMINAL HISTORY! THIS TOTALLY SUCKS. YOU CAN'T KEEP WHAT YOU HAVE IF YOU DON'T GIVE IT AWAY.

Anonymous said...

Grateful addicts story proves that people can change, rid themselves of drug dependency just as people addicted to tobacco for years have quit. We didnt lock them up for years first?? There should be no felonys given for drug USE, just to those who sell drugs for huge profits!!! djw

Anonymous said...

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