Conclusion

Build Families Not Prisons by Melanie Cervantes from the portfolio Voices From Outside: Artists Against the Prison Industrial Complex produced by Justseeds and Critical Resistance, June 2008. Image retrieved from justseeds.org"

California pioneered mass incarceration and exemplified the prison industrial complex from the 1980s until the mid 2000s. The state’s skyrocketing prison population included countless women and survivors of intimate partner violence. Angela Davis’ Black feminist theory encompassed both a vision of a society based on care instead of punishment and a practical organizing tool in struggles agains the prison industrial complex. Organizations like Critical Resistance and The California Coalition for Women Prisoners centered the web of interpersonal and state violence that forced women of color behind bars. As Californian prisons became infamously overcrowded, incarcerated people faced extreme medical neglect and abuse and fought for their lives through legal action and everyday practices of care and solidarity. Charisse Shumate, Mary Shields, and the countless other survivors stood up to state sanctioned abuse and medical neglect by successfully challenging the state in court. Even after Shumate passed away, the incarcerated community in women’s prisons continued to organize for their rights, dignity, and freedom by educating each other about domestic violence and their rights to healthcare. With the help of the CCWP and devoted legal counsel, many survivors including Shields and Savage are now free and continue to support the community in organizations like the CCWP and Sister Warriors. Although COVID-19 continues to threaten incarcerated people, the CCWP, Survived and Punished, and their allies relentlessly raise the voices of women like April Harris. After years of struggling against horrific prison conditions, they have suffered enough abuse and refuse to be silenced.