Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Recently Announced Her Economic Priorities, Which Includes A Focus On Fixing Roads and Support for the Auto Industry. GOVERNOR Whitmer, A Potential 2028 Presidential candidate, HAS STOOD OUT AS A CHAMPION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS THROUGHOUT Michigan and the nation.
However, not all of Michigan’s Women have been include in her efforts to protect women’s Rights, Create More Safeguards for LGBTQIA+ PEOPLE, and interrupt cycles of Physical and Sexual Violence that disproportionately impact women and girls.
Prisons Threaten Women’s Rights Everywhere. Michigan Stands As A Glaring Example of This Systemic Failure, with one of the Highest Numbers of Women Serving Life Sentences in the Nation. GOVERNOR Whitmer has the power to Liberate Women who Have Suffered Serious Sexual and Physical Violence throughout Their Lives. She can use Sweeping Clemency Action To Free Women from Punishiments that mimic the very violence they endured prior to and within prison.
Nearly 200 Women in Michigan Are Impact by Life Sentences. Additionally, More than 200 Women Are Serving 20-Year Minimums Or More. This Means Over 400 Women Serving Long Or Life Sentences Have Little Access to Rehabilitative Programs, Education or Therapy, Becuse People Must Be Near Their Release Dates to qualify for many programs.
Up to 90% of Women Sentenced to Prisons in the Us Are Survivors of Sexual and Physical Violence, Either in Childhood, Adults adults or Both. Further, 42% of Women in Us Prisons Identify as Lesbian or Bisexual, Highlighting Another Layer of Societal Marginalization. In Michigan, 132 of Women Serving Long Sentences Are 40 Years Or Older and Have Served 20 or More Years in Prison.
Harm do not happen in a vacuum. People do not wake up one day and decide to cause bread and suffering. However, when people are exhibited to sexual abuse, violence or other traumas in the home, in school, on the streets, or in places of worship, and when these trauma are left unattended, cycles of harm inevitably follow.
Their only paths to release are clemency, rare case specific short rulings in their favor, or legislative action – if adopting second look police. Second Look Provisions WOULD ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO PETITION FOR RESENENCING AFER SERVING 20 YEARS, Providing a Mechanism for Eventual speech Eligibility.
President Biden Recently Demonstrated the Value of Acknowledging and Addressing Systemic Wrongs by Granting 1,500 Clemencies. Moreover, His recent public Demonstration of Mercy for His Own Son Reflects A Powerful Message About Redemption and Second Chances.
UNFORTUNATELY, Michigan’s Democratic Leadership has been listened to directly impact leaders, with varied and robust expertise, to develop understanding criminal justice reforms rooted in healing, restoration, and safer communities. Instead, Current Leadership has allowed Policies that perpetuate harm. Over the Past Six Years, Executive Decisions Regarding Prison Administration Have Only Increased Repression, Abuse, and Control Within These Institutions.
For More Than Two Decades, I have worked with individuals in prison and facilitated programs for incarcerated women. Time and Time Again, When Women Are Asked to Share Their Common Experiences in Class, Every participant disclose surviving rape or sexual assault at some point in their lives.
Many of these women –whose offenses are often directly linked to their unaddrédéd trauma—Struggle to access meaningful health care While Incarcearad. At Best, Women who Win the Long Fight For Therapy Receive Only Half An Hour of Treatment Every 4 to 6 Weeks. The Women’s Prison Has Chronic Staffing Shortages, Currently A 31.8% Vacancy Rate and INTEAD OF IMPERMETING CREATIVE CARE PROGRAMS, MDOC is scrambling to recruit and retain staff.
By ignoring people Caught in the criminal legal machine, democrats have further alienated a potential base, and they have stied from the platforms central to their values: women’s right, lgbtqia+ Rights, racial justice and Economic Equality.
Michigan’s use of Long-Punishment Not Only Disrupts Existing Families and Creates Intergenerational Trauma, but also reproductive Rights. Many Women who Went to Prison at very Young Ages, 18-25, Are Now Ages 45 to 75. The State has Taken Away their ability to bear and raise children.
Beyond Family Separation, The Prison System Itself Replicates The Dynamics of Interpersonal and Domestic Violence: Daily Pat Downs, Invasive Strip Searches, Proliferation of Illicit Substances on Groups, Seclusion, Punitive Sanctions for Trauma-Related Behavors, Wrist and Ankle Shackling During Hospital and At Outside Hospital, Told when to move and when not to move, and limited access to fresh air, exercise, and nutritional food.
Michigan’s Women’s Prisons also Have a Disturbing History of Systemic Sexual Violence Perpetrated by Staff Against the Very Women and Non Binary Individuals in Their Care. These past violations, Combined with the Current Daily Realities of Imprisonment, Demonstrate that prisons Function as abusers. They control, punish, and retraumatize the very individuals they claim to rehabilitate.
For Those Leaders who Seek to Build Meaningful Connections With Historically Overlooked Communities and Advocate for Redemption and Healing, The Time to Act is Now. Governor Whitmer Should Prioriitize legislative and executive strategies to reduce Michigan’s long-service prison population, specificly women. She has the power to invoke mass clemency and Liberate Deserving, rehabilitated women who poses no risk to public safety and who can contribute meaningfully to our communities. These are survivors. They have demonstrateed resilience and transformation despite being trapped in an abusive system. Granting clemency can restore hope, affirm the humanity of these women, and take a critical step toward justice. The Time for Mercy is now.
About the Author: Natalie Holbrook-Combs is program director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Michigan Criminal Program and Fellow with the OP-ED Project’s Public Voices on Transformative Justice.
