URBS 3546: Carceral Geographies (Urban Studies Junior Seminar)

Incarcerated women write about their experiences in prison and how they are separated from their families and children. This compilation zine also contains poetry and art and is distributed by Chicago Books to Women in Prison.

In this color-printed, political zine, the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund writes about how COVID-19 exacerbated the injustices of the legal system and continues to answer questions such as "Who runs the system," "How the system punishes," and "What we can do?" The zine includes statistics regarding the budget and spending of the NYC District Attorney's office (DA) and statistics of the people who were arraigned.

The transcript of a speech by New York public defender Janie is reprinted here to draw attention to Black women who have experienced police brutality. Janie shares a case where a Black client was told to attend anger management classes for 12 months while the white client was dismissed, though the charges against them were virtually the same. The Black client accepts the plea despite Janie's advocating to keep fighting for a dismissal, highlighting how racist language towards Black women can be internalized and have systemic consequences of injustice. The zine memorializes the names of Black women murdered by police officers. (from a zine abstract by Nayla Delgado)

As a survivor of domestic violence and an ex-employee of a domestic violence shelter, Emi Koyama has had first-hand experience with the exclusion and abuse of power within the shelter system supposedly created to empower survivors. She employs the personal stories of women in shelters, scholarly articles, and historical data to articulate the need for a restructuring of the shelter system, emphasizing harm-reduction and a balance of powers rather than the present paternalistic and/or radical-feminist utopian structure. She also samples some of her proposed reforms from other successful groups such as San Francisco's Coalition for Homelessness and the Harm Reduction Coalition. The zine includes an outline for a workshop on how to implement survivor-centered services and hold service providers accountable.

This political zine, comprised of one long essay, highlights injustices suffered by women prisoners, including sexual abuse by prison workers and lack of good health care. Also included are details of successful and unsuccessful uprisings and actions taken by female prisoners, and their invisibility in the media. The zine provides notes and a bibliography.

Mariame Kaba provides insight to the history of Black women's involvement with the criminal legal system through the life of Laura Scott, a 19th century Black woman who was incarcerated at San Quentin. Visual elements include archival documents and images concerning Laura Scott's life.

Written while incarcerated at a California women's prison, this political zine defiantly outlines the hierarchical, discriminatory, and abusive system rampant in the author's correctional facility. She describes how the racial and class boundaries mirror those of outside society and how prison guards manipulate inmates for sexual favors. Despite administrative attempts to curb her expository writing, she refuses to let prison stunt her own identity. The author is a lesbian of mixed Arab descent.

Gurulé and Rios situate participatory defense through the experience of Ousman Darboe's experience with immigration and highlights the way multiple systems of oppression come together to fuel the deportation machine. They cite Black Panther ideology and abolitionist frameworks as contributors to their work. Containing a timeline of Darboe's time in an ICE detention center and of the campaign over the three year period, the zine breaks down how to build a defense campaign into 6 sections: Building your Defense Committee, Fathering Information, Mobilizing Community, Make Campaign Visible, Social Media, Fundraising. Each section contains check-lists, suggested activities, and definitions. The last page of the zine and back cover is an interview between one of the writers, Rios, and Darboe on his experience working with the defense team. Zine abstract by Grace Li.

Focused on partner abuse in radical, queer, and activist communities, this comp zine contains essays operating on both personal and organization levels. Women that identify as queer and hetero, of color and white, differently-abled and typically-abled all contribute, as well as organizations such as INCITE!, Communities Against Rape and Abuse, and Philly's Pissed. Articles address physical, verbal, and mental abuse, abuse and disability, intersections of oppressions, queer relationships, abuse and trans folks, consent, "mutual abuse," and offer suggestions for communities dealing with intimate partner violence.

A 42 paged, yearbook-style zine that accounts for the collective's first year of organizing together, roughly from Summer of 2019 through Summer of 2020. Demonstrations, prison visitation reflections, original artwork from our members, organizing updates, original articles and more are featured in its pages.

This political support zine tells the story of Marissa Alexander's experience surviving a 2010 assault by her husband, and being criminalized for her self-defense. Alexander received a 20-year prison sentence under Florida's 10-20-Life mandatory minimum sentencing law, and controversial legal challenges for her freedom followed. The zine relates other criminal cases in which women of color were incarcerated following acts of self-defense or through "entrapment, coercion, and abuse by law enforcement." There is also information on mandatory sentencing minimums, as well as reprinted letters from the #31forMARISSA letter writing campaign, along with actions for the reader to take to support Marissa.

Women incarcerated in correctional facilities across the United States contribute articles, poetry, and art to this zine devoted to the injustices and experiences of the prison system specific to women.

Compiled from personal stories and conversations shared within a discussion group on community accountability, Thoughts offers detailed strategies, suggestions and examples on how best to support survivors and perpetrators of intimate violence and abuse. The authors categorize and describe varying community roles in resolving conflict, with articles on involving reluctant perpetrators in transformative support groups, the risks associated with calling the police, and precautions to take when leaving an abusive household. This self-help zine has a bright orange cover, with clipart and images from Persepolis and other comics appearing throughout, with personal stories to serve as examples for the reader. Zine abstract by Claudia.

Voces is a compilation zine with stories, poems, and photographs from people of color, indigenous folks, trans people and queer survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence and sexual assault. Included topics are healing from trauma, transformative words used as a healing mechanism, enabling healing, life after trauma, self help guides and resources, self healing, forgiveness and collective healing.

Mariame Kaba and artist Nicholls Flynn collaborate on a minicomic on prison abolition, addressing questions like "What about bad people? What about rapists?" Kaba explains how those concerns are rooted in the fear of the other, providing information about the history of incarceration and policing, and using the specific example of the Bresha Meadows case.

This political compilation zine by women prisoners is comprised of letters and articles that detail the hardships that women face in prison, such as forced labor and brutality, classism, racism, and sexism. Also included are a Death Row inmate's anti-death penalty letter, zine reviews, and pieces touching on Lori Berenson, Karen Horning, Bonnie Kerness, and the Jane Doe Society.

n this political compilation zine, contributors discuss their experiences with sexism, rape, and self-defense and how they defended themselves in tough situations. There are articles as well as poems, comics and an account of one woman's experience with sexual harassment while working as an emergency medical technician.