Millions of affordable homes have disappeared over the past decade

March 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“Millions of lower-cost apartments have essentially disappeared over the past decade, either through rising rents or by falling into disrepair” The New York Times March 21, 2024

Earlier this month, the National Low Income Housing Coalition came out with its annual report on the availability, or lack thereof, of affordable housing, The Gap 2024: A Shortage of Affordable Housing. “No state has an adequate supply of affordable rental housing for the lowest-income renters”. According to NLIHC, the current shortage is more acute than it was prior to the pandemic. There are currently 7.1 million affordable homes for 11 million households. “Of those. 7.0 million rental units, 3.3 million are occupied by higher income households, leaving only 3.7 million rental homes that are both affordable and available for extremely low-income renters.”

According to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, “housing is unaffordable because wages have not kept up with rising rents. There is no county or state where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest apartment. At minimum wage, people have to work 86 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom. Even when people can afford a home, one is not always available. In 1970, the United States had a surplus of 300,000 affordable homes. Today, only 37 affordable homes are available for every 100 extremely low-income renters. As a result, 70% of the lowest-wage households spend more than half their income on rent, placing them at high risk of homelessness when unexpected expenses (such as car repairs and medical bills) arise.”

Wages are stagnant, rents increase. That contributes to the housing crisis. Almost half the affordable homes are occupied by higher income households. That also contributes to the housing crisis. But there’s more. Across the country, municipalities “fail”, or refuse, to create more affordable units: “No new affordable rental units were brought online in 2023, and no units were rehabilitated. Further, Des Moines failed to achieve, even in part, its goal of assisting 35 households facing homelessness with `rapid rehousing.’” Or take Millburn Township, a wealthy New Jersey suburb of New York City. Thanks to a landmark legal case years ago, New Jersey is ruled by the Mount Laurel legal doctrine which decrees that every town in the state has to make it possible to build lower-cost residences. Millburn Township decided it didn’t have to. So first it ignored repeated court decisions and then, more recently, it simply pulled out of a relatively modest affordable housing project. At present, Millburn Township has only 38 affordable homes. Refusal and failure, failure and refusal contribute to and intensify the affordable housing crisis.

A report issued today, suggests that for the next five years, renting will be 38% cheaper than buying. For the next five years, the pressure on the rental market to upscale, by raising rents and by remodeling for bigger units, will continue or increase. But what’s five years in a country in which people wait for federal housing vouchers for over a decade and then, when they’re “lucky” enough to finally catch one, landlords won’t accept them. Yes, that’s illegal. No, landlords don’t get punished. What’s five years in that context, in that nation?

Five years is half a decade. Again, over the past decade, millions of lower-cost, affordable and especially deeply affordable homes have disappeared. Many were allowed or even encouraged to “fall into disrepair”, encouraged by a market and society in which owners could make more profit by destroying their stock, often with the hopes of recouping the “loss” later through “redevelopment”. The rest were disappeared by rising and then skyrocketing rents. Millions of affordable and deeply affordable residences, homes, were disappeared, kidnapped, and working families across the United States were, have been, and are being held for ransom. What is justice in a nation that can countenance the destruction of millions of homes and the devastation of tens of millions of lives in such a short period of time?  Where once the alibi for forced removal of housing and populations was “blight”, today it’s just business as usual. Five years is half a decade, and, really, what’s a decade?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Amanda Williams, “Color(ed) Theory: Crown Royal Bag” / Smithsonian)

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In prisons in England and Wales, “evidence of the levels of distress of the women being held”

February 29, 2024 by Leave a Comment

At the beginning of February, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor issued a report, “The long wait: A thematic review of delays in the transfer of mentally unwell prisoners”. It is predictably dismal and dismaying reading, dismaying not only because of its gruesome details and insights but also because of its lack of surprise. There is no surprise that the prisons of England and Wales are the furthest possible distance from any sense of justice. There is likewise no surprise that the most vulnerable, the ones most in need of assistance and more, are the least served, or, perhaps, the most served with a kind of violence and misery. Here’s the core of the most current report: “Only 15% of patients in our sample were transferred within 28 days and waiting times for a bed were too long. The average wait was 85 days from the point it was identified that their mental health needs could not be treated in prison, with a range of three to 462 days.” By law, anyone deemed in need of mental health care must be, not should be must be, transferred to mental health hospitals within 28 days. In this scenario of lack of, or refusal of, care, where are the women? Again predictably, everywhere and under the greatest threat.

Much of the report involves “men and women”, as in “Our prisons continue to hold a number of very seriously mentally unwell men and women”. But there are moments in which women are at the center of the findings: “I will always remember the deep shock of walking into a unit in Eastwood Park, where acutely mentally unwell women were being held in appalling conditions with bloodstains on the floor and scratch marks on the walls; evidence of the levels of distress of the women being held there …. At Low Newton women’s prison in Durham the screams from the inpatient unit where the most mentally unwell women were held were so distressing that other prisoners told us they were put off going for their medical appointments.”

“I will always remember”. The irony is that, while Charlie Taylor may always remember, the “care” for women who are incarcerated is marked by amnesia and silence. Consider the twelve months prior to the report’s release, and this will be at best a grossly minimal account.

In March, the Independent Monitoring Board issued its Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP/YOI Eastwood Park: “Whilst efforts have been made to reduce levels of self-harm the high number of women being imprisoned with severe mental health issues has been compounded by the impact of lockdown. Eastwood Park is currently considered nationally as a prison of concern.” Repeatedly, the report emphasizes that the prison is now housing an “unprecedented number of mentally unwell and vulnerable women, as well as women with complex needs.” The result is, predictably, “exceptionally high levels of self-harm.” Eastwood Park is currently considered nationally as a prison of concern. Is it? By whom? By the way, this report was widely reported.

On July 27, 2023, the UK Ministry of Justice released Safety in Custody Statistics, England and Wales: Deaths in Prison Custody to June 2023 Assaults and Self-harm to March 2023: “There were 59,722 self-harm incidents in the 12 months to March 2023, up 11% from the previous 12 months, comprising of a 1% decrease in male establishments and a 52% increase in female establishments. Over the same period, the rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which takes account of the increase in the prison population between this and the previous year, decreased 5% in male establishments but increased 51% in female establishments …. There were 59,722 self-harm incidents in the 12 months to March 2023, up 11% from the previous 12 months, comprising of a 1% decrease in male establishments and a 52% increase in female establishments … In male establishments, self-harm incidents decreased 1% and assault incidents increased 11%. In female establishments, both self-harm and assault incidents increased, by 52% and 16% respectively … The rate [of self-harm] in female establishments has increased considerably by 51% to a new peak (5,826 per 1,000 prisoners), whereas it has decreased 5% in male establishments (523 per 1,000 prisoners), meaning the rate is now more than eleven times higher in female establishments.” These dismal numbers were widely reported.

In the next Ministry of Justice Safety in Custody Statistics report, the investigators found, “The rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which takes account of the increase in the prison population between this and the previous year, increased 3% in male establishments and increased 63% in female establishments.” This too was widely reported.

On November 23, 2023, the National Health Service England released its long awaited report, A review of health and social care in women’s prisons. The report, which received widespread attention, stated, “Women in prison have disproportionately higher levels of health and social care needs than their male counterparts in prison and women in the general population. High numbers of women in prison experience poor physical and mental health and many are living with trauma. Findings from this Review further highlight the vulnerability and adverse life experiences of many women in prison. Mothers feel keenly the separation from their children that imprisonment brings, and women who are mentally unwell are still being sent to prison. None of this is new.” None of this is new.

Concerning mental health care, the report noted, “Acutely mentally ill women are still being sent to prison.  Prisons are ill equipped to provide the necessary treatment and care for acutely mentally ill women.  There is a gap in mental health services across the range of needs including primary mental healthcare and specialist interventions for women who have experienced trauma, including sexual and domestic violence.” This too was widely reported.

There were many more reports, both from the government and from various organizations and news agencies, but the point is made. None of this is new. Reports are only fine if they are read and acted upon. Otherwise, they are worse than empty gestures. They are part of the machinery that is pulverizing women –  vulnerable women, women of color, working class women, women living with mental health issues, women living with disabilities, pregnant women, women who are mothers, women – into dust. The women’s prisons are filled with dust. It is a matter of concern. We will never forget … will we?

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: NHS England)

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Tenants who were threatened with eviction experienced excess mortality that was ten times higher than that of the general population

February 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment

A new study came out this week that demonstrated that “tenants who were threatened with eviction experienced excess mortality that was ten times higher than that of the general population … People who faced an eviction filing during the pandemic died at over twice the rate that was normal prior to the pandemic.” While the majority of those facing eviction predictably lived in low-income communities, and more often than not communities of color, those who were threatened with eviction had a much higher mortality rate than their immediate neighbors who did not face eviction. We know, or we think we know, that eviction is an existential crisis. This study demonstrates that eviction filing, facing eviction, whether or not one is ultimately thrown to the streets, is itself an existential crisis. For many, an eviction filing like an eviction is a death sentence.

Where are the women in this toxic scenario? Everywhere, women are the very fiber of the story, of the situation. “The median age of the threatened renters was 36 years, 62.5% were women, 57.6% were Black, and their median annual household income was $38,000, with 25.9% living below the poverty line.” For Black women the arithmetic is particularly telling and lethal. While Black women make up 11.5% of renters considered, they comprised 38.7% of those who faced eviction filings, the highest proportion of any group. The study considered the first two years of the pandemic. During that period, according to the study’s authors, “if we had eliminated eviction filings altogether, more than 8,000 lives could have been saved.” What exactly is the value of a human life in the current housing market?

While, at some level, none of this is surprising, given the intersection of gender, race/ethne, class in the general eviction story, it bears emphasizing that the “mere act” of being threatened with eviction is tantamount to a death sentence. When you hear or read of the “eviction epidemic”, remember that that’s not a figure of speech. Evictions kill, eviction filings kill.  Across the country, we see spikes in both eviction filings and evictions. Those are part of a national, and global, war on women, and in particular on low- to moderate-income women of color. Decent and secure housing is, or should be, a right. Safe and stable housing is life itself.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Images credit: Ariana Torrey / USA Today)

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No-fault evictions and the persistence of feudalism in housing

February 11, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Sunday morning, February 11, the United Kingdom’s so-called housing minister Michael Gove appeared on BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning politics show, and he did not fail to politick. When asked about the housing situation and in particular the Tory government’s four-year failure to pass its Renters (Reform) Bill which would ban no-fault evictions, the minister “promised” to end no-fault evictions by the time the next general elections roll around, sometime at the end of this year or the beginning of next. Whether these are hollow promises or not, and they are, is an issue many are discussing. Why it is so difficult to end no-fault evictions, and not only in the United Kingdom, is another, equally sordid issue. The reason, to cut to the chase, no-fault evictions persist is that renters today just as renters two hundred years ago find themselves firmly embedded in contemporary feudalism.

But first, a quick summary of the sad history of not addressing no-fault evictions. In 2019, the Conservative Party’s manifesto promised to end Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, which codified the right, and power, of landlords to evict tenants “without having to establish fault on the part of the tenant”. In April 2019, the government announced “plans to consult on new legislation to abolish Section 21 evictions – so called ‘no-fault’ evictions”.  That consultation went from April 2019 to October 2019. The resulting consultation paper proposed abolishing Section 21. That was over four years ago. What happened? A great deal and absolutely nothing.

Formally, nothing happened until June 2022, when the government issued a White Paper, “A fairer private rented sector”, which offered a 12-point action plan. The third action, in its entirety, reads: “We will deliver our manifesto commitment to abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and deliver a simpler, more secure tenancy structure. A tenancy will only end if the tenant ends it or if the landlord has a valid ground for possession, empowering tenants to challenge poor practice and reducing costs associated with unexpected moves.” That was June 2022. The Queens Speech 2022 stated that a Renters Reform Bill would be introduced in the 2022 – 2023 session of Parliament. It wasn’t. So where is Section 21 today?

On one hand, a bill was finally introduced. The discussion of the bill has been delayed, again, until at least March. On the other, more dire hand, 2023 saw a 50% increase over 2022 in no-fault evictions, the highest number of no-fault evictions since 2016. Since the government first announced it would ban no-fault evictions, 26,000 households, 26,000 families, have suffered no-fault evictions. Landlords can smell something going on and are acting “accordingly”.

While one in five Conservative MPs are landlords, even if that were not the case, the Renters (Reform) Bill would have a tough road. Landlords have argued, apparently persuasively, that giving tenants “just cause” protection would harm the rental market. While there’s no evidence of that, and while this bill doesn’t go nearly far enough, one can see in the formulation an image of what that market actually is. A place where only the landlord exists. Paid your rent, month in month out, for years, maybe even decades? If you had the temerity to complain about maintenance, you’re out. If you had the gall to complain about exorbitant rent hikes or management harassment, you’re out. If something has changed the general broader neighborhood and people with more money are beginning to consider renting there, you’re out. Period. The years you’ve invested in maintaining the property count for less than nothing, less than nothing because now you have the Scarlet Letter E. Good luck finding a place to live.

This scenario is playing out around the world. 4% of evictions in Canada are no-fault evictions. In British Columbia, the epicenter of evictions in Canada, 85% of evictions were no-fault evictions, compared to 65% nationally. How do landlords explain this “epidemic” of no-fault evictions? They say the rules are too strict. Tenant advocates point out that the rules and punishments are actually among the easiest in Canada. Similarly, Australia is suffering a rise in no-fault evictions.

Across the United States, no-fault evictions are on the rise as well. In Connecticut, where evictions have risen steadily, no-fault evictions used to make up 9% of evictions annually. Now they comprise 11%. In April, California will once again ban no-fault evictions. In 2019, California passed “a landmark law” which prohibited no-fault evictions, with three exceptions: the landlord moving into the units, making repairs, or taking the units off the rental market. Guess what happened? In Santa Clara County a landlord evicted tenants, claiming relatives had to move. Magically, soon after, the apartments were re-listed at nearly double the price. Under the new law, landlords moving into their units or renting to family will have to identify the people moving in. They will have to move in within three months of eviction, and they will have to live in the unit for at least a year. Those who evict tenants to renovate properties, so called renovictions, will have to provide copies of permits or contracts when serving eviction notices. If landlords do not comply, they will have to allow evicted tenants to return under the original lease terms. Finally, the new law authorizes the attorney general, local government and renters to sue landlords for wrongful evictions and illegal rent increases.

From the United Kingdom to Canada to Australia to the United States and beyond, the elimination of no-fault evictions is an ongoing struggle. Powerful landlord groups are fierce in their opposition. Even when laws are passed, as happened in California, landlords find ways of exploiting what seemed like reasonable exceptions. Tenants often are uninformed about their rights and their power. And finally, often, as the new California law suggests, even when the eviction is wrongful, illegal, the tenant is left to pursue justice in civil court. Even though the landlord has actually broken the law, the State does not prosecute. Why does the State not pursue landlords who engage in wrongful eviction? Because in feudalism the bond between land and lord is sacred, and the tenants are not even shadows.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: The Guardian / Bill Bragg)

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The trace of torture that is solitary confinement: Immigration detention in the US and UK

February 8, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“Isolation is the key component of oppression.”
Christina Fialho

In February 1975, Michel Foucault’s groundbreaking Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison was published. Fifty years later, we’re still in the ongoing midst and mess of the birth of the birth of prison. Near the beginning of that treatise, Foucault explained, “A punishment like forced labour or even imprisonment – mere loss of liberty – has never functioned without a certain additional element of punishment that certainly concerns the body itself: rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement … There remains, therefore, a trace of ‘torture’ in the modern mechanisms of criminal justice – a trace that has not been entirely overcome, but which is enveloped, increasingly, by the non-corporal nature of the penal system”. The “trace of torture” that remains was documented this week in two studies that considered the conditions of immigration detention in the United Kingdom and the United States.

On Monday, Physician for Human Rights released “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention. The authors found, “ICE oversaw more than 14,000 placements in solitary confinement between 2018 and 2023. Many people who are detained in solitary confinement have preexisting mental health conditions and other vulnerabilities. The average duration of solitary confinement is approximately one month, and some immigrants spend over two years in solitary confinement.” In terms of number of “placements in solitary confinement”, people sent to solitary confinement, and hours and days (and years) spent in solitary confinement this number represents “a marked increase” during both the Trump and Biden administrations. The average stay in solitary is 27 days, “well exceeding the 15-day threshold that United Nations (UN) human rights experts have found constitutes torture.” The report notes the lack of oversight and that that lack has been well documented often. While the authors suggest that greater oversight would help reduce the torture, it’s not the case that “the system” doesn’t know it’s torturing the most vulnerable. As one former detainee, a survivor of torture in Uganda, put it, “I would rather be tortured physically back home than go back through the psychological pain here. You wouldn’t think that a first-world country that advocates for human rights would have such venom.” The thing about venom is that it spreads.

Today, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment issued its report concerning a visit to English immigration detention centers last year. The Committee found that immigration detention was equivalent to being sentenced to prison. Further, the idea of unlimited detention, of prison without end, was in itself a form of torture: “The very fact that there is no maximum period of detention and that persons may be held for several years is a trigger for becoming mentally unwell.” If they weren’t living with mental illness prior to arriving in England, the state made sure they were by the time they were “released”. Further, “the policy of handcuffing vulnerable women to a bed when they have to visit an external hospital is excessive and demeaning. There is no need for this when the woman is escorted by at least two staff members.”

In both the United States and the United Kingdom, the state has decided the best way to address the needs of vulnerable populations, in particular those living with mental health illnesses, those already at risk of self-harm and suicide, many of whom are themselves already survivors of torture, is to torture them. The trace of torture has become the fabric of “justice” and “mercy”. You wouldn’t think that a country that advocates for human rights would have such venom.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Lucy Adkins / Open Democracy)

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Surveiller et punir … et mourir

February 6, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Next year will mark 50 years since the publication of Michel Foucault’s groundbreaking Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. That was February 1975. Two reports issued this week concerning the state of prisons in France and in Scotland suggest that the “birth of prison” continues unabated to this day. While it’s not particularly surprising that prisons born of the will to knowledge expressed as a toxic mix of discipline and punishment, it still makes one wonder what our collective, and often individual, investments are in such an inhumane and cruel institution.

Today, the French section of the International Observatory of Prisons published Au coeur de la prison: La machine disciplinaire. According to the report, in 2022 almost half of incarcerated people were “the subjects of incident reports”, resulting in 69,174 “disciplinary sanctions”, including over 100,000 days in solitary confinement. Take a discrete population in a controlled space. Criminalize every action. Impose cruel and unusual punishments on at least half the population. Tell them it’s for their own good, for their “rehabilitation”. These are lessons they have to learn. And there you have it, a disciplinary machine: “In prison, the list of faults punishable by disciplinary sanctions is potentially infinite, referring to categories of behavior that are sufficiently vague to encourage arbitrariness, behind mentions of `protection of order’ or ‘normal functioning’ of the establishment.” In 2022, half the sanctions led to solitary confinement, often for as long as 30 days, in violation of European prison rules. What comes of rampant solitary confinement, “the heart of the disciplinary response”? High rates of self-harm and suicide, unsurprisingly. An example of the arbitrariness of the disciplinary machine: “The standards governing the clothing of women prisoners are stricter than those for men.” For incarcerated women, bared shoulders or visible knees can lead to solitary confinement.

Yesterday, the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice released Nothing to see here? Deaths in custody and FAIs in Scotland – 2023, its third report on deaths in custody in Scotland. The Centre reports that four people die every week in Scotland while detained or under the control of the state. Between October 2022 and September 2023, 244 people died in state detention or care. Police contact deaths are increasing. Deaths have been increasing among those in mental health detention. Since the pandemic, deaths have been rising among those in migration detention and asylum “accommodation”. Deaths have been rising among looked after children and young people. Deaths among those held in prison “have been rising for many years, and this accelerated in the pandemic.” The death rate in prison in 2021-23 was 618 (per 100,000) compared to 242 in 2008-10. Between 30% and 50% were suicide and drug deaths. “Suicide and drug deaths in prison are increasing, and drug deaths are much higher in Scotland than in prisons in other places, including England and Wales, Australia and Europe.” More people sentenced to prison for longer terms have been committing suicide. Despite the rising numbers, most of the official documents refer to the deaths as “regrettable but inevitable”. Where are the women in this scenario? “The average age at death of … women who have died in prison since 2004 is 37 years; for men, the overall average since 2004 is 46.” Regrettable but inevitable.

Regrettable but inevitable is the theme for both reports. Create a disciplinary machine and what do you get? Regrettable but inevitable harm, often leading to death, within the prison or beyond, and not only for the incarcerated. Throw people into the hole and if they self-harm or kill themselves, it was regrettable but inevitable. The system had no part in that, there was no torture, there was no execution, there was only carceral agency. Build a structure where women “die” at an age nine years younger than that of men, and this in Scotland where the current life expectancy is 80.7 years for women, 76.5 years for men. So, women are “losing” 44 years, more than half an expected life span. Regrettable but inevitable.

Near the end of Discipline and Punish, Foucault wrote, “Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” Fifty years later, so-called democracies are still committed to and investing in essentially the same prison system. Is it surprising? No, it’s regrettable and inevitable.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Louise Bourgeois, “Cell XIV (Portrait) / Tate)

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For women, ending slavery and involuntary servitude would be a benefit. A greater benefit would be ending prison.

February 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

On January 31, 1865, the U.S Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads in its entirety: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” The Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. According to the National Archives, “With the adoption of the 13th Amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery.” Not altogether. There’s the matter of the exception clause, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” which makes it perfectly legal, even Constitutional, to force incarcerated people to work for little or no pay. Yesterday, January 31, 2024, 159 years later, advocacy group Worth Rises released a study, “A Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Impact of Ending Slavery and Involuntary Servitude as Criminal Punishment and Paying Incarcerated Workers Fair Wages”. Where are the women in this study and in the current world(s) constructed and codified by the 13th Amendment’s exception? Where are the women, and where should they be?

According to the study, “This study projects that while society overall will benefit from abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude in prison, and from paying fair wages for prison labor, those gains will fall disproportionately to groups and communities that have been most impacted by mass incarceration, specifically Black and Brown people, low-income people, and women …. Roughly 47% of incarcerated men and 58% of incarcerated women are the parents of minor children …. 58% of women in state or federal prisons have minor children,103 and most of them are single mothers, thus bearing sole responsibility for their young children …. Women — and Black and Hispanic women in particular — shoulder most of the financial costs of incarceration burdening families and loved ones. A recent study, for instance, showed that family members paid for court-related costs in 63% of criminal cases, and that 83% of these family members were women. The same study also found that 87% of the costs of staying connected through calls and visits similarly fell on women. Based on these data, this study projects that women will indirectly receive much of the economic benefit from fair wage payments to incarcerated workers.” Where are the women? Everywhere all at once and under attack.

While ending slavery and involuntary servitude are worthwhile, laudable and practical goals, is it enough? Consider the news just from the past week.

On Wednesday, the same day the study was issued, The Seattle Times reported, “Washington state has paid $9.9 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman whose cervical cancer grew terminal while she was incarcerated after prison doctors failed to adequately diagnose and treat the disease. In the latest of a series of deadly and expensive health care failures in state prisons, Paula Gardner, who was serving time for drug and burglary convictions, didn’t receive appropriate medical care for more than two years despite tests showing signs of possible cancer — and eventually a scan revealing a growth inside her uterus …. The settlement money will benefit Gardner for what remains of her life, as well as her two sons, who were also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.”

On Monday, The Argus Leader reported, “The state [South Dakota] is facing a record average daily population of more than 600 women in the state’s two women prisons. That’s nearly double the prisons’ daily capacity.” Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko commented, “I do worry a little bit about the female institution if we don’t do something.”

Do something. More often than not, the response to overcrowding is to build more prisons, this even though Secretary Wasko made it clear that sentencing guidelines and, secondarily, substance abuse account for the fact that people were incarcerated in the first place. Building more prisons won’t address the injustice of the sentencing system nor will it address substance abuse.

Do something. Two weeks ago, in England, a court of appeals did something: “The court of appeal has quashed the prison sentence of a heavily pregnant woman so that she can give birth safely, in a case hailed as a landmark by campaigners.” Instead of the sentence she had received from a criminal court, five years for possession of a firearm and ammunition and serving two and a half years in prison, the judges gave the woman a two-year suspended sentence with a rehabilitation requirement.

The case occurred at all because the pregnant woman’s mother feared for her daughter’s life and contacted Level Up, “a feminist community campaigning for gender justice in the UK”. Level Up campaigns to keep pregnant women out of prison. Level Up gave the pregnant woman support and assistance. After the judges’ decision was rendered, Janey Starling, Level Up co-director, said: “This landmark judgment marks a sea change in sentencing practices. Several other countries do not imprison pregnant women or new mothers and England’s courts are beginning to catch up. Prison will never be a safe place to be pregnant. The prison ombudsman, Ministry of Justice and NHS have declared all pregnancies in prison as high risk. This means that when a judge sentences a pregnant woman to prison, they are sentencing her to a high-risk pregnancy. That is unconscionable.”

Slavery is unconscionable. Involuntary servitude is unconscionable. Refusing care is unconscionable. Toxic, life endangering overcrowding is unconscionable. Sentencing someone to high-risk pregnancy is unconscionable. Do something about it. Close the prisons and create the scales of justice anew. 159 years is too long.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image credit: 2nd Life Media Alamogordo Town News) (Photo Credit: Level Up / Elizabeth Dalziel)

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Femicide, and it still is news

January 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment

 

2024 begins as so many previous years have, with reports of and reflections concerning femicides. Here are just a few headlines from the past few days, each followed by the country or countries involved:  “Femicides up in Argentina as Milei seeks to weaken protections” (Argentina); “The femicide of Julieta Hernández, a Venezuelan migrant in Brazil, sparks outrage across South America” (Brazil); “SJC Urges Government to Strengthen Preventive Measures Against Femicide” (Georgia); “Pregnant Woman’s Brutal Killing Fuels Femicide Debate in Greece” (Greece); “Kenya femicide: A woman’s murder exposes the country’s toxic online misogyny” (Kenya); “Femicide in Kenya a national crisis, say rights groups” (Kenya); “Exigen justicia para Mafer, víctima de feminicidio en Morelos” (Mexico). In France, early this month, the Minister of Justice announced that, with “only” 94 femicides in 2023, the French government had achieved success. Feminist and women’s organization, using a different method, a method previously used by the French government, found the number to be higher. Even if the number was 94, what kind of “success” is that? Yet again, we are facing a “global femicide epidemic”.

Near the end of last year, the United Nations released its second Femicide Report, Gender-Related Killings of Women and Girls (Femicide/Feminicide): Global estimates of female intimate partner/family related homicides in 2022. The study found that while homicide numbers had fallen, femicide numbers remained the same or rose. Most of the killings were gender-related and committed by intimate partners or other family relations. “The risks of gender-based violence and femicide are only rising as our world is engulfed in conflict, humanitarian emergencies, environmental and economic crises and displacement.” That was in 2022. What does one imagine 2023 and 2024 will look like? Finally, “women and girls in all regions across the world are affected by this type of gender-based violence.” What else is there to say?

Quite a bit, actually. “While the overwhelming majority of male homicides occur outside the home, for women and girls the most dangerous place is the home.” For women and girls, the most dangerous place is the home. During the pandemic, in every part of the world without any exceptions, the number and rate of femicides increased. Well, the pandemic is over, but the number and rate of femicides continue to increase, or, at the very least, remain at the elevated levels. Why? The causes are many, but one overarching reason, along with patriarchy, is government indifference. For example. Italy passed laws ten years ago and invested considerably large amounts of money, and yet the number and rate of femicides remained relatively stable. Why? According to a recent report, the Italian government put all of its money in attending to victims and survivors of femicide, and little on prevention. The title of that report is “PREVENZIONE SOTTOCOSTO: La miopia della politica italiana nella lotta alla violenza maschile contro le donne”. Low-cost prevention: The myopia of Italian politics in the struggle against male violence against women.” Myopia is a form of blindness, but this `short-sightedness’ is willful.

Until domestic violence is seen as a priority, femicides, in raw numbers and rates of commission, will continue to rise, while governments will find new methods of counting and declare success, if not victory. Around the world, this year will see a storm of national elections. Watch to see where domestic violence, violence against women and girls, and femicide figure in the various campaigns. Remember, ten or one hundred or one thousand fewer is not good enough. #NotOneMore #NiUnaMas #NiUnaMenos

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: “Una Ogni Tre Giorni” by Laila / Wanted in Rome)

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Domestic workers organized, and the New Jersey General Assembly passed a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights!

January 10, 2024 by Leave a Comment

On Monday, January 8, 2023, after more than two and a half years of deliberating, and not deliberating, the New Jersey General Assembly finally voted on and passed the New Jersey Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, 47 – 26. Monday was the last day of the legislative session. The bill was passed out of committee on January 4, the last day the committee could hear and decide on whether or not to pass the bill onto the general body. As one domestic worker/organizer said, “They put us last minute because we were there with our presence”. This bill was first introduced June 2021. For two and a half years, and longer, domestic workers showed up, pushed, persisted, shouted, whispered, sang, linked arms, advocated, mobilized, organized, organized, and organized. They were there with their presence. As domestic worker/organizer Sandy Castro explained, “It’s a very big win for us. It feels good to see it come to fruition after sacrificing so much time, so many days, to continue this fight”.

The New Jersey Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights provides domestic workers protection against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation; ensures mandatory meal and rest breaks; and requires written agreements that establish, detail, and document hours, wages and duties. Employers will have to pay workers no less than the state minimum wage, $15.13 an hour. The new law creates a board to monitor and review the implementation of the legislation and make recommendations to improve it and provides for the enforcement of domestic worker rights. Finally, the new law ensures advance notice of termination and provides other protections for live-in workers, such as privacy and anti-trafficking safeguards. In other words, domestic workers are workers. The centuries long era of exclusion is coming to an end … finally.

In 2020, Rutgers University Center for Women and Work issued a report, Domestic Workers in New Jersey, which found, unsurprisingly, “domestic workers are predominately female with a high proportion of immigrants and women of color. This is especially true for New Jersey, where domestic workers are even more likely to be female, immigrant, and non-white compared to the U.S. national average. In New Jersey, 97 percent of all domestic workers are female, 52 percent are immigrants, and 60 percent are non-white.” The report also found that the top three reasons domestic workers did not take action against labor violations were, in descending order, “Did not know how”; “Did not know I could”; “Afraid I would lose my job”. The new law establishes structures to educate both workers and employers concerning the law. Eliminate not knowing and fear, you eliminate over 60% of the respondents’ reasons for not contesting and reporting labor violations.

New Jersey joins ten other states that have some version of a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights: New York, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia. New York passed its Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in 2010; Virginia, in 2021. As domestic worker/organizer Evelyn Saz explained, “This bill is a critical step toward justice, not only for us in New Jersey but for domestic workers across the nation. We deserve to work with protections, dignity and the respect we have rightfully earned.” They came with their presence … and they won for workers across the nation.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit: National Domestic Workers Alliance)

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In the name of dignity, Pennsylvania stops shackling pregnant women, women in childbirth

January 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment

 

On December 13, 2023, the Pennsylvania Senate and House voted unanimously in favor of House Bill 900, known as the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. The new law prohibits shackling any pregnant, laboring or post-partum incarcerated individual; prohibits the use of solitary confinement for incarcerated pregnant people; and provides up to three days of post-delivery bonding time between the mother and the newborn. The new law also prohibits full body searches of incarcerated women by male guards. The new law requires and provides trauma-informed training for all corrections officers interacting with incarcerated pregnant people. The new law also provides free feminine hygiene products for incarcerated people and provides for accommodation of adequate visitation time between minor children and incarcerated individuals (male or female) who were the sole legal guardian of those minor children at the time of their arrest. As the law’s principal sponsors — Representatives Morgan Cephas, Mike Jones, and Tina Davis – wrote, “Over the past three decades Pennsylvania has seen a significant increase in the number of incarcerated women. While we believe in supporting a system that serves justice, women who are incarcerated face a number of unique issues regarding their heath and the health of their children. Despite being incarcerated, these women are still our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, and it is in everyone’s best interest to ensure we treat them with dignity.”

This is good news, to be celebrated. On December 14, 2023, Governor Josh Shapiro signed the bill into law. At the same time, it must be recognized that it took seven years of advocacy in the state legislature combined with advocacy and mobilization on the ground. Why does such legislation always take so long? And why does it always have loopholes, so-called discretionary clauses that leave so much up to the discretion of precisely the groups that have willingly leapt to broach women’s dignity for years, for decades? At this point, most states ban the use of restraints on incarcerated individuals, and yet it continues to occur … often: “Confusion over the laws, lack of sanctions for violations, and wide loopholes are contributing to the continued shackling of pregnant women in custody. But it’s nearly impossible to get an accurate picture of the prevalence because of limited data collection and little independent oversight.”

The new Pennsylvania law does include provisions for recording any use of restraints or of restrictive housing. The law has been passed. Now is the time for implementation. How many incarcerated pregnant women suffered `indignity’ during the seven-year period, and what becomes of their trauma and pain? State after state has passed, or delayed or refused to pass, a Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. Perhaps it’s time, past time, to have a national discussion of the meaning(s) of dignity for women.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit 1: Radical Doula)  (Image Credit 2: New York Times / Andrea Dezsö)

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