ALT Black and white graphic. No new women's prison.. now or ever march with us against prison construction on 09/14 Graphic with words wrapped in a circle around the letters HDR read A prison is a prison is a prison About HDR. HDR has built 275 jails and prisons in the US and has the contract to design the new women;s prison in MA HDR refuses to respond to directly impacted women's concerns about this project HDR is meeting regularly with the DOC and they are hiding the process from the public HDr is not considering alternatives to incarceration because they profit from prison construction

ALT Screenshot of a letter to the editor Urgings of imprisoned women and their advocates go unheard I’ve worked phone banks. I’ve called my legislators. I’ve emailed them. I’ve visited their offices. I’ve gathered signatures to send to them. I’ve sat for seven hours in an airless room waiting to testify. But more important, some of the women the state imprisons have given up hours of their time waiting to briefly speak via Zoom; risked retaliation from prison staff for speaking about the poor conditions they deal with; and often shared some of the most traumatic details of their own lives inside and outside of prison so that legislators can understand how and why a new prison will not fix anything. It won’t keep the public any safer (in fact, it would make us less safe by siphoning away funds for constructive programs in our communities). It won’t make prison more humane, since the problems with existing prisons have little to do with the physical structures.

ALT The worst thing is, the legislators know all this. How do I know? Because they passed the prison construction moratorium last session, before it was vetoed by then-governor Charlie Baker. But this session, they chose not to vote on it. They chose to ignore the wishes and needs of their constituents. They chose to let us keep drifting into expanding the carceral state. Willa Bandler Walpole

ALT But the reality is that something is different in my life right now: My dad has been in the St. Clair County Jail in Port Huron, Michigan, since October, and I’m not allowed to see him. So, other kids and I sued the county and others for the right to hug our parents, as part of a larger Right 2 Hug project that aims to restore family visits and stop companies from making money off family separation.

ALT The judge said the suit “failed to demonstrate immediate and irreparable harm.” The women, represented by the Committee for Public Counsel Services, claimed in a 21-page complaint filed in Essex County Superior Court that the sheriff's office moved the inmates from the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston to the Barnstable facility, nearly 100 miles away, in violation of their constitutional rights to counsel and equal protection under the law.