Women Who Shouldn't Be In Prison

Jack Lessenberry Politics & Prejudices

Women who shouldn’t be in prison -- and the effort of a few dedicated people to free them. The vast majority of Michigan’s state prisoners are men. Women inmates are all housed in a single prison, the Huron Valley Correctional Facility near Ann Arbor, which has been plagued with problems from overcrowding to sanitation issues. Some of these women were dangerous criminals. But an appalling number of them were sentenced to long terms, often life, for crimes they were forced into by people, often boyfriends or husbands, which whom they were victims in abusive relationships. Some were convicted of murder for killing their abusers, often to save their own lives or those of their children. My Guests: Carol Jacobsen - Director of the Michigan Women’s Clemency Project, has waged a sometimes-lonely struggle to get the authorities to see the injustice of these cases. Incidentally, she isn’t a social worker or a criminologist, but a professor and a documentary filmmaker who became aware of this issue while working in a film. Machelle Pearson - Accidentally shot a woman during a robbery her boyfriend forced her to commit when she was only 17. She was finally released on parole a year ago August, partly due to the help of the Michigan Women’s Clemency Project Anita Posey - Served years in jail for killing an abusive boyfriend to save the life of her 14-month-old son.