Power Inside and the WINDOW Study

Jacqueline Robarge, founder of Power Inside

Power Inside is a Baltimore organization that was founded by Jacqueline Robarge in May, 2001. Its original concept was a self-esteem group for about 50 women in the Baltimore City Detention Center, but Robarge had bigger ideas. She wanted to bring practices of harm reduction — the minimizing of harmful consequences of various behaviors and situations — to these women.

Writing to Prisoners!

For my activism project, I decided to compile some resources about how to write to prison inmates. My background in restorative justice and my prison abolitionist leanings caused me to become interested in the topic of maintaining the humanity of people on the inside. Additionally, my husband has written to prisoners and I was always intrigued by that. I wanted to try it for myself, but had a lot of anxiety and apprehension about it. I thought that if I found out more information about it, and could write about it, it would help me and others become more comfortable with the idea and the process.

Mass Incarceration in Baltimore

 

By: Mariana and Christina

Mass incarceration emerged nationwide with jailing citizens at unprecedented amounts during Reagan’s war on drugs in the late 1980s. It was further encouraged, supported, and fueled by mandatory sentencing minimums for drug possession and many more correctional facilities opening under the Clinton administration in 1990s. Specifically in the Baltimore community, governor Martin O’Malley had a tremendous impact on the rates of incarceration with his zero tolerance policy. In 2005, under Martin O’Malley’s zero tolerance policy, there were 108,000 arrests in Baltimore City. The total city population at the time was 620,000.