The challenge

Since 1980, the women's prison population in the United States has grown by nearly 500 percent. In an era of increasing reliance on imprisonment as a perceived solution to a range of social problems, more and more women are serving time in United States prisons and jails. Most of these women are mothers who are serving time for nonviolent crimes. In addition, women of color are disproportionately represented in prison systems, comprising more than 60 percent of incarcerated women. Most women in prison come from extreme poverty and are survivors of violence, particularly sexual assault; many suffer from severe and often life-threatening physical or mental illnesses. The majority have been the primary caretakers of their children; their removal from the community leaves many children to be raised by the state in foster care or the juvenile justice system. The imprisonment of millions of people, often people of color, for nonviolent, drug-related crimes, “has a devastating long-term impact on the communities from which prisoners come,” Cassandra Shaylor and Cynthia Chandler write. “The economies of these communities are deeply affected by the loss of potential wage earners who are removed and sent to prison.”

Seeds of commitment

With their academic backgrounds, Cassandra Shaylor and Cynthia Chandler could have chosen easier, more remunerative careers. Shaylor is a graduate of American University Washington College of Law and currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Chandler graduated from Harvard Law School. Both women have been involved in prison advocacy for their entire legal careers. Justice Now grew out of their concern about what they call the “prison industrial complex.” “First and foremost, we are motivated by the women in prison with whom we work,” say Shaylor and Chandler. As human rights advocates and civil rights attorneys, they are “motivated by a vision of a world that no longer relies on prisons” as a perceived solution to social problems. “The women with whom we must struggle side by side every day are the women who are the least valued and the most oppressed in the society.”


Accomplishments

Justice Now, two years old, is the nation’s first legal training program to serve imprisoned women. “We serve two distinct communities – women prisoners and students – both of which are significantly engaged in our work,” say the attorneys. The program focuses on 8,000 prisoners in the two largest women's prisons in the world, both located in Chowchilla, Calif. Its mission is to provide women prisoners with legal assistance and information, and to organize community-based campaigns against inhumane treatment within the penal system. Shaylor and Chandler teach undergraduates and law students how to provide women prisoners with direct legal services. The program also supports peer education in prisons, and partners with prisoners and community organizers to create public education campaigns. Shaylor and Chandler have developed a curriculum for teaching prisoners' family members and supporters how to navigate the state’s Compassionate Release process, which allows dying prisoners to return home to die with dignity. Working with the family and friends of a young woman who was suffering from cervical cancer, Justice Now persuaded authorities to release her. The victory allowed the woman to go home and spend her last few days with her family. Hers was the fourth life-term compassionate release in California history. Since then, Justice Now has won the compassionate release of four other women. Last fall Shaylor and Chandler worked with several prisoner rights groups to organize legislative hearings on women in prison in California. For the first time, women prisoners were able to testify before legislators inside the prison. The alliance is now working with these legislators to achieve policy reform.

In October 2000, Shaylor and Chandler filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections claiming the wrongful death of Rosemary Willeby, a 49-year-old woman with hepatitis C. This case will be one of the first to challenge the standard of hepatitis care in prisons. Justice Now will use the case as a forum for teaching students and community organizers legal advocacy skills and to generate media coverage and public education campaigns about this growing public health crisis. “We developed prevention and treatment materials around common conditions - such as hepatitis C, H.I.V., and gynecological cancers - that we provided to our clients to share with other women,” report Shaylor and Chandler. “We brought outside medical professionals in to meet and train the women, who soon began to identify themselves as peer educators/organizers. Over the year, their network will provide assistance to approximately 1000 women who have usually had no access to health care information.” Last year, Justice Now also began working with women prisoners on an oral history project. Several of the prisoners served by Justice Now, interviewed recently, said they wish to continue to work with the program after their release. One woman described how Chandler and Shaylor have healed her sense of alienation, and have "reminded me of my humanity – (how) helping another person helps me.” Another woman, infected with hepatitis C, spoke with tears in her eyes about her faith that Chandler and Shaylor are “not going to let me die in here," that she will "kiss her mother again."


Their leadership style

Chandler and Shaylor spend hundreds of hours each year visiting imprisoned women and training law students, lawyers, and community organizers to advocate on behalf of women prisoners. With their team, the two leaders make 12-hour prison visits every other week. Justice Now includes women prisoners in its organizational structure and decision-making. “We recognize that any attempt to build progressive alternatives to the current prison system must be directed by the people most affected by it. Therefore, women inside direct our advocacy efforts; we lend prisoners the support they need to organize themselves,” the two leaders say. “The prisoner organizers with whom we work form an essential part of our communication network. Several of these women are now members of Justice Now's community advisory board.” Shaylor focuses on prisoners' legal rights, particularly those violated by abusive guards and by use of solitary confinement. Chandler’s specialties are medical neglect and compassionate release cases. They also build innovative alliances among activists, students, prisoners and prisoners' families. “The legislative hearing we organized brought together prisoners, practitioners, advocates and academics to testify side by side before legislators,” the two leaders report. “As part of this process we helped members of these groups coordinate their testimony so that they could present strong and uniform policy recommendations, increasing their systemic impact.” The two lawyers have also involved themselves in collective organizing efforts. Chandler is a community organizer with California Coalition for Women Prisoners (C.C.W.P.); Shaylor co-founded a branch of C.C.W.P. at the University of California, Santa Cruz and mentored students who now run the organization. They also co-founded the Critical Resistance Campaign that has brought together activists, academics and professionals to work against the expansion of prisons.


The future

One measure of Justice Now is its success at creating future leaders. Justice Now’s ability to link academic research of prisons with legal advocacy and grass roots involvement has greatly deepened awareness of prison issues in the academic community and has inspired many undergraduate students to work on behalf of women prisoners. An internship program is critical to building Justice Now’s base of advocates and expanding its caseload. Chandler and Shaylor also hope to include high school students in the program. “We are working with legislators to develop policy initiatives reducing systemic medical neglect of women prisoners,” they report. “Finally, there is new momentum from the public as the debate about capital punishment opens up the possibility for a broader discussion about prisons and prisoners' rights.”


More about Cassandra Shaylor and Cynthia Chandler

“This is lonely work. So few people do advocacy for women in prisons. They have stuck for years working with the same two prisons. Not just a fad, a passing fancy. They won't leave when the work gets tough, and the prisoners know that.”
– Jennifer Rotman, a Justice Now intern and law student

“Through their impressive critical faculties, and by their example of selflessness, they have attracted and inspired many others to join prisoners' rights campaigns.”
– Angela Davis, professor at University of California, Santa Cruz and member of the Justice Now national advisory board

“Unless we make space for the new leaders, we die. We need new life, new blood.”
– Dorsey Nunn, director of the Legal Services for Prisoners with Children Program, describing how Chandler and Shaylor inspire others to take up the cause of women prisoners