For Black women and girls, disability (or the appearance of it) is more likely to be weaponized to facilitate and justify arrest, confinement, and even death.

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

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.

NBWJI statement on police shooting and killing of Sonya Massey