Take Action!
On January 11th, The NY Times reported, there was another violent physical and sexual attack on transgender and cis gender women incarcerated at Edna Mahan. This systemic violence has been happening at EMCF since it opened in 1913.
All of Us or None Northern NJ has created a petition to hold not only the officers and administrators involved in this violence, but to change the criminal justice. The Meta Theatre Company are members of All of Us Or None Northern NJ and asks that you sign this petition.
We Demand:
- The provision of comprehensive, long-term medical care for the women injured in the January 11 attack, including trauma-informed mental health counseling.
- Restitution for all who have been physically and psychologically harmed while incarcerated at EMCF. This includes the issuance of a public apology by Commissioner Hicks and the implementation of a public process of holding Commissioner Hicks and the EMCF administrator accountable for the violence which occurred on their watch to be determined by the currently and formerly incarcerated.
- An updated independent and thorough investigation of violence and other harmful practices at EMCF guided by the currently and formerly incarcerated which will be presented to the newly created review board.
- The immediate, full enactment of already existing legislation designed to safeguard the wellbeing of the incarcerated such as the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act.
- The immediate resignation of Corrections Commissioner Hicks and the current EMCF administrator.
- Federal control of operations at EMCF and supervision over all programs for those who are incarcerated in its facilities.
- The creation of an independent review board for EMCF, including the formerly incarcerated, to confidentially receive complaints from those currently undergoing victimization and share those complaints with the United States Department of Justice as well as the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General for further investigation, as was recommended in the Report of the Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny in New Jersey Politics.
YWCA of Northern NJ hosted a press conference with community partners Senator Loretta Weinberg, Senator Linda Greenstein, Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez, Tia Ryans, Survivor and Founder NJ Forte House, Bonnie Kerness, Program Director, American Friends Service Committee: Prison Watch Program, Maggie D’Aversa, Independent Researcher and Monitoring Committee, NJ Prison Justice Watch, and Christian Fuscarino, Executive Director, Garden State Equality to send a message that more needs to be done to address the atrocities that have taken place at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility and it needs to happen now. Here is the recording of conference
For the last 7 years, we have rehearsed inside/outside the prison walls at a women's prison in New Jersey. In March 2020, we could no longer rehearse inside due to the pandemic. We continue to write and create with our inside castmates through the mail. Even though part of our cast is incarcerated, we work together and create work that will educate, raise critical consciousness, and promote social action with our audiences. Before the pandemic, our cast produced and created their shows inside the prison walls for their community. Outside the prison walls, we produce and create shows for the community to create liberating change.
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