Category Archives: Vikki Law

Author, Police, Prisons, Racism, repression, Sex Work, Surveillance, United States, Vikki Law

Prison By Any Other Name: Vikki Law on Toxic Reforms

Prison By Any Other Name: Vikki Law on Toxic Reforms

Book cover of first, hardback edition of "Prison By Any Other Name"
Download This Episode

This week we speak with author and activist, Vikki Law about the book Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, just out from The New Press and co-authored by Maya Schenwar.

We talk about how reform and so-called ‘more humane’ ‘alternatives’ to incarceration such as electronic monitoring, drug courts and probation in fact extend the carceral net. We also talk about alternatives to the ‘Punishment Paradigm’ in responding to harm, police and prison abolitionism and resisting recuperation in our struggles to imagine and birth a new world.

More of Vikki’s writings can be found at https://victorialaw.net

You can find all of our interviews with Vikki at our website.

Sean Swain Silenced

We got word that Sean Swain has had his email, phone and mail blocked, likely in response to his “An Open Letter to Annette Chambers-Smith,” available via DetroitABC, as well as his soon-to-be-published book, “Ohio” (parts 1-3 of the first half available here in zine form, soon via LBC). Pass it on…

activism, Anarchist, Author, China Martens, gender, General, Labor, Parenting, PM Press, Queer, Vikki Law

Radical Parenting and Sustaining a Multi-Generational Movement

Download This Episode

China Martens has published Future Generation, a zine about radical parenting since 1990 (published as a book by Atomic Books in 2007). Vikki Law has worked to get the voices of women in and out of prison around by producing Tenacious: Art and Writing by Women in Prison and the recently republished Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. China and Vikki are authors, editors, anarchists, activists and also, mothers.

This week we speak to Vikki Law and China Martens about the newly published book, Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (PM Press, 2012), which they edited and contributed to. We talk about multigenerationality in struggle as well as intersections of age, class, gender and race.

Vikki Law: http://resistancebehindbars.org/
China Martens: http://kidzcitybaltimore.blogspot.com/

*Correction, Vikki Law is involved with a group called WORTH, not GROW. http://womenontherise-worth.org/

activism, Anarchist, Author, Drug War, gender, General, History, Immigration, Police, Prisons, Queer, Racism, repression, Vikki Law

Victoria Law on the Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with Victoria Law. From her PM Press Author’s page:

“Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, and mother. After a brief stint as a teenage armed robber, she became involved in prisoner support. In 1996, she helped start Books Through Bars-New York City, a group that sends free books to prisoners nationwide. In 2000, she began concentrating on the needs and actions of women in prison, drawing attention to their issues by writing articles and giving public presentations. Since 2002, she has worked with women incarcerated nationwide to produce Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison and has facilitated having incarcerated women’s writings published in larger publications, such as Clamor magazine, the website “Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance” and the upcoming anthology Interrupted Lives.”

This week we speak to Vikki about the second edition of her book, “Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women.” We discuss patriarchy, criminalization & invisibility that is faced by those held in women’s prisons. We also talk about resistance, organizing, support and engagement of those on the inside and about the organizing that formerly incarcerated people do to help their comrades on the inside.