Focusing on the intersections of incarceration and mental illness has not been an easy task. While often deeply fulfilling and extremely disheartening at the same time, this project has allowed us to develop a critical lens through which to view certain elements of popular culture and mass media. With the explosive popularity of television shows like Orange is the New Black and American Horror Story: Asylum, many Americans are becoming aware of the imprisonment of people with mental illness, both contemporarily and historically. Even though images and representations of this issue have seemingly grown in the past few years, we began to wonder how these over-the-top, romanticized ideas have affected commercial culture. Considering the combination of images and text found...

“Two white inmates of the Indiana female prison set fire to the building because they were compelled to eat with colored inmates.” That is all that is said about a fire, racial tensions, and prison life in a column of an Indianapolis newspaper in 1892. The short blurb raises a series of questions: Were the living quarters in prison segregated by race at this time? What were the conditions these women were living in and how were they able to start a fire? Were they any casualties of this fire? What happened to the women who set the fire? What was the role of the wardens? What were the perspectives of the black women? From the short blurb, we can...

Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHaRC) demonstration in Chicopee, MA. This demonstration is one of many organized by SHaRC members between 2003 and 2006 to contest the need for a new women’s prison in western MA. They organized educational events monthly, each with a theme such as “Homes not Jails” and “Healthcare not Jails.” Despite protests from SHaRC and community members, the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center (WMRWCC) opened in September, 2007.

In July 2009, dozens of protesters gathered in Manhattan outside of then-governor David Paterson’s office to demand an end to the practice of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth. In May 2009, both houses of the New York State Legislature passed a bill that would bar the shackling of women during labor. At the time of the rally, the bill was being reviewed by the governor’s office. This image, depicting protesters in Manhattan, was published alongside a newspaper article that focuses on some of the experiences of formerly incarcerated women who experienced the practice of shackling during childbirth. This was one of several demonstrations that Women on the Rise Telling Her Story (WORTH) organized in 2009. At least once a week,...