Over the past twenty years the U.S has seen a significant rise in criminalized and incarcerated women, with women of color overrepresented throughout system. Black women, however, outnumber their counterparts by almost three times, representing 30% of the prison population and only 13% of general population.
Research on justice system responses has shown that a one size-fits-all approach is not effective. For women defendants, it is especially critical that their needs are met in an individualized, gender-responsive way. Justice-involved women have complex histories of trauma and abuse that can be overlooked by ineffective assessment. This can be complicated further when the line between victim and defendant blurs, particularly in cases involving intimate partner violence and human trafficking. Furthermore, stakeholders in the justice system have a responsibility to be culturally-responsive to the populations they serve, which includes understanding both historical and contemporary contexts of race, gender, sexuality, and more.
This webinar will address the specific needs of justice-involved Black women and best practices for stakeholders working with justice-involved women. It will highlight the work of the Queens Human Trafficking Intervention Court in New York, which has a Hidden Victims Project that identifies victims of human trafficking and links them to services.
Register here.
