The 19th
Biden will not use private federal prisons. Prison reform advocates want him to do more.
No private federal prisons house women. Advocates for incarcerated women, LGBTQ+ people hope this is just the start to big reform.
Donna Hylton, a formerly incarcerated woman and criminal justice advocate, said you can’t talk about eliminating private prisons without larger conversations about immigration detention and state prisons that detain the overwhelming portion of incarcerated people in this country. She hopes that this administration will “open the doors” for women like her, to hear their stories, and pay attention to the plight of women in the justice system — both violent and nonviolent offenders.
Research shows that many incarcerated women and girls are survivors of sexual assault and childhood trauma and that at least 30 percent of those serving murder or manslaughter charges were protecting themselves or family from violence. Hylton chronicles the sexual assault she endured as a child in her memoir, “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound.” It wasn’t until Hylton got to prison that she realized how common her story was.
“I thought that I was alone in my pain and my hurt. I went into prison, and that was not the truth anymore,” Hylton said. “…I was like, ‘Wow I’m not alone, so I’m not this monster.’”
