American prisons are profoundly inhospitable for incarcerated women — but prison education programs can help women on the inside resist the inhumanity of incarceration, say Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, two formerly incarcerated women advocating for reform.
Boudin and Clark shared their experiences in prison — an environment they said most Americans are shielded from — during a webinar hosted this week by The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Moderated by Michelle Fine, social psychology, women’s studies and urban education professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, the conversation centered on Boudin and Clark’s time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women’s prison in New York State.
Both women were imprisoned in Bedford Hills for decades for their involvement in the 1981 Brink’s robbery, an armed robbery carried out by members of the Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army.
