Barrilee Bannister was one of seventy-eight women sent to a male prison in Arizona run by the Corrections Corporation of America, where they were sexually assaulted and harassed by male staff. Barrilee organized the women, contacted the media and launched a lawsuit, which resulted in their return to Oregon, a public apology and the firing and disciplining of many of the involved guards. She is currently incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon's only women's prison, where she continues to organize against unfair treatment. She is the founder and co-editor of the quarterly zine "Tenacious: Writings from Women in Prison." top

Donnie Belcher is a senior at DePaul University, majoring in Education. A published poet, Donnie also writes for the DePaulia, the school newspaper, and Melanin, a new teen magazine written for and by African American young women. She serves on the executive board of Black Student Union, an umbrella organization for all of the Black organizations on campus. Donnie¹s mother was imprisoned from the time she was in preschool until she was eight years old. top

Mary Field Belenky, Ed.D. is an educator, researcher, and writer who focuses her work on women's intellectual and ethical development. She studies projects and organizations that enable marginalized and silenced women to gain a voice, claim the powers of the mind, and have a fuller say in the way their families and communities are being run. A co-founder of the Vermont Women¹s Prison Project, she is a co-author of Women's Ways of Knowing and, more recently, A Tradition That Has No Name. She also co-edited Knowledge, Difference, and Power: Essays Inspired by Women's Ways of Knowing. top

Diana Block is a member of the planning committee of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and part of the editorial collective, which produces its newsletter, The Fire Inside. She is also a member of the steering committee of the California Coalition for Battered Women in Prison. Her writings about women prisoners have appeared in various journals and papers, including Sojourner, Off Our Backs and The San Francisco Bay View, and she has been a presenter at numerous conferences and workshops about women prisoners and the issue of incarcerated survivors. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Women¹s Building and was a founding member of San Francisco Women Against Rape in the early seventies. top

Chesa Boudin has been awarded 2003 Rhodes Scholarships for study at Oxford University. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Boudin majors in history and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. A student of Latin American development, Boudin spent his junior year at the Universidad de Chile as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar and has volunteered in community service projects in Guatemala and Chile as well as at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Boudin, whose parents have been incarcerated since he was 14 months old, has spoken around the country about the problems facing children of prison inmates. He has worked as a tutor, translator, interpreter and disc jockey. In a 2001 worldwide competition, he was named Goldman Sachs Global Leader for his outstanding leadership and public service. His published papers include "The Memoir of a Man Who Overcame a Bleak Past and Found a Bright Future" (Chicago Tribune Book Review) and "In Prison Again" (Salon.com.) He is at work on an autobiographical memoir. top

Marilyn Buck, FCI Dublin, is a political prisoner who is serving an 80-year sentence for her activities in support of the Black Liberation movement and other struggles for social justice. She is a sculptor and a published poet who has won several poetry awards. During her many years in prison she has consistently advocated for other prisoners. Marilyn Buck 00482-285, Unit C, 5701 8th Street, Camp Parks, Dublin, CA 94568. Outside contact: Friends of Marilyn Buck c/o Legal Services for Prisoners with Children,1540 Market #490, San Francisco, CA 94102. E-mail: fombuck@yahoo.com. top

Kimberly Burke top

Loretta Capeheart is an Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. Her research interests include Latinos and the justice system, corporate crime, and inequalities and justice. She is currently completing a paper considering the relationship between historical experiences of Mexican Americans in the Southwest and current experiences with the justice system. top

Anna Bell Chapa, CCWF, is a poet, gardener and lover of rabbits and mice whom she has befriended in the prison. She is a regular writer for The Fire Inside and a keen observer of the ironies of prison life. top

Theresa Cruz, CIW, is a battered woman who is serving a seven to life sentence for conspiracy to murder her abuser, even though her abuser is alive and well. She, her four children and her mother and have been fighting her unjust conviction and sentence for over ten years, building a grassroots campaign that exposes the abuses faced by battered women in the criminal injustice system. top

Angela Davis is a world-renowned political activist and leader educating various audiences on the prison industrial complex, the criminal justice system, women¹s issues, issues affecting communities of color, among an array of other subjects. She studied in Europe at the Frankfurt School and the University of Paris before earning a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University and an M.A. from University of California at San Diego. Her radical associations in the 1960s resulted in her dismissal from her position as assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. She spent sixteen months behind bars before being acquitted on all charges in connection with the conspiracy to free political prisoner George Jackson. Davis currently teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and she has lectured in all 50 states, as well as internationally throughout Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, Russia and the Pacific. Her books include If They Come in the Morning (1971), Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Women, Race and Class (1981), Women, Race and Politics (1989), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (1999), and The Angela Y Davis Reader (1999). She is also an organizer of Critical Resistance. top

Kathleen Desautels is a Sister of Providence and a human rights worker on the staff of the Chicago-based 8th Day Center for Justice. At age 64 she served a six-month sentence in IllinoisŒs Greenville Federal Prison for civil disobedience against the School of the Americas, a training school for Latin American military officers who are responsible for violence and atrocities against their own people, targeting religious workers, student leaders, and union organizers. top

Linda Evans is a former political prisoner and anti-imperialist who served 16 years of a 40-year federal prison sentence for actions against the U.S. government. While in prison she was a founding member of Pleasanton AIDS Counseling and Education, an inmate-to-inmate AIDS peer counseling organization, and of the Council Against Racism, an inmate organization that worked against institutional racism and to lessen racial tensions inside the prison. She is a co-author of the booklet, ³The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Global Economy.² While in prison, she completed both her B.A. and M.A. in Humanities. She was released from prison on January 20, 2001, when President Clinton commuted her sentence. She is working with the Center for Third World Organizing in Oakland, focusing on leadership skills development for ex-offender activists and working to improve re-entry services for people coming out of prison. She is a recipient of a 2002 Post-Graduate Fellowship in Criminal Justice sponsored by the Open Society Institute. top

Linda Field, CCWF, has been a regular contributor to The Fire Inside, the newsletter of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, since its first issue in 1996. Field is a battered woman who is serving time for defending herself and her children from their abuser. She has written eloquently about a wide variety of subjects including domestic violence, disability, motherhood, and solidarity among women prisoners. As a diabetic and wheelchair user, Field has a direct experience of many of the worst abuses of the California prison system, yet she continues to fight and write in her efforts to make change. top

Judy Harden, Ph.D., a psychologist and educator, has taught about criminal justice issues and women in prison in particular for the past 10 years. She co-developed the Vermont Women¹s Prison Project, which works with currently and formerly incarcerated women to document the stories of their lives, to counter stereotypes of who is in prison and why, and to provide a base for connection between the women and their communities. She is the co-editor of Breaking the Rules: Women in Prison and Feminist Therapy. top

Michelle Hoersch, M.S.,is the Regional Women's Health Coordinator for the Region V Office on Women's Health (OWH) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Michelle has a Master's degree in Health Law and Administration from DePaul University in Chicago. In the Office on Women's Health, she has initiated work on a wide range of issues including incarcerated women, young women's health, women's leadership in academic medical centers, breastfeeding, lesbian health, mental health, domestic violence and sexual assault, health and fitness, and health concerns specific to racial and ethnic groups and other underserved groups of women. Currently, her work largely focuses on the health of incarcerated women in the region. Michelle has initiated a region-wide project in collaboration with the wardens and key staff of the state women's prisons as well as advocacy groups and formerly incarcerated women. Michelle has been an active member of the women's health community in Chicago for many years. top

Denise Huggins is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Her research interests include women in prison, sexual and physical abuse experiences of female offenders, job satisfaction among rural correctional officers, and comparative criminology. She is currently working on a project that will involve a comparative study that will examine how the homeless are often criminalized both in the U.S. and Poland. In addition, she will be conducting a study of women's prisons in Missouri and Oklahoma during the summer and fall of 2003. Previously, she worked with James L. Williams and Daniel G. Rodeheaver on a study comparing crime and punishment in Russian and the United States as well as a comparative analysis of a large county jail facility. top

Nancy Kurshan is a school social worker and prison activist and scholar. She is a founding member of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown, which is part of the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons. She has published ³Women and Imprisonment in the United States: History and Current Reality" as well as numerous articles on issues of confinement. top

Jean Lathrop, MA, co-director of YES!, has more than 30 years experience as an educator in high schools and colleges and as an initiator of numerous community efforts and still existing community organizations. For the past three years she has researched community-based learning in Vermont high schools for the John Dewey Project. Lathrop has taught critical thinking in Vermont and abroad, and is the former director of Vermont Refugee Assistance, a statewide organization of volunteers that helps stranded refugees and educates the public about immigrant issues. She is currently part of a Thetford group, researching social class divisions in rural Vermont schools. top

Victoria Law, a recent graduate of Brooklyn College, has been working with prisoners since high school. She is one of the co-founders of Books Through Bars‹New York City, a project that sends free literature to inmates nationwide. She has also worked with prisoners on prison issues at the Fifth Avenue Committee¹s Developing Justice Project and the Center for Women¹s Development at Medgar Evers College. Following the birth of her daughter, she shifted her attention to the specific needs and concerns of women in prison. She is currently part of a group that is starting a support network for women inmates who are organizing for change. top

Kari Lydersen is a reporter in The Washington Post's Midwest Bureau, an instructor in the Urban Youth International Journalism Program serving students who live in public housing and a freelancer for various publications including, In These Times, Clamor Magazine, Lip Magazine and Punk Planet. top

Tori Marlan has been a feature writer for the Chicago Reader since 1995. She has won two Peter Lisagor Awards for exemplary journalism, an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for social reporting, and a Herman Kogan Award for writing on legal affairs. top

Patricia Elaine Mason is a prisoner and a fine poet who is trapped in the claws of the criminal justice system. top

Danielle Metz, FCI Dublin, is serving three life sentences for conspiracy to distribute five kilograms of cocaine. Her story is typical of the countless women who have been caught up by the war on drugs because of their relationships with men and receive disproportionately severe sentences because they have no "information" to sell. Metz continues to try and fight her sentence and to maintain the bonds with her children although they live far away. top

Patricia O'Brien top

Stormy Ogden is a California Indian woman, Kashaya Pomo, and a recognized member of the Tule River Yokuts tribe. She has a B.A. in Native American Studies from Humboldt State University and Certification as a Substance Abuse Counselor through Merritt College in Oakland, California. Ogden is a former prisoner who was incarcerated for 5 years at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. Since her release a little over 14 years ago, she has worked with the Bay Area and Humboldt County American Indian communities as a community organizer and speaker. She has done advisory work around the issues of Indian child welfare, protection of American Indian religious and spiritual traditions, Squaw Name Change Project, and the rights for American Indian women within the federal and state prison system. Ogden co-authored The American Indian within the White Man¹s Prison: A Story of Genocide (Uncompromising Books). top

Claudine O'Leary is a Youth Worker with the Young Women's Empowerment Project, a peer based harm reduction project for girls and young women impacted by the sex trade and street economy. top

Laurie Schaffner grew up in Los Angeles, California in the 1960s and lived on her own as a teenager, including living in Mexico during the 1970s. She completed her Bachelor¹s degree at Smith College and her doctorate in Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is working on the manuscript for publication, Worlds of Girls in Trouble: Sex, Anger, and Violence in Everyday Life. Schaffner is the author of Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and ŒBad Attitudes,¹ (NY: Haworth Press, 1999), as well as articles for Crime and Delinquency, Adolescence, Social Justice, Hastings Women¹s Law Journal, and International Journal of Children¹s Rights. Her work earned awards from the American Sociology Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, and the American Society of Criminology. She co-founded the San Francisco For Girls Coalition (1996) and the Chicago Girls Coalition (2000), where community advocates, scholars, and young women come together to focus on the plight of girls in the juvenile legal system. Schaffner also served as a Juvenile Justice Commissioner for the State of California, City and County of San Francisco from 1998 to 2000. She currently teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. top

Carolyn Shapiro, MA, YES! director, has more than 30 years experience as an educator in high schools and colleges and as an initiator of numerous community efforts and still existing community organizations. For the past three years she has researched community-based learning in Vermont high schools for the John Dewey Project. Shapiro is also an artist and co-founder of Branching Out, a high school program offering experiential learning with community mentors. top

Charisse Shumate was a founding member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a lead plaintiff in a groundbreaking lawsuit about health care conditions for women prisoners, and a regular columnist for The Fire Inside. She lived with sickle cell disease, hepatitis C and cancer. She died in August 2001, having suffered years of medical abuse in the California prison system. top

Gail T. Smith founded CLAIM, Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers, in 1985, shortly after she graduated from New York University School of Law. She has been working with women prisoners since the summer of 1983 and has a deep, abiding commitment to work side by side with these women and their families. top

Pamela Thomas is the Client Services Manager for the North Lawndale Employment Network¹s ex-offender program, where she supervises case managers and develops community resources for clients. Along with surviving the streets as a child, she also battled a very severe drug addiction. She has spent much of her 36 years battling one storm after another, including numerous prison incarcerations. She knows how difficult it is to try and reintegrate into a society whose policies specifically tell you, you¹re not a part of it. She has taken her life and used it as a basis to promote growth and stability in the lives of other women who¹ve walked the path she has to design a gender-based curriculum for female ex-offenders which she feels could possibly change the face of structural programming for women coming from challenging backgrounds and lifestyles. Thomas has always had a passion for writing poetry and plays from as far back as she can remember, and she uses her writing as a tool to help those who are so easily forgotten about. Her idol is Nikki Giovanni. top

Wenona Thompson has worked as the Coordinator for Girl Talk, a weekly collaborative program for girls at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, since 1998. She is a single parent of two children. She received her Associate of Arts degree from Kennedy-King College in 1997 and has recently completed requirements to receive her B.A. from the Inner City Studies Department of Northeastern Illinois University. At the age of 16, she was arrested and charged as an adult on a drug possession charge. She served a total of two and a half years in the Juvenile Justice system. Since her release, she has been active both in her community, as a mentor, volunteer and activist, and through her work as coordinator of Girl Talk. Ms. Thompson has participated in workshops and conferences educating both policy makers and the general public about the realities and needs of youth in Chicago communities and works with the media to dispel stereotypes about incarcerated youth. top

Michelle VanNatta is currently Director of Criminology at Dominican University, believes in prison abolition and works with CLAIM (Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers). top

Kebby Warner is incarcerated in Michigan. After losing custody of her daughter, Helen, she became active in the struggle against the prison-industrial complex and is forming an organization called PACK (People Against Court Kidnapping) to protest incarcerated parents' lack of rights. top

Laura Whitehorn was released from prison in August 1999 after 15 years. Settling into New York City, and already working hard to free all political prisoners and prisoners of war. Since the 1970s, when she helped lead a building occupation at Harvard, Laura has been active in anti-racist and anti-war organizing and the women's liberation movement. Along with Linda Evans, Marilyn Buck, Susan Rosenberg and others, she was convicted in the Resistance Conspiracy to attack the U.S. Capitol, the Navy War College, and other government and corporate targets. She was in Federal women's prison at Lexington, Kentucky and Dublin, California, where she was active in AIDS support work and where, with the other political prisoners, she helped organize the Bay Area Art Show for Mumia. Laura is currently an assistant editor with POZ magazine in New York City. top

Angeline Widmer, MPH, MBA, is the Project Coordinator for the Region V Incarcerated Women's Project in the Office on Women's Health - Region V, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Angeline has conducted qualitative research on health programs, services, and needs in women's facilities in the region and facilitating information sharing and networking among prison wardens and health staff in the region. Angeline has Master's degrees in Public Health and Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has also spent time volunteering as an outreach worker for the Chicago Women's Health Center, conducting health workshops and discussions at Cook County Jail, Juvenile Detention Center, and other venues. Currently, she is participating in a local V-World initiative, envisioning a world without violence against women and girls. Having lived and worked in Guyana and Samoa, Angeline also has interests in international women's health and human rights. top

Rachel Williams is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Iowa. She is the editing author of Teaching the Arts in Prison, published by Northeastern University Press in 2003. Currently she is conducting a two-year narrative workshop with women at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. The workshop will result in a DVD and an anthology based on the stories and writing of workshop participants. This program was funded by Humanities Iowa. She was awarded a grant from the National Art Education Foundation in 2001 to research the Status and Praxis of Arts Education in Juvenile Correctional Facilities in the US. In the summer of 2001, Inside Job Theater Company of the UK invited her to be a guest designer for their production The House of Bernarda Alba with women inmates at Her Majesty's Prison, Holloway in London, England. This project was the focus of an independent documentary film called Artistic Convictions, The Women of Holloway Directed by Lucy Fyson and produced by Roger Graef's, Films of Record. Williams received her Ph.D. and MFA from Florida State University. She received a BFA from East Carolina University in Painting and Drawing. top

Debi Zuver is a battered woman who received a 21-year sentence on a manslaughter charge after a plea bargain. Her appeal of her sentence was recently denied by the California appellate court. She continues to advocate on behalf of other battered women and to dream of the day when she will be released and can open a home where abused women can start a new life. top

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