Arts as a Tool for Education and Change: Helping Formerly Incarcerated Women
According to the sentencing project, there are 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system in The United States. When women were first incarcerated in the The US, they were housed alongside men in the “general population” of prisons. It was not until 1870 that women and men began to be housed separately in response to the sexual assault and forms of degradation they faced daily when housed in the general population pre 1870. It’s safe to say that there have been improvements for women in US prisons, but there is still work to be done. The question is, what has been done and what needs to continue to be done for this group of prisoners?
On February 13th, the Arizona Department of Corrections revised it’s policy on menstrual pads from giving inmates 12 free pads a month to 36. While this is definitely progress, the department made this change instead of supporting a bill that would give women access free and unlimited menstrual products. Which led me to wonder; what is the prison climate for women like in NJ? Do they have their basic sanitary needs met, and what other issues do they face?
To attempt to answer some of these questions, I spoke to Valerie Jones, a case manager for child protective services and a reentry coordinator at The Middlesex County Jail in North Brunswick. As far as health goes, the coverage for incarcerated women in NJ is better than some other states. According to Valerie, a pregnant incarcerated woman is covered by Medicaid for one year, once the child is born, the child is covered for a full year, and one can re-enroll in the program after that. Valerie claims that the biggest issues facing incarcerated women, both before and after their incarceration, in NJ are drug abuse and domestic abuse. And going off of that, she says that “The removal of a parent, whether it be a mother, father, say the children have to now live with dad or the boyfriend because mom is gone, this causes a downward spiral financially for these families.” She goes on to say, “I experience a lot of people, in these situations, needing help, more social services, dealing with homelessness, where they have to recreate themselves and readjust and try and to become like the breadwinner.” She also notes that this stress is a lot on the children too. “ The kids are now in treatment now because, say they are missing their dad, their dad is in jail, we have to deal with a lot of that where we have to get services for even the children at this point.” I asked Valerie what needs to be done to insure that these people and families affected in situations like this need to help them. She responded to me by saying we need better and more programming to cater to these families. For example, The Center for Great Expectations in Somerset, New Jersey is a place that will treat women who deal with trauma, drug abuse, emotional abuse, and so on without separating families, without separating mothers from children.
Many of these women and families need to deal, in some capacity, with the department of Children and family services, DCFS. It is already hard enough for people to find housing, work, and childcare in the state of New Jersey, it is even more difficult if you’ve been incarcerated. If a person is dealing with DCFS and trying to get their children back, they need to have housing, a fulltime job, and be receiving treatment for any drug issues. It’s hard to do all of these things and have to pay for childcare. That is why organizations like Childcare Solutions in Perth Amboy, NJ are so important. For a person who is working full time or in school full time, they will pay for a portion of the daycare for your children.
The families need these state funded programs to regain their stability and keep out of the system. The question becomes, how do we get this information to people? Sure, we can give them numbers and share stats about some of the struggles women and families, but what mobilizes people? One answer to some of these questions involves implementing creative engagement in communities. Creative engagement is the arts and media answer to the question, “how do we get people to care and do something?” The idea is to take numbers and stats about the problems, and create something embodying the information that people can engage with. It can be almost anything, from a play to a poem, an art installation, or even a dance, and so on. The point is to create a story to share relevant to the issue at hand, that will equal parts entertain and educate the audience to bring them to make change in their communities. We as humans often cannot really understand a problem until we’ve experienced it. There is a need for work that not only encapsulates the experiences of these women, but also emphasises to people the importance of creating, supporting, and sustaining community programming.
