WOMEN IN PRISON COMMITTEE REACHES OUT TO NEW BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR MARK INCH, SHARES POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

NAWJ congratulated Mark Inch, new Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, on his appointment in a letter this month, which also requested a meeting to alert the new official of NAWJ’s Women in Prison Committee’s past and current concerns for the plight of women in prison.  One of the Committee’s primary concerns is gender equality. 

While the Committee’s letter shared a report of recent activities, it also included policy recommendations including: 

• Overhauling sentencing practices to reduce incarceration rates; 

• Strengthening government agency personnel dedicated to providing effective programs in preparation for successful re-entry and sustained viable life in community; 

• Support funding community based restorative justice programs;

• Support funding alternatives to incarceration that keep caregivers living with children;

• Reform parole decisions;

• create individualized programs tailored to each person’s needs;

• Eliminate solitary confinement;

• Ban shacking at all stages of pregnancy and eight weeks post-partum;  

• Utilize family impact statements when determining where to incarcerate;

• Reform the Adoption and Safe Families Act to safeguard parental rights;

• Expand family friendly in-prison services;

• Implement trauma-informed medical and mental health care for inmates, and training for all personnel, including security;

• Improve reproductive health care;

• Discourage dehumanizing language of incarcerated people;

• Implement reforms that recognize Trans and gender non-conforming people in prisons and jails;

• Reform parole and probation guidelines and requirements to encourage successful re-entry.

You can read more details on these recommendations prepared by the Women in Prison Project for NAWJ New York’s Women in Prison Committee here.  NAWJ is a national organization of 1,200 member judges, attorneys and legal experts who serve at all levels of the federal and state judiciary. The Women in Prison Committee has been in existence since 1991. 

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For more information about NAWJ and the Women in Prison Committee contact Marie Komisar at mkomisar@nawj.org.