Join the Bail Fund Book Club on Saturday, June 6, from 11am-1pm, at the Greenfield Public Library to discuss Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (2012) by Beth E. Richie.
From the publisher: Black women in marginalized communities are uniquely at risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment, stalking and incest. Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women. Richie argues that Black women face particular peril because of the ways that race and culture have not figured centrally enough in the analysis of the causes and consequences of gender violence. As a result, the extent of physical, sexual and other forms of violence in the lives of Black women, the various forms it takes, and the contexts within which it occurs are minimized-at best-and frequently ignored. Arrested Justice brings issues of sexuality, class, age, and criminalization into focus right alongside of questions of public policy and gender violence, resulting in a compelling critique, a passionate re-framing of stories, and a call to action for change.
About Beth E. Richie: Beth E. Richie is a Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice and Black Studies and the Inaugural Chair in Social Sciences and the Humanities at The University of Illinois at Chicago. The emphasis of her scholarly and activist work has been on the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect the experience of violence and criminalization, focusing on the experiences of Black women and gender non-conforming people. Dr. Richie is the co-author of Abolition. Feminism. Now. with Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent and Erica Meiners published in 2022. She is also the author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America’s Prison Nation (2012) which chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States and numerous articles concerning Black feminism, gender violence, abolition, race and criminal justice policy, and the social dynamics around issues of criminalization, state violence and grassroot organizing responses. She is one of the editors of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Towards Freedom (2018) with collaborating teachers from Stateville Prison. Her earlier book Compelled to Crime: the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, was pivotal in framing the current work to free criminalized survivors from carceral systems. Her work has been supported by grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The National Institute for Justice, and The National Institute of Corrections. She has been awarded the Audre Lorde Legacy Award from the Union Institute, The W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology, The 2020 Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociology Association, The Advocacy Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the UIC Woman of the Year Award. Dr. Richie was a founding board member of The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African Community, The National Network for Women in Prison, a founding member of INCITE!: Women of Color Against Violence and a founding collaborator and advisor to the Violence Intervention Project in New York City. In 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Degree from the City University of New York Law School and in 2014 she was appointed as a Sr. Advisor to the NFL to work on their gender violence prevention program. She is a member of thhe 2022 cohort of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Freedom Scholars.
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We hope to see you there!
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