In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we’ve compiled a list of books by Black women whose work deepens our understanding of how Black women and girls are criminalized—and how liberation becomes possible when justice is healing-centered, gender-responsive, culturally affirming, trauma-informed, and rooted in community-led practices.

Over the past 30 years, the women's prison population in the United States has exploded, with much of the growth occurring among Black women. The Prison Policy Initiative estimates that 1.9 million women are released from prisons and jails each year—that means about 1 in 8 people released from prisons and more than 1 in 6 people released from jails are women. However, the availability of gender-responsive reentry services does not meet the need, especially for Black women, wh

Black women are currently overrepresented in carceral systems and yet underrepresented in conversations about what effective reentry...

This month, the National Black Women’s Justice Institute published “The Hidden Heart of Reentry: Lessons from Essie Justice Group’s Black Mama’s Bail Out Campaign and the Expertise of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones”—an evaluation of the Black Mama Bailout campaign. The report explores how the annual campaign reunites Black mothers with their children and families while highlighting the often invisible labor and leadership of women impacted by incarceration.