Prison Reviews on Yelp

Incarcerated prisoners are prohibited from voting except for in two states, Vermont and Maine. To add to that, according to the Sentencing Project, approximately 5 million Americans are denied their right to vote because of a felony conviction. Many states also do not even allow former prisoners on probation to vote, and in most of those states they have to go through a rigorous application process to be considered eligible to vote again.

No matter what the crime, a person leaving prison faces a number of disadvantages in a society that overlooks and/or demonizes them. A person getting out of prison is more likely to not find a job, therefore more likely to end up homeless and committing crimes. According to the Piton Foundation, a Denver community outreach program that provides children and their families resources to escape poverty, “a quarter of people on parole in the metro area, more than one-third in Denver, end up in homeless shelters or other temporary housing.”

And so with few outlets to express their hardships and experiences, Yelp, the popular consumer review website, has provided them a way to have a voice. Yelp now has reviews for prisons all across the country. Lawyers post reviews on whether or not the prison allowed them ample time to speak with a client, cleanliness, and whether or not the deputies were nice or abrasive. Families can also comment on visiting areas and stories their inmate family members relay to them. Former prisoners can share their complaints and praises, commenting on everything from the food to serious accusations of abuse.

As with any site on the Internet, accuracy can become an issue, especially concerning accusations of abuse or mistreatment. The Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles, California has had a string of alleged abuse and, according to Stephen Whitmore, spokesperson for Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, “every allegation we get, we investigate.” One such reviewer alleged that in June of 2012, five guards at the Central Jail mercilessly beat him for no reason and then laughed about it afterward.

What do you think about these reviews? Do you believe they will be helpful to former inmates?

To learn more about prison reviews on Yelp, click here.

Announcing the WRC YouTube Channel!

The Women’s Resource Center is excited to announce their new YouTube channel!

Did you have class during an event you wished you could attend? The WRC will now be filming most of our events and putting them on YouTube as a way to further connect to students on campus.

Need a little bump in your research papers? Panel discussions from experts on a variety of topics may be just the thing that you need to give your paper or assignment an extra boost.

We will also post videos we find relevant to the WRC mission, as well as Movie Monday trailers.

Check out our channel here. We hope you enjoy the channel and are as excited as we are about exploring new ways to connect to you!

This is Street Harassment

It seems like everyone’s been talking about Hollaback!PHILLY’s amazing new anti-street harassment campaign, and for good reason. The group has purchased ad space on Philadelphia subway trains, posting signs expressing sentiments like:

“Nice a** is not a compliment”

&

“Catcalls, staring, whistling and following are street harassment.”

The campaign comes as part of International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 7-13, 2013), a complementary subset of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Hollaback!PHILLY is a chapter of the international organization Hollaback!, which seeks to raise awareness about street harassment, promote productive conversations about street harassment, and make public spaces safer for everyone. Hollaback! has chapters in over 50 cities across the globe and has engaged hundreds of volunteers since its inception in 2011.

We’re sad to report that Denver doesn’t yet have its own chapter of Hollaback! However, keep your eyes peeled on campus next week; we’ll be posting some of our favorite anti-street harassment images to continue spreading awareness of what street harassment is and why it needs to stop!

Red Flag Campaign- Speak out Against Interpersonal Violence!

In 1 of 5 relationships, one of the partners experiences abuse.

The Red Flag campaign is a nationwide public awareness campaign that originated by college students, college sponsors, and community advocates in Virginia. This powerful campaign promotes the prevention of interpersonal violence through the use of bystander intervention. This campaign encourages students and community members to “say something” if they see warning signs, or “red flags,” of dating violence.

Auraria has been committed to this campaign for the last two years and is proud to announce its involvement again this year. On April 1st, hundreds of red flags went up on campus representing the number of individuals in the Auraria community who have been affected by interpersonal violence: 13,000.

On April 10th, the Red Flag Rally will take place from 12pm to 2pm in the Tivoli Commons. The schedule for the event is as follows:

• 12:15-12:45pm: Live music by Wheelchair Sports Camp while folks gather for the campus march
• 12:45-1:05pm: Campus march against violence featuring campus mascots and leaders
• 1:05pm-2:00pm: Live music, spoken word, and slam poetry featuring Dominique Ashaheed, Danielle Brooks, and Suzi Q! Participants can also use their food truck vouchers now.

A key component of this campaign is to encourage others to say something and end the cycle of silence. Let’s end the violence together. We hope to see you at the rally, and remember to be LOUD!

Makers: Women Who Make America

One Sunday night while doing homework my sister called me, frantic.

“Hurry!” she said, “Turn on PBS. There’s a documentary on that you will love.”

Trusting my sister’s taste in documentaries, I did what I was told. I flipped the channel to PBS just as the opening credits rolled to a documentary called Makers. I decided to ignore my homework for a few hours and glued my eyes to the television.

Makers tells the story of one of the most trailblazing revolutions in American history, as women asserted their rights politically, economically, and personally. This revolution occurred publicly, but also behind closed doors as women realized how silly it was that they should come from their job and work a second shift, making dinner, and then cleaning up. Equality revolutionized life in the public sphere as well as at home.

This documentary brings the revolution to life with amazing archival footage as well as incredible interviews from women who helped shape the movement, such as Gloria Steinem and Letty Cotton Pogrebin. It also features women who opposed the movement as well as first generation women who benefitted from the movement’s success, including Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, and Hillary Clinton.

Colorado’s own Linda Alvarado, founder, CEO, and president of Alvarado Construction and co-owner of the Colorado Rockies is highlighted in the documentary as a successful business leader who had to continually prove to herself and everyone around her that she could “break the cement ceiling.”

I wish this documentary had discussed more at length on lesbian rights as well as how women today are trying to keep the movement going here at home and around the world. Despite its shortcomings, this documentary is full of pride for the many accomplishments made in a relatively short amount of time. Although we still have a ways to go, these women and many others paved the way for us to get there.

Makers is available for free viewing on pbs.org.

Truth is in Our Bodies: Full Cycle Liberation

Auraria’s first ever Reproductive Justice Symposium will be held this Friday, March 8th, in the North Classroom building. 

The symposium will feature a variety of sessions examining the different intersections in the Reproductive Justice movement, including topics like pregnancy and childbirth, families, sexuality, globalization, the environment, and many more. Katsi Cook, Mohawk midwife, women’s health advocate, and environmental activist will be delivering the keynote address.

The symposium is open to anyone and everyone! Registration is $5 for students and $15 for staff, faculty, and community members. Babes-in-arms may attend for free. 

To register, please visit our website.

Read more to see our schedule and full list of workshops and panels. 

The Invisible War

According to the Department of Defense, 1 in 5 women were raped while serving in the US military in 2010. 20,000 men serving were sexually assaulted in the same year. These numbers climb higher considering the number of victims who do not report.

Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering explore this issue in their new documentary, The Invisible War. Every once and a while, a documentary comes around that incites real change and this film is one of them. It sheds light on an issue that people either did not know a lot about or chose to ignore.

Susan Burke, a lawyer for the organization Protect Our Defenders, helped expose the culture of sexual violence at Marine Barracks in Washington DC, a military base showcased in the documentary.  In March 2013 with Burke’s assistance, 8 women, 2 of whom were in the film, filed a lawsuit against senior officers at that base for tolerating an environment of sexual assault and silencing victims.

Two days after viewing the film, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced vital changes in the way in which reported rapes are investigated in the military. Panetta even told one of the film’s producers that watching the film was partly responsible for his decision.

The Invisible War is up for an Oscar for best documentary, and has already garnered several awards at various film festivals. Jonathan Hahn of the Los Angeles Review of Books, stated, “There are some works of writing or painting, speech, or film that do more than just stand as great works of art. They change things. They put before us something fundamentally wrong with the world — with the society we take for granted, with the institutions on which we depend and that in turn depend on us — and demand change. The Invisible War belongs in that pantheon, and is easily one of the most important films of the year.”

The Invisible War will be screen in the Tivoli Multicultural Lounge at 5pm on Monday, February 25th as a part of the Women’s Resource Center’s Movie Mondays series.