Image Description: Black background with yellow fist, and a black and white photo of Columbia with yellow jail bars. Yellow text at the top says: Columbia University is fueling carceral expansion by supporting a proposal to build a new women’s jail in Harlem, developed in part by the Columbia Justice Lab. White text at bottom says: We must take action to demand that Columbia stops legitimizing plans to lock women, trans, and gender non-conforming people into more cages. Swipe to read about the proposal and what you can do now to stop it.

Image Description: Black background with yellow fist, and three photos. On the left, a photo of Vincent Schiraldi, a white man with a white shirt and grey coat and gray hair with glasses. Below it says Vincent Schiraldi, Senior Fellow/Adjunct Professor at the Columbia School of Social Work. To the right of him is a photo of Bruce Western, a white man with no hair and beige shirt, and under him it says, Bruce Western is the Bryce Professor of Sociology and Social Justice and Director of the Justice Lab at Columbia University. To the right of him, a white woman with brown hair, under which it says, Gladys Carrión, Senior Fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab. Yellow text says “We call upon the Columbia Justice Lab to renounce the new women’s jail plan OR redistribute its $5 million dollar “abolition” grant to community-led projects that are ACTUALLY invested in abolitionist education and praxis.”

STANDALONE IMAGE Image Description: Black background with Yellow text says “We call upon the Columbia Justice Lab to renounce the new Women’s Jail Plan OR return the $5 million it received from the Mellon Foundation for abolition and redistribute it to community-led projects that support the wellbeing of Black, trans, and poor New Yorkers including: abortion funds, survivor funds, harm reduction clinics, free healthcare, mutual aid collectives, and vocational training that are ACTUALLY invested in abolitionist education.”

Image Description: Black background with yellow fists on the bottom corners, and a sun outline at the top. Yellow text says: What is the proposal?  White text says: In May, the Columbia Justice Lab along with the Women’s Community Justice Association (WCJA), the UT Austin Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, and real-estate firm HR&A advisors, released plans to open a new jail for “women and gender-expansive people” at the site of the closed Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem.

• The proposal brands itself as a “feminist,” “humane,” “gender-responsive” alternative to existing jails. It claims to focus on “treatment” rather than punishment.

• As abolitionists, we know that cages can never be “humane” or “feminist.” Here’s why…

Image Description: Black background with yellow fists on the bottom corners, and a sun outline at the top. Yellow text says: Why is the "feminist jail" dangerous?  White text says:

• Rosie’s, the existing women’s jail on Rikers Island, was originally proposed as a “humane reform,” and now produces immeasurable death and trauma. (in yellow text) This is because Incarceration is inherently violent, traumatic, and anti-feminist.
• (yellow text) No institution that deprives people of their freedom, severs family and community ties, and produces the violent power relations characteristic of carceral spaces can ever be called humane

• People must be given the option to be free first, before anything else. At present less than 300 people are at Rosie’s.
• The majority of people who will be locked in this new jail are Black, Brown, poor, and disabled. (in yellow  text) Why not invest in better resources for them instead of funding incarceration?

• People inside Rikers of all genders deserve a high quality of care.

Image Description: Black background with yellow fists on the bottom corners, and a sun outline at the top. Yellow text says: How is Columbia involved in the plan to build new women’s jail?  White text says: The Columbia Justice Lab, led by former commissioner of the NYC Dept. of Corrections Vincent Schiraldi, is one of the major conspirators of the proposal for a new jail. Despite their role as architects of this new iteration of violent carceral expansion, the Columbia Justice Lab received a 5 million dollar grant from the Mellon Foundation specifically to fund abolitionist initiatives on campus.

Image Description: Black background with yellow fists on the bottom corners, and a sun outline at the top. White text says: The facade of a “kinder, gentler, gender-responsive jail” allows the carceral system to expand and adapt in the face of growing recognition of its inhumanity. But this re-branding does not challenge the fundamental violence inherent to the practice of incarceration in any form.The only humane solution is decarceration towards abolition! Close Rosies and close Rikers with no new jails!

Image Description: Black background with yellow fists on the bottom corners, and a sun outline at the top. Yellow text says: Email Zap to Columbia! White text says: Vincent Schiraldi (Founder of Columbia Justice Lab) Email: vs2637@columbia.edu Social: @VinSchiraldi Bruce Western (Director of Columbia Justice Lab) Email: mel2243@columbia.edu Email: https://www.brucewestern.org/contact Social: @WesternBruce Bernard Harcourt (Cofounder of Columbia Justice Lab) Email: bharcourt@law.columbia.edu Social: @BernardHarcourt Call: (212) 854-1997 Gladys Carrion (Senior Fellow at Columbia Justice Lab) Email: gc2904@columbia.edu

With a link:

https://bit.ly/columbiazapjails