Pre-release and minimum security facilities connect incarcerated individuals to essential resources for re-entering society and to opportunities for work release, special leave, compassionate leave, and family leave. In the state of Maryland, there are nine separate pre-release and minimum security facilities for men; for women, there are zero. “At the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCI-W) in Jessup, Maryland,” as noted by the grassroots nonprofit Out for Justice, “as many as 1 in 10 women have achieved pre-release status. However, as many as 30% of the women on pre-release status have not been assigned to a work opportunity.”

In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Eddie Conway and Charles Hopkins (Mansa Musa) speak with Nicole Hanson-Mundell, executive director of Out For Justice, about the Maryland Gender-Responsive Prerelease Act and the fight to add the construction of a standalone, community-based prerelease facility for women to the Department of Public and Correctional Service budget during their hearing on Feb. 17, 2022.

Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/it-is-torture-women-in-marylands-prisons-have-nowhere-to-turn

Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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