Coalition for Women Prisoners Collection

The Coalition for Women Prisoners Collection contains physical and digital materials documenting the work of the Coalition for Women Prisoners and its members between 1993 and 2021. The collection includes organizational records from the CWP and its adjacent programs—ReConnect and the Women in Prison Project—such as meeting agendas, strategic planning and assessment documents, financial documents, correspondence, reports and publications on various issues relating to incarceration, materials for public programming and outreach, and materials from the CWP’s legislative advocacy campaigns. The collection also contains photographs and video footage from CWP’s actions and events, as well as short films made to highlight the stories of CWP members and advance their advocacy work. In addition, several pieces of artwork and movement ephemera such as protest signs and banners from the CWP’s organizing initiatives reside in the collection. Currently, the contents of the collection largely reflect the CWP’s work from 1994 through 1996 during Rhea Mallett’s tenure as director of WIPP, and from 2004 to 2021 during Andrea Williams’s tenure with ReConnect and the CWP.

Series 1, Coalition for Women Prisoners Organizational Records, 1993-2021, includes the internal organizational records of the Coalition for Women Prisoners. This series spans from 1993 before the CWP’s inception—with documents from the hiring process of its first director, the first CWP meetings, and the establishment of the CWP’s founding vision and purpose—through to 2021 when the CWP sunsetted as an organization. These materials include meeting minutes; records from financial and strategic organizational planning processes; correspondence between CWP leaders, members, and collaborators; the notes, research, drafts, and feedback from various CWP projects and initiatives; personnel documents such as job descriptions, resignation letters, and hiring materials; materials from events hosted and sponsored by the CWP; and materials from the processes that culminated in the CWP’s decision to sunset the organization in June 2021, including the sunset announcements and final CWP gatherings. Series 1 contains both physical and born-digital materials. Documents from the CWP’s earlier history are largely physical, and documents from more recent years are mostly in digital format.

Series 2, ReConnect Program Materials, 1994-2021, bulk: 2003-2016, contains the records, documents, and materials of the ReConnect Program. The ReConnect Program, directed by Andrea Wiliams, operated adjacently to the Coalition for Women Prisoners as a leadership empowerment and political organizing program providing support to women transitioning out of jails, prisons, or “alternative to incarceration” programs such as mandated drug treatment. All ReConnect participants became automatic members of the Coalition for Women Prisoners, and many continued their organizing work with the CWP after they graduated from the program. This series contains organizational records from ReConnect such as meeting minutes, application and recruitment materials, financial documents, feedback and evaluation materials, hiring materials and staff resignation letters, and correspondence. A significant portion of this series is made up of technical assistance forms, which document the communication between ReConnect staff members and former program participants and collaborators requesting assistance, support, or resources regarding a variety of matters relating to ReConnect and CWP work (with names redacted for confidentiality). Series 2 also contains ReConnect curriculum and educational materials, materials from ReConnect public events and programming, as well as ReConnect newsletters and public communications. Also included are various works of poetry, art, and writing from ReConnect participants. Additionally, this series contains feedback surveys and other materials from the NoVo Foundation’s project to turn the former Bayview Women's Prison into a community women’s center.

Series 3, Coalition for Women Prisoners Advocacy Campaign Materials, 1994-2021, contains physical and digital materials relating to the Coalition for Women Prisoners’ public-facing advocacy and organizing campaigns, spanning from the establishment of the CWP until its sunset in 2021. These materials include political education resources; reports and policy proposals; meeting notes and agendas relating to various campaigns; correspondence with elected officials, allied organizations, and other relevant stakeholders; notes and materials from research relating to CWP campaign initiatives; and movement ephemera such as protest signs, banners, buttons, posters, and artwork.

Sub-series 3.1, Early Legislative Advocacy, 1994-1996, contains materials documenting the CWP's legislative advocacy work during Rhea Mallett's tenure as director from 1994-1996. Major areas of focus include preventing sexual assault in prisons and jails; improving access to reprodctive and gynecological healthcare for incarcerated people; challenging Governor George Pataki's sentencing reforms, which increased prison sentences and abolished parole for "violent offenders"; repealing the Rockefeller drug laws and supporting "drug mule" protection bills; maintaining ties between incarcerated mothers and their children; protecting criminalized survivors of domestic violence; and funding alternatives to incarceration.

Sub-series 3.2, Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, 2009-2019, bulk: 2018-2019, contains materials from the CWP’s 10 year campaign to pass the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in the New York State legislature, increasing protections for criminalized survivors of domestic violence. Most materials in this sub-series document the final two years of the campaign in 2018 and 2019. A significant portion of documents in sub-series 3.2 are born-digital, though the sub-series also contains a campaign banner and a folder of physical materials.

Sub-series 3.3, Anti-Solitary Confinement Campaign, 2017-2020, contains materials from the CWP’s campaign against solitary confinement and their work in support of the passage of the HALT Solitary (Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement) bill in the New York State legislature. A significant majority of the digital materials in this sub-series come from the CWP’s process of drafting a report, Prison Within Prison: Voices of Women Held in Isolated Confinement in New York. These documents include background research materials; interviews, survey responses, and feedback from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who have experienced solitary confinement (with last names and sensitive identifying information redacted); several draft iterations of the report with feedback from various stakeholders; meeting minutes; budget documents; and information about distribution of the report. This sub-series also contains documents relating to the CWP’s general-anti-solitary confinement advocacy, including several banners, protest signs, and pieces of artwork.

Series 4, CWP and ReConnect Photographs, Videos, and Films, 1994-2014, contains physical and digital photographs, videos, and films from both CWP and ReConnect, largely capturing their activities from 2003 to 2021.

Sub-series 4.1, CWP and ReConnect Photographs, 2003-2020, includes physical and born-digital photographs from ReConnect and CWP meetings, ReConnect graduation ceremonies, annual lobbying days in Albany, and other CWP events, gatherings, and political rallies and actions.

Sub-series 4.2, CWP Video and Radio Recordings, 2005-2013, contains video and audio footage from CWP activities and events. This footage includes video from the 2005 and 2006 CWP lobby days, and recordings of educational events and interviews including an interview segment on Teen Talk Radio and a 2014 Brooklyn Museum Panel on incarcerated mothers.

Sub-series 4.3, CWP and ReConnect Short Films, 1994-2009, includes films made by the CWP, its members, and its allies about the coalition’s work and about issues facing incarcerated women to be used in service of CWP advocacy campaigns.

Series 5, Coalition for Women Prisoners Oral History Interviews, 1959-2023, contains a collection of oral history interviews with members and affiliates of the Coalition for Women Prisoners conducted by staff of the Barnard Archives.