AUG 5: Conversation with Monica Jones and Laverne Cox: The Criminalization of Trans Women of Color and Visions for Justice

from SWOP-Phoenix and the ACLU of Arizona, 7:30 on August 5 at the Herberger!

Conversation with Monica Jones and Laverne Cox: 

The Criminalization of Trans Women of Color and Visions for Justice

Herberger Theater Center- Stage West

Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 7:30PM

Doors open at 7PM for pre-registered seating and 7:15PM for general seating

Alongside Arizona’s already brutal racial profiling laws, severe anti-prostitution statutes enable police to profile and harass people of color, people in poverty, and LGBTQ people. Trans women of color disproportionately face the discriminatory and detrimental effects of these laws.

Join us for a discussion with Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox and Phoenix activist Monica Jones about the fight for fairness and justice for trans people.

Jones, a social work graduate student at ASU and advocate for sex worker rights, is currently fighting a conviction for “manifesting prostitution”-- a crime in Phoenix that some have taken to calling “walking while trans.” Cox is the star of the critically acclaimed Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community.

This event is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. To register for this event, visit: www.acluaz.org/standwithmonica

RSVP on Facebook here

 

Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona and Phoenix Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) with generous support from the Herberger Theater Center

Still standing with Monica Jones: Trial tomorrow!

UPDATE (3/18/14): MONICA'S TRIAL POSTPONED UNTIL APRIL 11, 2014 DUE TO CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES. STAY TUNED!

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STAND WITH MONICA JONES!

Friday, March 14 8:00am /  Phoenix Municipal Court / 300 W. Washington St. PHX 85003

Thanks to Darby Hickey and the Best Practices Policy Project for their support!

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Monica Jones and the Fight Against Racial and Gender Police Profiling in the U.S.

DARBY HICKEY
huffington post
3/12/2014

On March 14, Monica Jones goes to court. She will plead not guilty to manifestation of prostitution. And she will be making history in the process.


Monica is fighting back against a system that normally churns people through the cogs of justice with little resistance. Across the U.S., individuals (most of them women, many of them trans, but men too) arrested and charged on prostitution-related charges usually enter guilty pleas. When evidence consists of a police officer's word against yours, combined with social stigma towards sex workers or those profiled as such, plus overburdened and ill-prepared defense lawyers, you don't go to bat for your own innocence. You take the plea and hope for the best.

But Monica wasn't having that. She was arrested after protesting Arizona's harsh criminal justice system, which includes exceptionally stringent provisions on prostitution. She was protesting a program in Phoenix that ostensibly helps people involved in commercial sex to avoid criminal prosecution and get help, but instead sends the majority of them to jail after they "fail" the program. But as a black trans woman, she might well have been arrested anyway, thanks to a phenomenon we call "Walking While Trans." If you are a trans woman or have ever worked with us, you likely know this phrase. It describes the experience of constantly being harassed and sometimes arrested by police, who assume, simply by your existence as a trans women (particularly if you are a trans woman of color) that you must be engaging in commercial sex. All the time, everywhere.

In other words, "Walking While Trans" is a succinct summation of the interconnected biases against trans women (and trans people more broadly, sometimes called transphobia) and against people who trade sexual services for money or other things (sometimes called whorephobia) and bound up in that special sauce of racism.

The ground-breaking part is how Monica is fighting back against all of this. Her case is emblematic of how law enforcement violates people's civil rights on a regular basis not only in Phoenix but across the U.S. She is challenging the criminalization of herself and her community, the criminalization of trans people and black people and sex workers and people of color.

Monica and other human rights defenders in Phoenix are taking their fight not just to U.S. courts, but also to the United Nations. They have already submitted a report to the UN on the U.S. government's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). And advocates working with Monica will be in Geneva for the UN Human Rights Council's review of U.S. obligations under ICCPR the same day that Monica will be in court in Phoenix. It will be a day of action to confront racist and sexist policing.

Monica and others are also calling out those who claim to want to help sex workers, by treating people in the sex trade as victims instead of criminals -- and who think arresting sex workers is how you "help" them. New collaborations between police and non-governmental organizations, such as Project ROSE in Phoenix, allege to provide alternatives to incarceration for people involved in sex trade. Perversely, these efforts actually increase the numbers of people arrested under prostitution laws through street sweeps and mass online sting operations. In the case of Project ROSE, part of the process of "helping victims" involves taking them to a church where they interview with police and prosecutors but aren't allowed to speak with defense lawyers. Arrestees all but plead guilty in joining the program, and if they fail to meet attendance requirements -- as 70 percent of them do -- they end up in jail.

The rights violations that police commit in the course of enforcing anti-prostitution and other "quality of life" laws are so pervasive and those targeted so stigmatized that the system is rarely challenged. Which is why Monica's stance is so important.

She is part of a fierce legacy of resistance and resilience. Like countless others who have fought back against discriminatory policing, she has been targeted precisely for speaking out. Monica is fighting for her rights, but she is also acting for the rights of everyone, in Phoenix and across the country, to be free of such abuses. Let's join her in that struggle on March 14th.

Monica Jones illustration by Micah Bazant.

Follow Darby Hickey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DarbyBPPP

SWOP-Phoenix: Stop profiling trans women of color! Support Monica Jones!

From our comrades at the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) Phoenix.  Please all signt he pledge - it'll put you on the mailing list for further actions.

Monica's trial is March 14, 2014.

"Dear Friends and Supporters,

As many of you know, Monica Jones was targeted in last year's anti-prostitution raids as part of the prostitution diversion initiative, Project ROSE- a collaboration between the ASU School of Social Work and local law enforcement. SWOP Phoenix and Monica's support team are gearing up for Monica's trial, and trying to get her story out wide and far. Please go to the webpage linked below and read the letter detailing Project ROSE and Monica's story. This letter also details our demands for an end to racist and transphobic policing, an end to Project ROSE, and justice for Monica Jones.

We ask that you please sign the pledge to support Monica, and help us circulate her story widely. http://www.swopphoenix.org/monica/"

The "disposable" human: Sex worker serial killings in Long Island

Shame on all of us for the Long Island sex worker serial killings. The criminalization and marginalization of sex workers is what makes it so easy for people like this to kill them - and for prison guards to ignore them to death. We need to stop punishing people who support themselves in that industry if we are to have any hope of protecting human rights on the streets, as well as in our homes. Let's try to watch our brothers' and sisters' backs a little better, folks. No one should grow up in this country thinking that any group of human beings is disposable.

The NYT did a good job with this article, which is proceeded by a press release about the killings by sex worker's rights activists. Our thoughts are with all the men and women out there, whatever type of sex trade they're in, who are subjected to the brutality of our misogynistic, homophobic, abusive society.

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SWOP-NYC and SWANK have produced a press release (below) and there is a media analysis up at Best Practices Policy Project. www.bestpracticespolicy.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Friday, April 8, 2011

Contact: Dylan Wolf, SWANK, 347-748-9163, swank@riseup.net

Sarah Jenny Bleviss, SWOP-NYC, 347-841-4908, swop.nyc@gmail.com

SEX WORKER GROUPS RESPOND TO LONG ISLAND MURDERS

New York -

Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK) and Sex Workers Outreach Project NYC (SWOP-NYC) are dismayed that four more bodies were discovered on Long Island earlier this week. Police believe that a serial killer is responsible for murdering at least eight people found on a remote Suffolk County beach since December. Reports indicate the murder victims were in the sex trade. As sex workers and allies, SWANK and SWOP-NYC mourn the lives of these individuals and extend our sympathies to their families and communities.

"Sex workers are targeted for violence because of the stigma against what we do," Dylan Wolf, a SWANK member said, "People think they can do whatever they want to us and they won’t get caught. And because of bad laws, social isolation and discrimination, they get away with it all the time. But like those murdered, we’re not disposable, bad people - we have lives that matter and people that love us. No matter who we are or what we do to make ends meet, we don’t deserve to die - we deserve good lives."

A recent New York Times article suggested that dozens, if not hundreds, of people in the sex industry have been murdered in New York State since 1990. "Stories like what’s happened on Long Island make us fear for our safety," said SWANK member Michael Bottoms, "As sex workers, we already know that stigma puts us at risk for being targeted, and so we take as many precautions as we can. But if we do experience violence, most of us can’t go to the cops, because we could get arrested, they might not take us seriously, or they could have been the ones who were violent to us in the first place."

"When we ignore violence against sex workers, we support a culture where a serial killer can murder eight, twelve, or even dozens of sex workers without the media, the police or the general public being outraged or even thinking twice," said Maryse Mitchell-Brody, a SWOP-NYC organizer, "We won’t end this violence by keeping the sex trade illegal, because it isn’t going anywhere – this just drives people further underground and makes them more vulnerable to violence. Murders like these show that we must use new strategies to create safety and dignity that don’t reinforce stigma or discrimination."

To learn more about what you can do to support the rights of current and former sex workers and those with experience in the sex trade to safety and well-being, visit

www.swop-nyc.org.

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Prostitutes’ Disappearances Were Noticed Only When the First Bodies Were Found

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

The Suffolk County Police Department searched for remains on Thursday along Ocean Parkway. Eight women’s bodies have been found in the area.

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

New York Times

April 7, 2011

To those who loved them, the four prostitutes were daughters, sisters, friends. To the person or persons who killed them and dumped their bodies in the desolate brush off Ocean Parkway on Long Island, they were disposable.

Lee Ferris/Poughkeepsie Journal

In Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Kendall L. Francois admitted killing eight prostitutes in the late 1990s.

Mike Albans/Associated Press

On Long Island, Joel Rifkin, shown in 1993, confessed to killing 17 prostitutes.

Pool photo by Elaine Thompson

Gary Ridgway, shown in Seattle in 2003, said he killed 48 women. "I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught,” he said in court.

Reuters

The four bodies found on Long Island in December were identified as those of former prostitutes.

The four young women discovered off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach — Megan Waterman, 22; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27 — vanished between July 2007 and last September. Each disappearance drew little or no notice. It took the prospect of a serial killer, and the subsequent discovery of four more bodies, for that to change.

The investigation was set off by the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert in May. Ms. Gilbert, 24, of Jersey City, was last seen in a seaside residential community a few miles from the first four bodies, and she is still missing. Ms. Gilbert was a prostitute, but much more: She was an aspiring actress, and the oldest of Mari Gilbert’s three daughters.

In an interview, Mari Gilbert said the police failed to protect her daughter and, along with the press and the public, did not take her disappearance seriously until she became part of Long Island’s latest serial-killer case.

“I think they look at them like they’re throwaway,” Mari Gilbert said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “They don’t care.”

Living in the margins of society, often trading sex for money with anonymous clients in anonymous places, struggling with drug addiction and estrangement from their families, prostitutes have long been invisible, vulnerable prey for the wicked and the depraved. Few notice them when they are alive, fewer still when they are missing or found dead.

The quarter-mile stretch where the four women were found is 23 miles from where another prostitute, Tiffany Bresciani, 22, was found wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of a pickup truck in Mineola in 1993, and about 30 miles from where yet another prostitute, Kelly Sue Bunting, 28, was discovered in a trash bin in Melville in 1995. Ms. Bresciani was strangled by Joel Rifkin, an unemployed landscaper who confessed to killing 17 prostitutes. Ms. Bunting was one of the victims of Robert Shulman, a former postal worker convicted of killing and dismembering five prostitutes.

In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Kendall L. Francois admitted strangling and murdering eight prostitutes from 1996 to 1998, and storing their bodies in the home he shared with his family. In a courtroom in Seattle in 2003, Gary Ridgway, the so-called Green River Killer, who admitted to killing 48 women, seemed, when a prosecutor read his statement of guilt, to be speaking for all serial killers throughout the decades and centuries who have victimized prostitutes.

“I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed,” Mr. Ridgway said in his statement. “I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”

On Thursday, a Suffolk County police spokeswoman said the search for evidence and additional bodies would expand over the Nassau County line starting Monday. Richard Dormer, the Suffolk police commissioner, told reporters that the search of the brush and grassy dunes on the Suffolk side was about to be completed. The police have no immediate plans to return to the Suffolk area, though Mr. Dormer left open that possibility. He had a message for what he described as women in the escort business: “They should be very careful with their contacts.”

The oldest profession is also one of the most deadly. The bodies of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of murdered prostitutes — women, men and transgender people — have been found in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut since 1990.

“It really feels like there’s just an open war against this population,” said Sienna Baskin, a lawyer and co-director of the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project, which provides legal and social services to New York City sex workers. “I think it makes all sex workers feel vulnerable to violence. Even if they’re working in a safe way, they live in a world where this happens regularly. From sexual assaults to stalking to theft to police brutality, these are really daily experiences that many sex workers face.”

On Dec. 17, six days after the first body was found on Long Island, former and current prostitutes and their supporters gathered at the Metropolitan Community Church of New York on West 36th Street for a candlelight vigil. The names of 70 sex workers killed in 2010 in the United States and around the world were read, as part of the seventh annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. People took turns reading the names: of Amy Lynn Gillespie of Pittsburgh and Monta K. of Berlin and Alicia Lee of Las Vegas and dozens more.

Audacia Ray, 30, helped organize the vigil. Ms. Ray is a former New York City sex worker who, like the four women found on Long Island, advertised for clients on Craigslist. “It’s always frightening,” Ms. Ray said of the Long Island case. “It feels like that could have been me. It could have been one of my friends.”

Before she retired about five years ago, Ms. Ray took precautions. She would call a friend on her cellphone when she arrived at a date with a client. Her friend on the other line already knew the address, and Ms. Ray made it a point to make the call in front of the client. Ms. Ray would tell her friend what time she would call back when the date was over. If she did not call back at the appointed time, the friend would wait 10 minutes and then call her. If Ms. Ray did not answer, the friend was instructed to call the police immediately.

“Sex workers often work in isolation because of the criminalized status of the work, but I don’t think sex workers live in isolation,” said Ms. Ray, now program director for the Red Umbrella Project, which helps sex workers tell their stories publicly. “There’s an assumption that if your life has gotten that bad, you’re expendable. That’s not true. A lot of people do care. We’re just not listened to.”

After her daughter went missing in late 1996, Patricia Barone, 67, tried to get news media outlets in Poughkeepsie to cover the story. Most declined. The body of her daughter, Gina Barone, 29, was discovered nearly two years later, in September 1998, in Mr. Francois’ ramshackle house a block from Vassar College.

Patricia Barone is raising her daughter’s child, who turns 17 next month. Gina Barone is buried in Poughkeepsie. The priest who baptized her in 1968 is the one who offered her funeral Mass in 1998.

“If one Vassar College girl was missing, we would have had cops all over the place,” Patricia Barone said. “Every one of these women is somebody’s child, and people don’t kind of get that. Your children are your children no matter what they do out there.”

Nate Schweber and Tim Stelloh contributed reporting.

Justice Roars: Crimes Against Nature law is a crime against us all.

86 the silence;

86 the violence.



Sex Worker Rights
Are Human Rights.

Remembering Marcia Powell.

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
December 17, 2009

from our friend Jordan Flaherty at the blog Justice Roars: The Louisiana Justice Institute...

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Justice Department Report, Released Today, Calls Louisiana's "Crime Against Nature" Law Discriminatory

Thursday, March 17, 2011

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on ColorLines.com


Eve is a transgender woman living in rural southern Louisiana. She was molested as a child and left home as a teenager. Homeless and alone, she was forced to trade sex for survival. While still a teenager, she was arrested and charged with a Crime Against Nature, an archaic Louisiana law originally designed to penalize sex acts associated with gays and lesbians.


Now Eve is one of nine plaintiffs fighting the law in a federal civil rights complaint that advocates hope will finally put this official discrimination to an end.

This legal action comes in the context of increased scrutiny from the federal government over the conduct of the New Orleans Police Department. A US Justice Department investigation of the NOPD, released today, found "reasonable cause to believe that patterns and practices of unconstitutional conduct and/or violations of federal law occurred in several areas," including "racial and ethnic profiling and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) discrimination." The report specifically mentioned Louisiana's Crime Against Nature law, calling it "a statute whose history reflects anti-LGBT sentiment." The report also concluded that investigators "found reasonable cause to believe that NOPD practices lead to discriminatory treatment of LGBT individuals."

Punishing Women

Eve, who asked that her real name and age remain confidential, spent two years in prison. During her time behind bars she was raped and contracted HIV. Upon release, she was forced to register in the state’s sex offender database. The words “sex offender” now appear on her driver’s license. “I have tried desperately to change my life,” she says, but her status on the database stands in the way of housing and other programs. “When I present my ID for anything,” she says, “the assumption is that you’re a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just ongoing and ongoing.”

Eve was penalized under Louisiana’s 205-year-old Crime Against Nature statute, a blatantly discriminatory law that legislators have maneuvered to keep on the state’s books for the purpose of turning sex workers into felons. As enforced, the law specifically singles out oral and anal sex for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution, including requiring those convicted to register as sex offenders in a public database. Advocates say the law has further isolated and targeted poor women of color, transgender women, and especially those who are forced to trade sex for food or a place to sleep at night.

In 2003, the Supreme Court outlawed sodomy laws with its decision in Lawrence v. Texas. That ruling should have invalidated Louisiana’s law entirely. Instead, the state has chosen to only enforce the portion of the law that concerns “solicitation” of a crime against nature. The decision on whether to charge accused sex workers with a felony instead of Louisiana’s misdemeanor prostitution law is left entirely in the hands of police and prosecutors.

“This leaves the door wide open to discriminatory enforcement targeting poor black women, transgender women, and gay men for a charge that carries much harsher penalties,” says police misconduct attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie, a co-counsel in a new federal lawsuit challenging the statute.

A media-fueled national panic about child molesters has brought sex offender registries to every state. But advocates warn that, across the U.S., these registries have been used disproportionately against African Americans and other communities of color, and are often used for purposes outside of their original intent. Louisiana, however, is the only state in the U.S. that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve minors or sexual violence to register as sex offenders.

In 1994, Congress passed Megan’s Law, also known as the Wetterling Act, which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders. The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders stay in the public registry for at least 15 years.

Megan’s Law was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crimes against nature statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level of punishment for sex work. “This archaic law is being used to mark people with modern day scarlet letter,” says attorney Alexis Agathocleus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit.

People convicted under the Louisiana law must carry a state ID with the words “sex offender” printed below their name. If they have to evacuate because of a hurricane, they must stay in a special shelter for sex offenders that has no separate facilities for men and women. They have to pay a $60 annual registration fee, in addition to $250 to $750 to print and mail postcards to their neighbors every time they move. The post cards must show their names and addresses, and often they are required to include a photo. Failing to register and pay the fees, a separate crime, can carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

Women and men on the registry will also find their names, addresses, and convictions printed in the newspaper and published in an online sex offender database. The same information is also displayed at public sites like schools and community centers. Women—including one mother of three—have complained that because of their appearance on the registry, they have had men come to their homes demanding sex. A plaintiff in the suit had rocks thrown at her by neighbors. “This has forced me to live in poverty, be on food stamps and welfare,” explains a man who was on the list. “I’ve never done that before.”

In Orleans Parish, 292 people are on the registry for selling sex, versus 85 people convicted of forcible rape and 78 convicted of “indecent behavior with juveniles.” Almost 40 percent of those registered in Orleans Parish are there solely because they were accused of offering anal or oral sex for money. Seventy-five percent of those on the database for Crime Against Nature are women, and 80 percent are African American. Evidence gathered by advocates suggests a majority are poor or indigent.

Legal advocates credit on-the-ground organizing and the advocacy of the group Women With A Vision (WWAV) for making them aware of this discriminatory law. WWAV, a 20-year-old New Orleans-based organization, provides health care and other services to women involved in survival sex work. “Many of these women are survivors of rape and domestic violence themselves,” says WWAV executive director Deon Haywood. “Yet they are being treated as predators.”

Plaintiffs Tell Their Stories

Ian, another plaintiff in the legal challenge to the Crime Against Nature statute, was homeless from the age of 13, and began trading sex for survival. When an undercover officer approached him and asked him for sex, Ian asked for money. “All I said was $50,” he says, “And they put me away for four years.”

In prison, Ian was raped by a correction officer and by other prisoners, and like Eve, he contracted HIV. Now, he says, potential employers see the words “sex offender” written on his ID and no one will hire him. “Do I deserve to be punished any more than I’ve already been punished?” he asks. “I was 13 years old. That’s the only way I knew how to survive.”

Hiroke, a New Orleans resident and another plaintiff in the suit, spoke on a call set up by advocates. “I had just graduated from high school and was just coming out as transgender,” she says. Hiroke was arrested and convicted while still a teenager. As she began to describe her experience, Hiroke’s voice began to shake. “I was being held with men in jail at the time…” she began. Then there was silence on the line. Holding back tears, she then apologized for being unable to continue.

The Louisiana legislature recently passed a reform of the Crime Against Nature statute, but for the vast majority of those affected, the change makes little to no difference. Although the new law takes away the registration component for a first conviction, a second conviction requires 15 years on the registry, and up to five years imprisonment. A third conviction mandates a lifetime on the registry. More than 538 men and women remain on the registry because they were convicted of offering anal or oral sex, with more added almost every day.

The legal challenge to the Crime Against Nature law, called Doe v. Jindal, has been filed in Louisiana’s US District Court Eastern District on behalf of nine anonymous plaintiffs. It was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, attorney Andrea J. Ritchie, and the Law Clinic at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. The anonymous plaintiffs include a grandmother, a mother of four, three transgender women, and a man, all of whom have been required to register as sex offenders from 15 years to life as a result of their convictions for the solicitation of oral sex for money.

Posted by jordan flaherty at 2:33 PM

Sex Worker rights: End discrimination!

Remembering Marcia Powell.
Sex Worker Outreach Project / Arizona Department of Corrections Protest.
International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
December 17, 2009.

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86 the Silence. 86 the Violence.

BREAKING: U.S. ACKNOWLEDGES HUMAN RIGHTS NEEDS OF SEX WORKERS
At UN, US Says No one Should Face Discrimination For Public Services, Including Sex Workers

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Stacey Swimme

Sienna Baskin, Esq.

Communications@StJamesInfirmary.org

SBaskin@urbanjustice.org

(877) 776‐2004 x. 2 (646) 602-5695

March 9th, 2011- According to their statement in response to the UN’s human rights evaluation, the US agrees that “…no one should face violence or discrimination in access to public services based on sexual orientation or their status as a person in prostitutionⁱ.” This marks a rare occasion in which the US is addressing the needs of sex workers as a distinct issue separate from human trafficking. Sex workers have unique needs that aren’t adequately addressed by federal trafficking policy. Sex workers are hopeful that this will present a new opportunity to work with anti-trafficking efforts to address mutual human rights concerns.

"People in the sex trade have been marginalized and stigmatized when seeking public services, including through law enforcement. This is a big step forward to acknowledging sex workers’ human rights." Kelli Dorsey, Executive Director of Different Avenues said.

Over the past year sex workers and their families, sex workers’ rights groups, human rights advocates, and academic researchers have engaged in an unprecedented advocacy collaboration. “It has been crucial to bring together the perspectives of a wide range of communities including immigrant and LGBT groups in order to illustrate the depth of human rights violations experienced by sex workers in the United States,” says Penelope Saunders, Coordinator of the Best Practices Policy Project, who worked with the Desiree Alliance to send a shadow report to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). These initial efforts resulted in Recommendation 86 and the formation of a group called Human Rights For All: Concerned Advocates for the Rights of Sex Workers and People in the Sex Trade (HRA).

HRA had support from more than 125 organizations in urging law makers to accept Recommendation #86, part of the report of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which called on the US to look into the special vulnerability of sex workers to violence and human rights abuses. “We were long overdue for the United States to take the needs of sex workers seriously, particularly the need to stem violence and discrimination,” says attorney Sienna Baskin, Co-Director of Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York.



"Human beings cannot be excluded from accesible services because they work in economies outside of society's accepted norms,” explains Cristine Sardina, co-director, Desiree Alliance. “The fact that the U.S. has acknowledged the recommendation in full speaks to the current administration's willingness to recognize the abuses sex workers have been subjected to for too long. We look forward to working with this administration".

Sex workers say the issues they face are complex and more work will have to be done to protect against human rights abuses. “Sex workers who are transgender or people of color face the most violence and it's important that we continue to realize and work towards ending that, this is a good first step.” Said Tara Sawyer, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.



On Friday March 18th Sex Workers will stage demonstrations in cities across the country to celebrate adoption of Recommendation #86. “The U.S. has finally acknowledged that sex workers face issues separate from those of human trafficking victims,” said Natalie Brewster Nguyen, an artist and member of the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Tucson who is organizing the demonstrations on the 18th, ”Now we need to demand that steps be taken to address the issues that will actually improve the daily lives of sex workers.”



For more information on this story or the upcoming March 18th demonstrations, please contact Stacey Swimme at Communications@StJamesInfirmary.org or (877) 776-2004 x. 2

86 the Violence Against Sex Workers!

Take direct action to support sex worker rights today!



Stop the Violence. Stop the Fear.

See us Here.

Mothers and daughters and
Teachers and lawyers and
Songs within our souls.
Brothers with dreams, and
Trans with means,
And a light inside us that grows.

Each have a story
With sadness and glory
Trying to make our way through

When the judgment fades,
And the hate abates,
We'll be standing right beside you.
Will you be standing beside us too?

Stop the Violence. Stop the Fear.

See us Here.

WHAT IS 86 THE VIOLENCE ALL ABOUT AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?


This year, the United States participated in a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – a process set up by the Human Rights Council at the United Nations to assess the level of human rights in each country. The U.S. received more than 200 recommendations and must now decide to accept or reject each recommendation. Recommendation 86 called on the Obama Administration to “…ensure access to public services paying attention to the special vulnerability of sexual workers to violence and human rights abuses.” This is the first time the US has been internationally called upon to address its insensitivity to the long-neglected issues faced by sex workers.


To capitalize on this momentous opportunity, sex worker support and advocacy organizations from all across the country have organized to move government officials to agree to accept the recommendation. As a part of our organizing efforts we have reached out to sex worker groups, academics, policy makers, community organizations, funders and NGO’s around the globe and received unprecendented levels of support. (See the amazing list of folks who have signed our call to action below.)


On March 18th, the U.S. will go to Geneva to announce to the U.N. which recommendations they will accept and which they will reject. "86 THE VIOLENCE," a multi-city performance art action represents the culmination of sex worker advocacy efforts. We believe we have an opportunity to achieve high levels of media attention, which opens the door for us to let the world know in one solid, united voice, that violence and human rights abuses will no longer be tolerated in our community.


If the government accepts the recommendation, this action will serve as a celebration for having our nation’s first major political promise to address the needs of sex workers. If they do not accept the recommendation, then this action will serve to spark a fire of outrage that will be fueled by media and all of the supporters that have come out to champion the cause. Either way, we believe the more sex workers and allies we can motivate to participate in this action, the more media attention we will receive, and the greater the likelihood that we can alter the conversation and public perception about sex worki in this country.


HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?

Join us in this public action performance on March 18th!

SWOP, Sex workers and allied organizations all over the country will be standing up and stripping down for recommendation 86!

Here's what you do:

1. Check if there is already a key organizer in your city. If there is no key organizer, email us, and we'll list YOU as the key organizer!

Key organizers will be contacted by our media team to help you identify media outlets in your area, and follow up.

If you are a key organizer, pick a location for the action that we can list on the website, and a contact name, number, and email address

"86 the violence" will take place at noon PST, 1pm MST, 2pm CST, and 3pm EST on March 18th, 2011 for 86 minutes!

2. Enact "86 the violence."

-You need AT LEAST one person to be a TARGET and one person to be SUPPORT/ INFORMATION. More people are better, 3 TARGETS and a few SUPPORTS are best to protect everyone involved.

-TARGETS dress up as shown in the video here . Draw a red bullseye somewhere on your body. Be as close to naked as is legally allowed on the street in your city, or that you are comfortable with. Tie red fabric around your eyes, your mouth or your hands. These three ties are symbolic and can mean many things about lack of access, silence, and invisibility. Infuse them with your own meaning.

Install the TARGETS on the street, in a park, or in any public place. TARGETS symbolically or verbally ask passerby to help us “86 the violence.” this can be done by silently holding out a cloth that passerby can use to wipe the target off your body, or verbally asking.

-SUPPORT may dress in any manner classic to the sex worker rights movement. Wear red, carry red umbrellas, and have at least one or 2 umbrellas with the number 86 painted on the top. Print out the information we have HERE: literature to hand out to passersby and lyrics to our song. Perhaps keep the information to hand out in an upturned red umbrella.

3. The final action of the performance is to remove or cut off the red cloth, wipe off the targets, and leave the red cloth in the shape of the number 86 on the ground.

4. Take photos. Document the hell out of it, and send your documentation to us. We'll be making a montage of videos and photos to take to press as well.


notes: if staying installed in one place becomes and issue (a cop tells you to leave, or threatens you) make sure your group knows what it wants to do. We recommend taking the whole production on a walk. You can simply walk down the street slowly, to avoid loitering. The 86 minutes need not be in one place. We recommend wearing the smallest amount of legally allowed clothing (in many places, this is a thong, underwear or T-Strap and nipple covering). We recommend that ALL TARGETS wear the same amount of clothing/covering for continuity and gender alliance.

--------------------

Organizations that have come out in support of accepting the recommendation:

Action pour la lutte Contre L'ignorance du SIDA (Democratic Republic of Congo)
AIDS Action Baltimore
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS Project Los Angeles
American Medical Students Association
Americans for Informed Democracy
Amnesty for Women
American Jewish World Service
Aniz, Inc.
Asocijacija za Borbu Protiv Side (Association against AIDS, JAZAS, Yugoslavia)
Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network
Best Practices Policy Project
Black Communities' Process (PCN)
Center for Anti-Violence Education
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program (CLPP), Hampshire College
Collectif pour le Developpement Economique, Social et Culturel Integre (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Desiree Alliance
Different Avenues
Erotic Service Providers’ Legal, Education and Research Project
Four Freedoms Forum
Harm Reduction Coalition
Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS)
HIV Prevention Justice Alliance
HIVictorious, Inc.
Housing Works
Human Rights Watch
International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS Global (ICW Global)
International Committee for the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe
International Rectal Microbicide Advocates
International Women’s Health Coalition
Ipas
JJJ Association (Hong Kong)
Madonna e.V. (Germany)
MADRE
Malcolm X Center for Self Determination
Nashville CARES
National Minority AIDS Council
Nigerian Diversity Network
Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project
Public Interest Project, US Human Rights Fund
Population & Development Program, Hampshire College
Religious Institute
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS)
Scarlet Alliance (Austraila)
Sex Worker Forum (Botswana)
Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK)
Sex Workers Outreach Project (Chicago Chapter)
Sex Workers Outreach Project (Las Vegas Chapter)
Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP National)
Sex Workers Outreach Project (NYC Chapter),
Sex Workers Outreach Project (Seattle Chapter)
Sex Workers Outreach Project (Tucson Chapter)
Sex Workers Project, at the Urban Justice Center
Sexuality and Gender Working Group, Human Rights Network
SisterLove
St. James’ Infirmary
Syndicat du Travail Sexuel (STRASS) (France)
Tais Plus (Kirgizstan)
TAMPEP (European Network for HIV/STI Prevention & Health Promotion among Migrant Sex Workers)
U.S. Positive Women's Network (PWN) a project of WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Disease)
Women of Color United
Women’s Network for Unity
Women’s Network for Unity (Cambodia)
Women's Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy
Women’s Re-Entry Network
Women with a Vision
x:talk (London)

Academics who have come out in support of the recommendation:

*Laura Augustin, Ph.D.; Author, Sex at the Margins
*M. Jocelyn Elders, M.D.; 15th U.S. Surgeon General
*Elizabeth Bernstein, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, Womens’ Studies & Sociology, Barnard College, New York, New York
*Barb Brents, Ph.D.; Professor of Sociology, University of Las Vegas, Nevada
*Wendy Chapkis, Ph.D.; Professor of Sociology, Director of Women and Gender Studies, University of Southern Maine
*Deborah Cohan, MD, MPH; Associate Professor
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco; Medical Director, Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center; Associate Director, National Perinatal HIV Hotline
*Melissa Ditmore, Ph.D.; Consultant, Research and Rights-Based Programming
*Shari L. Dworkin, Ph.D., M.S.; Associate Professor, Dept. of Social & Behavioral Sciences; Director, Sociology Doctoral Studies Program; Affiliated Faculty, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS); Affiliated Faculty, Global Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco
*Smarajit Jana, MD; Principal, Sonagachi Research and Training Institute, Kolkata, India
*Jessica Fields, Ph.D.; Associate Professor, Sociology,Research Faculty, Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality
*Valerie Jenness, Ph.D.; Dean, School of Social Ecology, Professor, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
*Kamala Kempadoo, Ph.D.; Professor, Department of Social Science, York University, Toronto, Canada
*Gail Kligman, Ph.D.; Professor of Sociology, UCLA, Director, Center for European and Eurasian Studies
*Kari Lerum, Ph.D.; Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, Adjunct Professor, Women Studies, University of Washington, Bothell
*Jill McCracken, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, Rhetoric, Department of Languages, Literature, and Writing, University of South Florida St. Petersburg
*Alice M. Miller, J.D; Visiting Senior Research Scholar, Robina Foundation Fellow, Yale Law School
*Penelope Saunders, Ph.D.; Director, Best Practices Policy Project
*Svati P. Shah, Ph.D., MPH; Assistant Professor, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
*Kate Shannon, Ph.D., MPH; Assistant Professor, Dept of Medicine, University of British Columbia; Director of Gender & Sexual Health Initiative, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, Canada
*Lara Stemple; Director, Graduate Studies, Director, Health and Human Rights Law Project, UCLA School of Law
*Dallas Swendeman, Ph.D., MPH; Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior; Center for Community Health; Global Center for Children and Families; Center for HIV Identification, Prevention & Treatment Services
*Juhu Thukral, Esq.; Co-Founder and Former Director, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center New York, New York
*Stephanie Wahab, Ph.D.; Associate Professor of Social Work, Portland State University, Portland, OR
*Carole S. Vance, PhD, MPH; Assoc. Clinical Professor, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York
*Ronald Weitzer, Ph.D.; Professor of Sociology, George Washington University, Washington, DC

God's work is Social Justice. Free Courtney.

Got this in my email from an abolitionist in Holland (thank you!). It comes from the National Catholic Reporter. It hardly says a thing about Glenn Beck - it's all about how Justice is God's work. Anyway, I thought this was a good way to honor my Irish Catholic ancestors today...though my only real frame of reference is the Central America of the 80's and the Sanctuary Movement. That's when I learned that while Quakers may be cool, some of those Catholics really rock, too.

I'm no Catholic and don't talk much about my faith, but I sure like this nun's politics - much as I adored Oscar Romero. That liberation theology holds a lot of weight with me. I think that's what Christ was getting at, and since the Gospel is so clear and stripped down, I have no idea how He ended up with so many twisted followers killing each other in His name. I guess because faith in a Higher Power, a more Enlightened, Loving Being, is so often exploited by humanity for the sake of ego, dominance and greed.

Anyway, remember that Christ always had a special place in His heart for criminals and prisoners of the state - and certainly for the wrongfully-accused. This post actually, goes out to Courtney Bisbee and her family. She's been in prison for too long already, waiting to be exonerated. Andrew Thomas has the evidence and the power to free her. If anyone can get through to him, all he needs to do is take the file to a judge and tell him a prime witness admitted perjury and a conpsiracy to frame Courtney in order to extort money from her - the family got all of a few grand in a lawsuit, and Courtney lost her daughter and was sent to prison for 11 years.

Why are her accusers not being prosecuted? Why is Courtney not reunited with her child yet? Why is she still in prison? What could be more criminal than that, short of murder? Her whole family is being tortured.

We need help on this, folks. At least for now, sign the petition, and prepare yourselves to publicly ask elected officials to step up for the wrongfully-accused at every political campaign event you encounter in the next few months. So far, Representative Cecil Ash is one of few to do so at the legislature - and his power won't go far without ours.

It's my understanding that God counts on us to do a lot of His work here. His work is Justice, so I hope Thomas gets busy soon. An innocent young woman is being held against her will in Perryville prison. Most women there are criminalized victims, in one way or another, in unbelievably oppressive circumstances, at risk from both the system and from other prisoners who are truly vicious.

It's extraordinary, really, what we women are able to endure and even transcend. Courtney and her mom are just two examples of women who have directed their rage and energy into justice and liberation for more than just themselves. Check out the National Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform Facebook site. Courtney's mom is on the ball.

Free Courtney Bisbee. It would do us all some good right now. We're desperate for the right kind of justice in this state.

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The nun and Glenn Beck: a standoff

by Joan Chittister on Mar. 11, 2010

• From Where I Stand

I got an invitation today. It wasn't to me. It was to Glenn Beck.
Let me give you a little background so you can understand how it happened.
There is a nun in the country this week, a Sister of the Good Shepherd, from Syria. Now, that may not seem much like international news to you but it is. And not only to me.
Infact, Sr. Marie Claude Naddaf is here to receive the U.S. State Department's "International Women of Courage Award." Given to 10 women around the globe who have shown "exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women's rights and advancement," the awards purpose is to support women who are working for the equality of women everywhere. And any woman who has ever spoken up for women's equality in any arena that counts -- in politics, in business, in law, in the home, in the church -- know exactly how much courage that requires. Even now. Even here.
This woman has done it more than most. A Syrian citizen, a Christian in a Muslim country, Marie Claude entered her community at the age of 17. As a Sister of the Good Shepherd, a community founded almost 200 years ago to work for the reintegration into society of marginalized women, she has been struggling for the advancement of women for over 50 years now. That's longer than most people even knew there was a problem, let alone thought about trying to solve it.
Trained to be a social worker, she and her sisters are also trained to see the special needs of women and then do something about them. So, though she began her community's ministry in a center for adolescent girls -- teaching life skills, self-esteem and personal development -- she was also beginning to see the needs under their needs. She began to see that the self-esteem and personal development that her community tried to build up in women were being systematically destroyed, even in the home.
The domestic abuse of women made women domestic property everywhere. Not just in Syria, we know, but with a special twist there: In an 'honor culture,' the nerve of a woman to complain about the situation -- to be a bad wife--"dishonors" her family as much as the beatings dishonor her. This means there's no support for her from her family either. Marie Claude's work was cut out for her -- for anyone "with eyes to see and ears to hear," in fact. But few did.
So she opened the first shelters for beaten women in all of Syria and stood alone in that work for years. She began the first "Oasis Listening Center Hotline" to provide support for women in danger. She began programs in the shelter not simply to protect women physically but to provide psychological counseling, personal development courses, legal help and child care for them, as well.
She served one kind of woman and, at the same time, modeled another kind of woman for women everywhere.
Women staff and volunteers, both Christian and Muslim, flocked to the center to help. Everyone who came was served. No one was turned away for reason of race or religion or nationality.
Then, in 1996, she took a step that changed things again. This time for everyone.
She began, with the permission of the government, to visit women's prisons. She discovered there what few, if anyone, had ever bothered to notice before. Most of the women in prison for 'prostitution' or 'illegal entry' into the country were not prostitutes or border breakers at all. They were 'trafficked women.' They were women and girls who had been sold across national borders into the sex slave trade or seduced into it on the promise of a job or simply abducted into it off the streets as children.
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that every year anywhere from two to four million women or girls are sold across borders for the sake of commercial sex, abused laborers or servants. Of that number, 50,000 of them are brought to the United States where they are exploited, enslaved or physically violated. All of them without medical care or legal help.
Marie Claude won the right to have trafficked women in police custody released to a shelter rather than kept in prison. One month ago, thanks to the work of Marie Claude, Syria enacted its first law against the trafficking of human beings.
"What's the most difficult part of your work?" I asked her.
"The long time it takes for a woman to feel like a human being again, to be reconciled to her family," she said. "The time it takes for the family to take her in again," after dishonoring them.
"What makes you feel good about this work?" I asked.
"When a woman smiles, or begins to dress up, to take care of herself, to feel good about herself," she said. "When the woman says, 'Now I can do something in life.' "
And Marie Claude knows it happens, because she and her center follow the woman's progress for months -- just to make sure.
"Yes but ..." I asked finally. "Should you be doing these things as a nun, as a religious? A commentator here advised his television audience last week against 'social justice programs in the church.' "

"I beg you," he said, "look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words (for socialism.) Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

I heard Marie Claude Naddaf, a Sister of the Good Shepherd, gasp on the other end of the phone. "Noooooooo," she squealed. "This is the work of God. The spiritual life gives us the energy we need to do justice. There is no contradiction! It's a circle!"
Then she said, "Invite this man to come and see me in Syria. I will show him." And one more thing. "Tell your government that it must do something to help the Iraqi refugees in Syria. They need resettlement programs and financial support for widows and children." Her meaning was clear: The United States started the war that put millions of people adrift "but Syria has borne the whole expense of it."
From where I stand, it's clear why the Glenn Becks of the world would not want to hear anything about 'social justice' from a church. Certainly not about women and war. Or about Sister Marie Claude either. Let's hope he takes the invitation.

Protest Rally today at AZ Department of Corrections.

Last night in Tucson was extraordinary..more later.

---- 

Please stand  with us for human rights today,  

in solidarity with sex workers and prisoners of the state...

Rally at Arizona Department of Corrections HQ. 

1601 W. Jefferson St., Phoenix. 

High Noon.

Friday, December 18, 2009. 

 

Bring red umbrellas and/or single red carnations.

---------

SWOP-USA letter to ADC Director Ryan.

First: the protest rally information:

­­ ­­

What: Protest Rally: Marcia Powell's death, AZ Department of Corrections.

When: Friday December 18th, 2009 NOON

Where:  AZ Department of Corrections
             1601 West Jefferson St.
             Phoenix, AZ 85007

Sex Workers and allies are coming together in front of the AZ Department of Corrections on December 18th, as part of International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers, an annual event to call attention to violence committed against sex workers all over the globe.  Marcia Powell was a prisoner of the State of Arizona who collapsed and died from heatstroke last May after being locked in an outdoor cage and ignored for four hours in 107 degree heat.

You are invited to join us in Tucson, Arizona on December 17, 2009 (performance art/public installation and a candelight vigil) and in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2009 (protest rally on the steps of the Arizona Department of Corrections).

Bring red umbrellas, to stand in solidarity! Signs are welcome.

Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights!

For more information: visit: www.swopusa.org/dec17 or call 877-776-2004 x 2.

--------------------------------------------- 

Open Letter from the Sex Workers Outreach Project and allies to Charles L. Ryan, Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. Posted and delivered December 11, 2009.
­
December 17th is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This event was created by Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP-USA), a national social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of sex workers, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education and advocacy.
In 2009, sex workers from around the globe met gruesome deaths and endured unspeakable violence.  Some died at the hands of a solitary perpetrator; others were victims of serial “prostitute killers.”  While some of these horrific stories received international media attention (Boston, Grand Rapids, Albuquerque, Tijuana, Hong Kong, Moscow, Great Britain, Cape Town, New Zealand), other cases received little more than a perfunctory investigation.  Many cases remain unsolved, sometimes forever.

Today we are here for Marcia Powell, who was incarcerated for solicitation of oral sex and sentenced to over two years in prison - despite being found so mentally impaired at the time of sentencing that she had just been appointed a legal guardian. On May 19, 2009, after informing prison staff that she was suicidal, Marcia was placed in an uncovered outdoor cage at Arizona's Perryville prison for women, where she would presumably be "observed" until she was transferred to a more appropriate location. Reportedly, that's what they did with women who caused problems there: they put them in a cage and "waited them out". The same cages were used for "recreation" and as waiting rooms for those needing medical attention: the prisons filled up so cages were erected in the yards to add more space. Putting someone in there was routine; women were left in there all the time beyond policy, so no one thought much about Marcia complaining - except the other prisoners. Four hours later - after her pleas for water were ignored or mocked by guard after guard - she was found, collapsed, in 107-degree heat, and died on May 20th in the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Marcia was the victim of dual forms of injustice, as a sex worker and as a prisoner.  Sex Workers Outreach Project and other organizations are fundamentally opposed to criminalization of sex workⁱ. The prohibition of this work results in selective prosecution that puts some of the most vulnerable in our society at the mercy of a system that robs them of their basic respect and dignity. For decades efforts to curb sex workⁱ have not only failed to reduce incidences of prostitutionⁱ, but they have corrupted our justice system resulting in selective enforcement, racial profiling and inhumane treatment of those who don't have the financial resources to fight back. Violence against sex workers is epidemic and rarely taken seriously. The criminalization of prostitutionⁱ legitimizes this abuse so that sex workers are the targets of violent crime with little recourse. Marcia was referred to - after her death - as a "biological serial killer" in an employee blog (The Lumley Vampire). That suggests that her degraded social status as a "criminalized" sex worker had a considerable effect on the way she was treated at the hands of ADC staff the day she was left to die. It also raises the question of her abuse being the result of bias against her for a disability she may have also had.

Women prisoners are also the victims of an unjust system, facing extreme medical neglect, sexual harassment and abuse. The women's prison population in the United States has grown 800% in the past three decades, twice the rate of the male prison population. 2/3 of women in prison were incarcerated for non-violent offenses. (Institute on Women and Criminal Justice). As the death of Marcia Powell in the care of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) shows, prison sentences can include the most extreme form of neglect and abuse.

We are here for Marcia and other prisoners, and sex workers, as we call for respect for human rights. As a result of an internal investigation, 16 people were disciplined.  An investigation is currently underway to determine whether or not criminal charges should be filed in her death.

"It's not enough to change a few people and policies. There is a culture embedded in the ADC that is pervasive throughout the prison system that reflects a disregard for the fundamental human rights of prisoners. There are exceptions to that, and the prisoners know who they are," says Peggy Plews of Arizona Prison Watch.

No critical analysis of the institutional culture that contributed to this abuse has been made public, but that analysis is essential to ending state violence.

In response to the death of Marcia Powell while in the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections, we expect the following:

1. The Arizona Department of Corrections has an influential role in shaping policy. We ask that leadership be provided by the ADC in exploring models of restorative justice and addressing strategies such as criminal code and sentencing reform, early release programs for low-risk prisoners, community support through harm reduction, and re-entry programs to stop the revolving door syndrome that traps so many people.

2. An analysis of violence against sex workers (both inside and outside the Arizona prison system) should be conducted and a plan should be developed for reducing violence against sex workers in Arizona.

- An analysis of violence against sex workers (including male and transgendered workers) should include victimization while in state custody, police brutality, and domestic and occupational violence.

- Efforts to reform the prisons must go deeper than investigations into individual responsibility for Marcia's Powell's death. An analysis of how the culture of the correctional system employees/officers contributes to violence against prisoners is crucial.

3. A community-organized process for oversight in the prisons should be recognized which includes the voices of prisoners and their families.

4. Grievance policies should be reviewed and strengthened.

5. Cages should never be used to hold prisoners or to address overcrowding, which is the current practice.  Overcrowding must be addressed through reducing incarceration and recidivism rates.

6. Allocate sufficient resources to address the special needs of prisoners with psychiatric and physical disabilities, including education about complications of medications.

7. May 20th should be observed each year in memory of Marcia Powell and other prisoners who died in state custody.  On that day ADC should prepare a report addressed to prisoners, families and community-based oversight groups on human rights violations that have occurred over the past year and actions ADC has taken in response. The report should also include the Department's plan for the upcoming year to improve respect for human rights.

Sex workers around the United States are shocked to see this criminalization result in a death sentence for a prostitutionⁱ crime. This is one of many cases in which we observe conditions that are abusive, degrading and dangerous ranging from rape and other violence, to extreme medical neglect. These conditions violate the human rights of all persons deprived of their liberty to be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) should be applied to all individuals.

In the wealthiest country in the world, where taxpayers spend billions on the prison system, it is horrific that this justice system has led to a death sentence for someone arrested for prostitutionⁱ.  It's been over 60 years since the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has been adopted. The Arizona Department of Corrections has been woefully negligent, in following the human rights protocol, which Eleanor Roosevelt, along with so many others, have developed. In less than a decade we've almost doubled the amount spent on our prisons in Arizona, and the Arizona Department of Corrections fails even the most basic requirement, to keep prisoners safe.

We ask that the Arizona Department of Corrections look at the 30 articles in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and review the treatment of individuals in the prison system in the light of these principles. Every ADC employee/correctional officer should have training in human and prisoners' rights principles and practices. ADC should provide leadership that demonstrates a respect for human rights.

We look forward to the day when prisons are no longer used to address our most pressing social problems. As social justice activists we challenge the discrimination that leads to criminalization and incarcerations. We promote human rights for all, as well as specific law reform. Recently enacted by the Arizona legislature, felony charges should be rescinded for prostitutionⁱ charges. Although the ADC does not have jurisdiction over many aspects of these injustices, ADC does have great deal of influence in many of these matters and ADC is also directly responsible for how prisoners are treated within this system. Sex Worker Outreach Project, in tandem with Arizona Prison Watch and Friends of Marcia Powell expects that the ADC establish real justice in the death of Marcia Powell.

Sincerely,


Tara Sawyer
Board Chair
Sex Workers Outreach Project


Peggy Plews
Arizona Prison Watch
Friends of Marcia Powell


Penelope Saunders
Best Practices Policy Project


Carol Leigh
BAYSWAN

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