Connecticut was one of many states and cities around the U.S. that raised money and awareness to bail women out of jails and prisons for Mother’s Day this year. The Connecticut Bail Fund, working with a dozen other groups, raised about $30,000 and bailed out 30 women. The funds were used to bail out 26 women from the state’s only women’s prison, York Correctional Institute in Niantic – and another four from immigration jail.
While these women are charged with crimes, they have not been convicted and are incarcerated only because they can’t afford to pay bail. The groups participating in the “Mothers Day Bail Out,” as it’s called, are not simply raising money to release women from jail, but are challenging the entire money bail system, which discriminates against the poor, the population most frequently caught up in the criminal justice system.
On May 8, the coalition of groups taking part in the “Mothers Day Bail Out” held a rally in a park adjacent to the York women’s prison, where advocates – including many formerly incarcerated women – shouted their encouragement to the women still behind bars. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus was at the rally and brings us excerpts of several of those who spoke.
CROWD: Free her! Free her! Free her! Free her! Free her! Free her! Free her!
BETWEEN THE LINES: Ana Maria Rivera Forestieri works at the Connecticut Bail Fund.
ANA MARIA RIVERA FORESTIERI: There’s nearly 1,000 women who are currently incarcerated in this cage – in this state-sponsored cage – who are not going to be able to go home to their loved ones. And so, throughout the last couple of months, through the work we’ve been doing and through some of the stories you’re going to be hearing today, we’ve been learning about the human rights abuses that women are experiencing inside this facility. So we want to stand in love and solidarity, but we also want to shed light into what’s happening right here in CT. Some of the abuses that women are experiencing – from sexual harassment to sexual abuse to medical neglect, from immigration agents coming into this facility impersonating lawyers and tricking people. We want to let people know what’s happening inside this facility. And we want to send a message of love and solidarity that we’re here, that we love you, that we stand with you, that we’re going to fight for you every single day until all of you come home to your communities.
CROWD: (Cheers)
Repeat after me: It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Tiheba Bain yelled to the women inside York about a new state law to protect their rights.
TIHEBA BAIN: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m here today because I want to let the women in York know that for anyone who is pregnant, you have the right today to not be shackled during transportation (cheer). Throughout the last session of the legislature, we have been successful in passing the bill SB 13, the Senate bill. You are now allowed and are supposed to be provided sanitary napkins free of charge. The people that are pregnant, they are not supposed to be handcuffed, shackled during transportation, during labor, birth and after delivery. So know your rights, ladies. You have that right and you have to fight for your rights. I was in York CI many, many years ago, maybe three or four times – yes, I was. So today I want to let you know that even though you may be behind that wall today, you could be out here tomorrow doing the same thing. And don’t forget about the sisters that you leave when you do leave, because they’re going to need your help like you need our help today.
Up, up with liberation, down, down with incarceration (repeats).
NICOLE KENNEDY: Hi, my name is Nicole Kennedy. I was just released by the Bail Committee Fund on Friday (cheers). This program works! It works. I was picked up on a 2015 warrant and was incarcerated. The Bail Fund Committee came and got me on Friday. On April 7, I did a praise dance in order to raise money to bring women home. You would have not told me I would be one of those women. Today, I stand here and I say I’m free. Praise the Lord, I’m free! No more bonds, no more chains holding me. My soul is rested. It’s a blessing. Praise the Lord, I’m free.
I’m free today to fight for other women that was in there with me, sat with me seven days in a medical lock-up. You go nowhere for seven days. You come out that room for an hour of morning rec and an hour of evening rec. Your mental state of mind goes through torment. You don’t know when you’re getting out. You’re a victim of the state. I went to court today and my fear was they could revoke my bond if they feel like it and place me back in for a (inaudible) of three years ago. My past is my past; judge me by my present. Because my past, I can’t live by that anymore. You tell me to change, to rehabilitate. Then leave my past in my past, and judge me for my present. And that’s why my presence is out here, to tell the ladies who watched me leave on Friday, I am out here still fighting to get the rest of you out. I will not sit still and I will not be quiet anymore, like I was told in those walls. I was told when to speak, when not to speak, and if I spoke I was told to shut up. I had no value; I had no opinion; I had no say-so.
Today I’ve got a lot to say. You will not treat us the way you have any more. We have rights. We have the right to fight for what we believe in, and we believe that these walls will no longer hold us back. I’m going forward to say thank you to this committee and to the people who are out here rallying. Thank you for freeing me. You came and got me. So I need to come back and get the rest of them. Ladies, let’s do this! (Applause)
CROWD: Amen, amen, let’s go!
For more information, visit the Connecticut Bail Fund at ctbailfund.org;
Mother’s Day Bail Out at ctbailfund.org/mothers-day and National Bailout, national perspective on the movement challenging the bail system at nomoremoneybail.org.
