Issues

Our research, expert assistance, education, and advocacy efforts are focused on improving outcomes in four areas:

• Gender-based violence
• Gender-based violence to prison pipeline
• Gender and wrongful convictions
• Clemency for survivors.
Gender-Based Violence

Gender-based violence refers to harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It includes physical violence, sexual assault, rape, and harassment. It often involves emotional and psychological forms of violence and coercion including threats, manipulation, and surveillance. Gender-based violence can also include various forms of economic harm such as withholding financial resources and barring access to education and/or employment.
 
As many as one in four women and one in nine men are victims of domestic or intimate partner violence, affecting up to 10 million people a year in the United States. Additionally, one in five women has survived rape or attempted rape. Among this group of survivors, one in three was victimized between the ages of 11 and 17 years.
 
Unfortunately, the legal system is not well equipped to handle cases involving gender-based violence. The experiences of some victim-survivors are discredited. Even worse, some victim-survivors find themselves criminally charged for their acts of self-defense. 
 
We work with court officials, defense attorneys, and prosecutors to improve outcomes for all survivors at every stage of the legal process. Our recommendations are informed by the latest research on gender violence, as well as by the insights and experiences of survivors.

We now run shelter homes, schools and a reasonable mess that helps such needy young people. We also have our helpline offices spread throughout the country so one can approach us anytime they need help.

Gender-Based Violence to Prison Pipeline

Gender-based violence is the primary driver of women’s incarceration. The majority of incarcerated women and girls—over 80%–are survivors of violence and abuse that often began in childhood. Instead of protection and support, they were criminalized and funneled into the criminal and juvenile legal systems. 
 
Some have been wrongly prosecuted for defending themselves against their attackers. Others were coerced by their abusers into crime participation—this is particularly the case for victim-survivors of sex trafficking who were prosecuted for prostitution or trafficking. Finally, there are those who, as a result of abuse and trauma, are routed into the system for running away, truancy, or crimes of economic necessity.

Gender & Wrongful Conviction

Since 1989, over 3500 innocent people have been legally exonerated for crimes they did not commit. Exonerees are people who were convicted of a crime but subsequently had their convictions cleared based on newly discovered evidence of innocence. Only a tiny fraction of wrongful conviction cases results in an exoneration. 
 
Less than 10% of exonerees are women. While it is inordinately difficult for anyone to successfully overturn a wrongful conviction, women confront additional obstacles. Women’s wrongful convictions are less likely to involve DNA – a key resource for establishing proof of innocence. Women also lack critical financial resources including funds to hire experienced attorneys, investigators, and experiences. Women’s prisons are typically located farther away from major population centers making it difficult to access network resources including universities and law schools and advocacy groups.
 
We are committed to ensuring that women with credible innocence claims have the resources they need to successfully challenge wrongful and unjust convictions on appeal and through the clemency process. You can read more about our work to overturn India Spellman’s wrongful conviction here. 

Clemency For Survivors

One of every 15 women in prison is serving a sentence of life or 50 or more years. The vast majority are survivors of gender violence. Their criminal convictions are often directly or indirectly an outcome of that gender violence and abuse. For example, some are serving lengthy sentences for defending themselves from lethal violence. Others were prosecuted under conspiracy, accomplice liability, and felony murder laws for crimes committed by their abusers. In these cases, police and prosecutors may misread a survivor’s failure to cooperate in an investigation as evidence of her culpability. In reality, she feared retaliation from her abuser and his social network.

Clemency offers the only way home for some survivors—especially those who have exhausted appeals or who lack the resources to file appeals. Clemency is an umbrella term that refers to the power to grant different types of legal mercy from the executive branch. The form of clemency that we focus on is commutation of sentence which reduces the length or terms of a sentence. In state systems these decisions are made by the office of governor and in the federal system it is the office of President. 

We provide assistance to incarcerated survivors on applications for commutation and we work to educate elected officials and the public about the ways that commutation can reduce the size and expense of prison populations while maintaining public safety and ensuring just outcomes for victim-survivors.