Women’s Justice Project

The Women’s Justice Project is the first and only program in Oregon to exclusively address issues related to women in Oregon’s criminal legal system.

For over ten years, our staff have been providing direct legal services and other supports to people incarcerated in Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF), Oregon’s only women’s prison. We understand well the experiences of women in Oregon’s criminal legal system, from arrest through to reentry. Women’s pathways to prison are complex, often involving complicated histories of abuse, trauma, and numerous other hardships. Through our clients’ experiences, we see how Oregon’s criminal legal system does not adequately consider or address the root causes of criminalized behavior. Instead, Oregon’s criminal legal system sentences women to excessively long terms in prison and causes unnecessary harm to the women, their children, and their families. Women’s experiences reveal the undeniable truth that Oregon’s criminal legal system is focused on punishment and family regulation and promotes intergenerational harm.

The Women’s Justice Project advocates for more just and humane treatment of women in the criminal legal system. While we address various issues impacting women who are incarcerated in CCCF, our efforts are primarily focused on the areas listed below. In pursuit of our efforts, we continue to document and track women’s experiences, develop creative litigation opportunities, advocate for policy change, provide public education and raise public awareness through campaigns.

Re*Membering: Legal services for incarcerated people

We provide civil legal services to people incarcerated in CCCF. We help clients address various non-criminal legal issues that are burdens while incarcerated and will likely become greater hardships in their life after prison. The range of legal issues are diverse and complex, e.g., family-related, debt/financial concerns, employment-related, ID/driver’s license, and property-related.

We also advocate for increased access to the courts for all incarcerated people.

Comments from Re*Membering Clients:

“[You] gave me a place to come home to — literally. [You] saved my home. It’s a huge benefit to not have to go to transitional housing.”

“Without this program, I would have been lost, and I probably wouldn’t have seen my children because of my lack of knowledge.”

“As women, inmates, humans, we constantly feel degraded, dehumanized and unworthy. There were many times when I felt almost speechless because you helped me more than I asked for and I didn’t feel like I deserved such generosity and kindness.”

The name of this program was inspired by remarks made by CCCF Chaplain, Rev. Dr. Emily Brault, at our Women in Prison Conference:

“One of the images I use that helps me practice Love is the experience of remembering.  I don’t mean remembering as in terms of nostalgic reminiscences of the past, … but re-membering as in returning people to membership, or bringing people into community, or something we do with our hearts and our guts.  People in prison are often a forgotten people. …When I remember people, when I build relationship and community with them, I am acknowledging the actuality of their life, and affirming the worth and dignity of their existence. …One of the side-effects of remembering is that when we bring people into community, we are changed.” – Rev. Dr. Emily Brault

Humane treatment of incarcerated women

We hear an overwhelming number of reports from adults in custody about the unprecedented levels of suffering at CCCF. In the wider community, there was a sense of “returning to normal,” as the burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic gradually lifted. By contrast, those incarcerated in CCCF describe severe conditions in the prison reminiscent of the worst days of 2020. We receive numerous disturbing reports of increases in self-harm, drug use, sexual assault, suicidal ideation and attempts, discipline issues, despair, depression, mental health crises and death.

The WJP works to amplify the voices of those incarcerated at CCCF. We advocate with state leaders to recognize the harms occurring in the women’s prison and to take meaningful action.

In 2023, CCCF underwent a Gender Informed Practices Assessment (GIPA). It was conducted by a team of out-of-state experts from the Women’s Justice Institute and the Center for Effective Public Policy. The GIPA Report on CCCF, released in August 2023, painted a grim picture of the conditions at CCCF. The report not only found that CCCF is not gender responsive, evidence-based, nor trauma-informed; it also described a prison that is replete with dysfunction and dominated by a para-military and punitive culture, resulting in countless harms to incarcerated women daily.

The WJP advocates for meaningful action by the state that is truly responsive to the findings in the GIPA report.

Survivor-Defendants: Just and humane treatment for criminalized survivors of domestic violence

In Oregon, more than one third of women have experienced domestic violence. Through our work with women incarcerated at CCCF, we recognize that for too many survivors of domestic abuse, their victimization is a pathway to incarceration. Currently in Oregon, once a domestic violence survivor becomes a criminal defendant, their status as a survivor - a victim in need of support and care - is stripped from them. Oregon’s criminal legal system abuses domestic violence survivors who become criminal defendants by virtue of the abuse they suffered.

The WJP advocates for more just and humane treatment for criminalized survivors in Oregon through story collection, public education, advocacy with state leaders, requests for clemency, participation in the governor’s GIPA advisory panel, and proposed legislation (https://www.supportallsurvivors.org/ ).

Resources

REPORTS

Conditions at CCCF

• Death by a Thousand Cuts, Vol. 2 (March 2024)

• A Serious Response to a “Sobering” Reality: OJRC’s response to the Gender Informed Practices Assessment of Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (November 2023)

• Death by a Thousand Cuts, Vol. 1 (July 2023) This report series amplifies the voices of people incarcerated at CCCF. It is a collection of quotes, anecdotes and stories from people living at CCCF about the harsh prison conditions and treatment that they endure daily. The name of the series came from a comment of an incarcerated woman explaining the devastating cumulative impact of ongoing poor conditions, and the sense of overwhelm and degradation that they experience from navigating countless different indignities and harms at CCCF every day.

Stand Against Dobbs and White Supremacy by Ending Collusion with the Carceral System (June 2022)
This essay is OJRC’s response to the United State Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022. Excerpt: “To some, the idea that we are facing mass criminalization and loss of liberty in the wake of Dobbs may seem like an exaggeration. But to underestimate the dangers of this moment is to be ignorant to the historical and continuing structures of racial and social control in this country. Our carceral system is rooted in white supremacy; there is no reasonable debate on this point any longer. The current era of mass incarceration is the result of intentional, cooperative, and complicit actions to regulate, subjugate, and oppress people in the furtherance of white supremacy. . . Because the effort to overturn Roe was never just about abortion, our collective response to this watershed moment cannot be limited only to the issue of access to abortion. Many people are struggling to make sense of how we found ourselves in this moment. It is incumbent upon us to understand the historical context and the present social context of the Dobbs decision and to open our eyes and recognize that this is a profound attack on the future freedoms of this country. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in more dire circumstances—a country where we accept mass policing and criminalization, even greater than what we now accept and live in, with a majority of people once again baffled and wondering, ‘How did we get here?’”

HerStory Oregon Survey Results Reports
In 2017 and 2018, we and Portland State University’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, with the cooperation of CCCF, surveyed over 140 women incarcerated in CCCF about their experiences through the criminal process – from arrest to sentencing, from intake in CCCF to their thoughts about their future release from prison. The purpose of the Survey was to hear directly from women and identify problematic trends in their treatment in Oregon’s criminal legal system. The intent is to use this information to highlight for decision-makers and the community needs for a fairer and more just criminal legal system. The results of the survey are being shared through a series of reports.
• Mental Health, Physical Health and Substance Use (September 2019)
• Intimate Partner Violence and Trauma (February 2019)

Unlocking Measure 57 (Updated May 2018)
This report walks through the history of sentencing laws as it relates to the repeat property offender laws and Measure 57, which created a mandatory minimum sentencing scheme for repeat property offenses. Repealing Measure 57 is just and fair and the surest and swiftest way to make a significant impact on the ever-growing number of women in CCCF.

An Alternative to Women’s Prison Expansion in Oregon (September 2016)
In response to the overcrowding at Oregon's only women's prison and the legislature's discussions to release emergency funds to open a second women's prison, this report suggests immediate solutions to reduce the number of women incarcerated in prison in Oregon.

Women in Prison in Oregon (September 2016)
This report compiles publicly available information about women in CCCF into one resource.

GUIDES FOR INCARCERATED PEOPLE IN OREGON

A Guide to Preparing for Your Murder Review Hearing (In collaboration with the OJRC’s Youth Justice Project) (June 2019)

If You Have an ICE Detainer: Practical Tips for Preparing to Transfer from State Prison to the Northwest Detention Center (In collaboration with the OJRC’s Immigrant Rights Project) (August 2019)

Si tiene una orden de detención de inmigración (ICE): Sugerencias prácticas para su transición de la prisión estatal al centro de detención Northwest Detention Center (Agosto 2019)

Women in Prison Conference

Our annual Women in Prison Conference took place in Portland from 2014 to 2019. The conference presentations aimed to demystify legal aspects of the criminal system, address common misconceptions, amplify the voices of women impacted by criminal legal system policies, and explore avenues for reform. Each year, the conference included a panel of women from CCCF to share their expereinces in the criminal legal system. This event consistently sold out over the years. Our attendees were social service providers, corrections and community corrections staff, lawyers, formerly incarcerated people, state and local decision-makers, and other community members. More information about the conference.

Women in Prison Conference 2019: Justice for Survivor-Defendants (November 2019)

Women in Prison Conference 2018: Women and Measure 11 (November 2018)

2018 Conference Keynote address: Navigating and Transcending the Gravitational Pull of Privilege and Structural Bias to Work for Justice Inside the Legal System by The Honorable Darleen Ortega

Staff