California Coalition for Women Prisoners

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) monitors and challenges the abusive conditions inside California women’s prisons, fights for the release of women and trans prisoners, and supports women and trans people in their process of re-entering the community.

NIRH partnered with CCWP in 2021 on the successful campaign to pass reparations for people who were forcibly sterilized while incarcerated in California. This budget item was precedent-setting not only in California but across the country — discouraging similarly invasive and irreparably harmful practices in prisons and detention centers. With NIRH’s support, CCWP ran an educational campaign with their communities of currently and formerly incarcerated people to let them know about how to apply for reparations. This budget item will provide compensation, recognition, and notification to survivors of coercive reproductive procedures would provide some tangible redress for the terrible harm that has been done to the people impacted and would advance reproductive justice in California.