6 Ds Until She’s Free
A Comprehensive Cross-Sector Strategy to Interrupt, Reduce and End Criminalization and Mass Incarceration and Deportation of Women, Trans and GNC People
Investing in defunding policing, decriminalization, decarceration, and non-criminal safety strategies
By Interrupting Criminalization & Sensitive Visuals, ed. Andrea Ritchie. Summer 2022.
Over the past several years, there has been increasing interest and investment in responding to the fact that people incarcerated in women’s prisons represent the fastest growing prison populations, increasing by 700% over four decades, outpacing the rate of growth of people in men’s prisons by 50%. More recently, focus has expanded to confronting the 14-fold growth in the number of people incarcerated in women’s jails, the majority of whom are mothers of minor children incarcerated following arrests for minor offenses, and many of whom are incarcerated simply because they are unable to post bail.
This resource is intended to inform policymakers, organizations, advocates, and philanthropic investment entering the field as a result of growing awareness of rising and disproportionate rates of incarceration of women, girls, trans and gender nonconforming people. The 6Ds are:
DOCUMENT the drivers of criminalization for women, girls, trans and gender nonconforming people;
DECRIMINALIZE — target the policies and practices that put women, girls, trans and gender nonconforming people in contact with the criminal punishment, detention, and deportation systems;
DIVERT people away from the criminal punishment system at the earliest opportunity;
DECARCERATE people from jails, prisons, detention centers, and other places of incarceration;
DIVEST & DISMANTLE by reallocating resources from systems of policing and punishment to meeting community needs, dismantling these harmful institutions, and divesting from policing and punishment as solutions to conflict, harm, and need; and
DREAM transformative approaches to preventing, interrupting, and healing from harm.
