The California Coalition of Women Prisoners celebrates 25 years of activism 

CCWP has represented the women of California’s prison system. They have protested abuse and injustice, celebrated victories in justice reform, fought against life-without-parole sentences — and mourned the tragic loss of those whose lives ended while still incarcerated… 

the frontlines for any political movement, but the California Coalition of Women Prisoners (CCWP) organization is celebrating 25 years of advocating for and with people incarcerated in the state’s women’s prisons. 

“Together We Get Free” is this year’s anniversary theme for the organization. The group consists of the incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and prison abolitionists. 

CCWP has sponsored campaigns for the “Drop LWOP” (life without the possibility of parole), #Clemency Now, #No More Deaths, and #Stop ICE Transfers movements. 

It successfully advocated for the Sterilization Reparations Program, for which Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $7.5 million in the state’s 2021 budget to compensate survivors of involuntary sterilization in California prisons. The group partnered with California’s Latinas for Reproductive Justice and others for four years to gain this victory. 

“We cannot go back to an old normal — not in the health sphere where people are coercively sterilized, nor in the criminal injustice system where compassionate release is on the books but no one ever gets it, and elders and all those who are medically vulnerable are left to die in prison despite community calls for decarceration. We are together working for a new normal,” said a CCWP editorial in The Fire Inside, the organization’s newsletter. 

CCWP was founded in 1996 to support a lawsuit that challenged the state’s inadequate medical care system for prisoners at that time. Women inside Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) bonded to provide the humane care for each other in their time of medical need. Linda Fields wrote a heartfelt reflection on the death of her friend, Anna Jackson, who was going through a medical ordeal at CCWF. 

“We stole food for her that she could barely eat. We begged for medical help,” wrote incarcerated Fields for an article appearing in The Fire Inside. “Who cared about her? I did. I loved Annie. She was my best friend, my roommate. I swore that I would never watch another person die like she did. I promised her I would tell her story. Please remember Anna Jackson. She was a mother, a daughter, a friend. Don’t let her suffering be for nothing.” 

Witnessing those experiences galvanized the incarcerated women to file the lawsuit. Fields has Anna’s name in her locker and reads it every day to keep her name alive, reported the newsletter. 

CCWP launched the #No More Deaths campaign to bring awareness to the high rate of suicide in women’s prisons. CCWP helped raise money for funerals and led protests with family members outside of the prisons calling for prison transparency. 

“The experiences of the people caged in women’s prisons tend to be the most under-reported and invisible,” said Diana Block, CCWP current advisory board member, in a 2019 BAR Abolition Spotlight interview. “We realized a few years ago that the suicides occurring amounted to an epidemic. The prison authorities first ignored and then tried to cover up the tragic reality that suicides [within the state’s women’s facilities] were occurring at eight times the rate for women’s prisons nationwide. 

“Through our work with family members of those who had died we were able to mount a multi-pronged campaign. Finally in 2016 a legislator called for a state audit of suicide prevention practices and the audit, released in summer of 2017, corroborated our findings and recommended many policy changes [which are still to be implemented],” Block added. 

The organization developed a #MeToo Behind Bars campaign to support individuals who suffered physical assaults and sexual harassment inside prisons, including the under-reported abuses of trans and gender non-conforming people within state facilities. 

“When you hear about sexual assault in the workplace, everyone is freaking out about it and saying that this has to stop. People are appalled watching the news, but there’s thousands of people who can’t complain at all,” Stacy Rojas, who identifies as “they” and is formerly incarcerated, told SQNews. “You’re stuck in a place where nobody worries about you. Here in this state, there are thousands of people going through this and it’s kept a secret. 

“[It] runs so deep — trans women are looked at in a f@#ked-up way. Toxic patriarchal men look at them and are upset that they believe in their head that they are men and can’t believe that they want to be a woman. They can’t understand what trans is at all. 

“I can’t imagine a positive future for the CDCR, and in my heart I think ending it all would be the best option,” she said, referring to the prison system. “But right now I will fight so that things can be a little better for folks in there.” 

CCWP has built a support network for immigrants inside and outside prison with the #Stop ICE Transfers campaign and the Compañeras [Companions] Project, an inside support group. CCWP supported the Vision Act (AB 937) — a bill that would have prevented CDCR or California county jails from cooperating with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The bill did not pass. 

“California is a sanctuary state. The governor has it in his power to issue an executive order to stop all transfers from CDCR to ICE,” said Ny Nourn, CCWP coordinator. “The work of the statewide coalition will continue to grow into the next year.” 

CCWP partners with the Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Asian Law Caucus for education and social media campaigns. The coalitions have won some ICE releases, even with the stall of the bill. 

The Compañeras Project supports incarcerated immigrant women who face deportation, have language barriers and suffer from the trauma of trafficking. 

“A woman lost her six children in one fell swoop because she did not speak and understand English,” said Patricia Fernandez, one of the outside founders of the project. “The papers were in English and there was no translation. CCWP did not have access to a Spanish-speaking lawyer at that time.” 

Laura Santos, a CCWP member, added, “It’s harder for non-English speakers to advocate for themselves. There was one incident where a women was speaking in Spanish to a nurse. The doctor told her, ‘You don’t speak Spanish here.’ That really affected her. She didn’t want to get any more treatment from him. She felt…how does she know he is going to treat her properly?” 

The Compañeras Project offers translated materials and currently is advocating for Spanish-speaking self-help groups to prepare women for a parole hearing. 

The Drop LWOP campaign advocates an end to sentencing prisoners to life without the possibility of parole. “A Living Chance: A Storytelling Project” was created by CCWP to highlight the situations of women and transgender people serving LWOP sentences with an audio and photo art exhibition. 

Another campaign the organization wants to bring awareness to is #Defend Survivors (SurvivedAndPunished.org), which spotlights the incarcerated women who are survivors of sexual and domestic violence, but are living under the penalty of incarceration. 

“Whether addressing and intervening in medical neglect, coming together and forming sisterhood and communities of healing and care, or taking a stand against racism and xenophobia, the theme ‘together, we get free’ has been taken up consistently in The Fire Inside, answering clearly that freedom is collective, freedom is community, freedom is a right to safety, life, and family, and the necessary resources to thrive,” concluded the CCWP editorial on its 25th anniversary.