Take Action Against the Over-Incarceration of BIPOC Women
Achieving racial justice means reforming our institutions. Demand our elected officials address the high proportion of incarcerated women and mothers from Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color communities.
We need to teach our future generations about white privilege, white supremacy and to have honest conversations about race. To help kickstart your racial activism, we have drafted email templates for you adapt and send to traditional institutions within your own communities, to insist they take action to dismantle systemic racism.
Racial injustice is unique to each country and cannot be addressed with one broad-brush email. However our drafts can encourage you to think about these topics within your domain, to research some statistics within your communities and take action.
The below email draft sets you on the path to demand that your Attorney General/elected officials to address the high proportion of women and mothers that are in prison from the communities of Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color. We must demand for urgent changes to bail legislation, for increased access to social workers and lawyers, as well as early intervention and alternatives to incarceration.
How to use this email template
ADAPT • Edit the <italics> words, sentences and/or paragraphs with your appropriate text, adding your own details as well as researched statistics, experiences and data
EMAIL • Your lour local representative; your Attorney General.
Please note
Where possible, research and write about specific BIPOC women in this email. See our example here
The goal of racial justice is not to simply have white people accept that white supremacy and white privilege exist — rather the critical intent is to address racial inequity, uplift BIPOC communities, as well as have white folks comprehend how their personal lives actually support this oppression and then actively change that interaction
Intersectional justice to reform our institutions, amplifying the voices of BIPOC, and fighting for social justice is not about white people getting thank yous and personal recognition (i.e. white saviorism). White people need to be willing to take action from the sidelines, with no need for public acknowledgement — and encourage others within their communities to do the same.
Email draft
To whom it may concern,
My name is <insert name> of <insert community, state of country>.
It is becoming increasingly recognized that continual colonisation, racism and systemic disadvantage are the root cause of the social, health and emotional wellbeing of <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women in <your country> and are directly connected to their over‐representation in prisons.
This over-representation is an intersectional issue, as <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women are concomitantly impacted by gender, race as well as other systemic inequalities. For example, the lack of access to legal resources for <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women to operate through the legal system is founded upon both racial and gender disparities and is intrinsically linked to colonial violence and the ensuing intergenerational trauma.
The over‐policing of <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women directly contributes to their higher rates of charging and imprisonment for minor offences compared to those same crimes by white/white-passing women. <Include up-to-date and researched statistics appropriate to your community/country, evidencing higher rates of charging and imprisonment for minor offences to BIPOC>.
When a <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> mother is separated from her child it greatly contributes to intergenerational trauma, marginalization from essential services, inequality in health, child abuse, and an increased chance of the child personally ending up incarcerated. These issues are unique to <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women, their families and communities in <your country>, based upon race, gender and the class dynamics created from our colonial past.
Addressing this huge systemic racism is vital to breaking this cycle of incarceration and in turn improving the overall health of <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women and mothers in prison, and consequently their families and entire communities. As <our Attorney General/elected official> I plead with you to end this cultural and social dislocation with <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> women and mothers now. I plead with you to make urgent changes to bail legislation, give greater access to lawyers, implement programs for early intervention/alternatives to incarceration, and support to reduce re-offending.
The inequity in our <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> communities must be reformed. The cyclical poverty trap created by ongoing colonisation and <enslavement/massacres/stolen generations> must be addressed now. We cannot continue to walk the murderous path of our colonial past and you hold the power to enact real change. This power, this change, this reform cannot and must not be in isolation. Listen to the people who are protesting for <Black, Indigenous and People of Color> lives here in <your country> — for Black Lives Matter across the global — and acknowledge that change and a revolution must happen now.
Yours Sincerely,
<Your Name>
See more
Use our email template to demand comprehensive history of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) is taught in all our educational institutions.
Use our email template to demand our medical establishments enact comprehensive cultural awareness training for medical professionals, as well as increased recruitment from the communities of Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color.
