Shows
SWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Economics of a “Human Trafficking” Sting: The Non Profit SpreadsheetDuring Human Trafficking Awareness Month, the public is encouraged to support efforts that “help survivors.” Yet, few realize how much funding flows to institutions that expand policing rather than strengthen community care. After exploring the law enforcement and court costs of trafficking stings, this week we turn to the nonprofit landscape that profits from the rescue narrative. We examine the “rescue economy” - the network of programs and organizations that absorb funding generated by stings while survivor-led and harm-reduction organizations struggle to stay afloat.
2026-01-1608 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Sting Show - Plea Bargains, Case Closures, and the Assembly Line That Blocks JusticeBy the time someone arrested in a so-called “human trafficking sting” sits down with a public defender, the outcome is already taking shape. Not because the facts are clear. Not because harm has been proven. But because the system has calendars to clear, metrics to meet, and cases to move. Justice, at this point, is less a principle than a scheduling inconvenience.
This part of the process rarely gets a press conference. There are no flashing lights, no survivor soundbites, no sheriff at a podium. There is only quiet pressure—constant, unrelenting—to resolve cases quickly and keep the...
2026-01-1405 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Economics of a “Human Trafficking” Sting: - The Criminal Justice SpreadsheetAs Human Trafficking Awareness Month continues, conversations often center on awareness campaigns and sensationalized narratives about “saving victims,” But understanding the systemic costs reveals how these efforts strain public resources and divert attention from practical solutions. Last week, we examined the substantial cost of stings to police departments, highlighting the need to question the actual value of these investments.
2026-01-0907 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Sting Show: Operation Follow The MoneyThree Human Trafficking Stings, $3M in Costs, Zero Transparency
Let’s talk about the American tradition of the human trafficking sting - part press conference, part moral panic, part budget sinkhole. Across the country, these branded operations promise to crack down on exploitation and rescue victims. But when the headlines fade, what are we actually left with?
Mostly low-level charges, ambiguous outcomes, and taxpayer-funded theater.
Today, we’re diving into three high-profile case studies:
Operation Hot Spots (Folsom, CA)
Fool Around and Find Out (Polk County, FL)
Operation Burn Notice (Henry County, GA)
...
2026-01-0708 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Economics of a “Human Trafficking” Sting: What Policing “Rescue” Really CostsJanuary is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, a time when headlines and press conferences often drown out the voices of those most affected. Each year, cities host panels, release proclamations, and spotlight dramatic “rescues,” but rarely do we talk about the price tag behind these operations - or who actually benefits from them. In this week’s post, we follow the first stage of that money trail by examining what a trafficking sting really costs law enforcement before a single case ever reaches the courthouse.
When police announce a “major human trafficking bust,” headlines light up with arrests, “rescues,” an...
2026-01-0209 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gospel According to the Women Who Waited - The Women Who Still WaitThe women of scripture did not wait in comfort. Mary waited under the shadow of empire, pregnant and vulnerable in a world where unwed motherhood could cost her everything. Elizabeth waited through decades of infertility, social shame, and silence. Anna waited through widowhood and poverty, keeping vigil in a temple that barely noticed her. Hagar waited in exile and scarcity, carrying a child while fleeing abuse and abandonment.
2025-12-2504 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gospel According to the Women Who Waited – Hagar: The Runaway Mother Who Named GodBefore Mary ever sang her song of defiance, a woman named Hagar cried out in the wilderness.
Long before Elizabeth rejoiced over a long-awaited child, Hagar wept over one she feared would die.
Before Advent promised salvation wrapped in holy anticipation, Hagar taught the world what divine sight looks like from the margins.
2025-12-2406 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gospel According to the Women Who Waited - Anna: The Prophet Who Recognized the LightSome prophets shouted from mountaintops. Anna prayed in the shadows.
When the Gospel of Luke introduces her, it’s almost as a footnote - a widow, 84 years old, living in the temple, fasting and praying night and day. But that’s exactly where God chose to reveal redemption: not in palaces, not to priests, but to an elderly woman who had been waiting her whole life to see salvation.
2025-12-2303 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gospel According to the Women Who Waited - Elizabeth: The Elder Who Carried Hope Late in LifeSome stories are loud and fast - miracles in motion, angels and announcements.
Elizabeth’s story isn’t like that. Hers is a quiet, slow miracle. A story of waiting that stretched over decades, through disappointment, silence, and shame.
2025-12-2204 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gospel According to the Women Who Waited – Mary: The Unwed Teen Who Said Yes AnywayIf you grew up in church, you probably met Mary as a porcelain figure in a nativity scene - head bowed, hands folded, bathed in blue light and docile silence. But that sanitized version leaves out the real scandal of her story.
Mary wasn’t a quiet saint. She was a teenage girl, unmarried, poor, and living under Roman occupation. She didn’t float through Bethlehem on a cloud of obedience. She carried danger in her womb and defiance in her voice.
2025-12-2104 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Lilith – The Woman Who Refused to Lie DownWhen it comes to “bad girls,” Lilith is the shadowy figure lurking just off the page. You won’t find her in Genesis alongside Eve. She doesn’t get a genealogy, a dramatic fall, or even a name-drop. But in Jewish folklore and later interpretation, she becomes one of the most infamous women of all time: the demoness, the seductress, the baby-killer, the first wife of Adam who refused to submit.
So was Lilith a bad girl? Or was she simply too powerful for the Bible’s editors to tolerate?
2025-12-1904 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17: We Were Never InvisibleFor more than two decades, December 17 has stood as a beacon of remembrance and resistance - the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
It began in 2003 in San Francisco, when sex workers and allies gathered to mourn the victims of the Green River Killer - women whose lives were erased not just by one man’s violence, but by a society that barely noticed they were gone. From that first vigil organized by St. James Infirmary, a movement took root. Candles were lit, names were spoken, and grief became a rallying cry: No more stolen li...
2025-12-1702 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 - Day 16: A World Without ViolenceImagine a world where safety is not conditional, where dignity is not negotiable, and where justice does not come with caveats. A world where sex work is recognized as work - where our labor is respected, our boundaries are honored, and no one has to fear that their job will cost them their life.
2025-12-1603 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 – Day 15: Memorial, Not Just MourningDecember 17 is a day of remembrance—but it has always been more than mourning.
Each year, as we gather under the red umbrella, we hold two truths at once: the depth of our grief and the strength of our resolve. Every candle lit, every name spoken aloud, every moment of silence holds the weight of loss—but it also carries the spark of resistance. Our memorials are not passive acts of sadness. They are declarations that we remember, we resist, and we refuse to let violence define us.
2025-12-1503 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 – Day 14: Funding Justice, Not ViolenceIf we want to end violence against sex workers, we need to start following the money.
For decades, billions in public and private funding have flowed into systems that cause more harm - police raids, carceral “rescue” programs, and anti-trafficking initiatives that erase the difference between consensual sex work and exploitation. These programs are often packaged as “safety.” Still, the reality is far darker: they produce arrests, family separation, deportations, and lifelong criminal records for the very people they claim to save.
2025-12-1403 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 – Day 13: How Allies Can Show UpSolidarity is not abstract - it’s something you practice.
For sex workers, real allyship means moving beyond hashtags and sympathy into consistent, tangible action. It means showing up, speaking up, and putting your values into action - not just on December 17, but every day of the year.
2025-12-1303 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Jezebel - The Bible’s Original Bad Girl, or Just Another Woman Men Couldn’t Handle?Say the name Jezebel, and most people immediately picture the ultimate bad girl of the Bible - the woman so scandalous she got her own eternal insult. She’s the gold standard of "don’t be that girl". But let’s look a little closer at her story and ask: was Jezebel truly evil, or was she just guilty of existing in a man’s world without apologizing for it? Spoiler: history doesn’t look kindly on women who refuse to stay in their lane.
2025-12-1204 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 – Day 12 Decriminalization is PreventionWhen we talk about ending violence against sex workers, one of the most powerful tools we have isn’t another round of policing or another set of restrictive laws-it’s decriminalization.
Because the evidence is clear: criminalization makes sex work more dangerous, while decriminalization saves lives.
2025-12-1205 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 11- Art as ResistanceArt has always been one of the fiercest weapons of survival for sex workers. When our histories are erased, art rewrites them. When the world refuses to see us, art makes us visible. When grief threatens to swallow us whole, art transforms it into something we can hold, share, and use to fight back.
On December 17, as we remember those taken by violence, we also honor the beauty and power that emerge from within our communities - the murals that reclaim the streets that pushed us out, the poetry that tells truths no courtroom ever would, the...
2025-12-1105 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 10: Chosen Families, Chosen SafetyFor many sex workers, “family” is not a word that brings comfort. Too often, biological families, faith communities, and social institutions turn their backs on us. Some reject us for the work we do, others for our gender, sexuality, or survival choices. What’s left behind is a painful truth: sometimes, the people who were supposed to love us unconditionally are the first to abandon us.
But out of that rejection, something powerful is born - chosen family.
2025-12-1004 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 9: Centering Lived ExperienceIn every conversation about sex work - whether it’s policy, research, or “rescue” - one question should guide us: who is speaking, and who is missing?
Too often, the people most directly impacted by laws, policing, and stigma are left out of the room. Decisions are made about sex workers, not with them. Policymakers draft legislation without consultation. Journalists tell our stories through a lens of pity or scandal. Anti-trafficking organizations design interventions that criminalize the very people they claim to protect.
2025-12-0905 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 8: Resilience as ResistanceSex workers do more than survive - they resist. Every act of joy, every community project, every gathering beneath the red umbrella is an act of defiance against erasure. In a world that so often reduces sex workers to victims or statistics, simply existing, thriving, and loving openly is revolutionary. Resilience is not just about endurance; it’s about creation. It’s about building something beautiful and free in the face of stigma and violence. It’s about refusing to disappear when every system - from the law to the media - tells you that you should.
2025-12-0804 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 7: Building Our SafetyFor most people, safety means calling 911, trusting social services, or turning to institutions for protection. For sex workers, those options often don’t exist - or worse, they make things more dangerous. Mainstream institutions continue to treat sex workers as problems to be solved rather than people with the right to safety. Too often, we’re criminalized, pathologized, or “rescued” against our will. Police raids are framed as interventions; child welfare agencies use sex work as grounds for family separation; courts label us as unreliable witnesses. The result is a system where safety is conditional - available only to those wh...
2025-12-0704 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 6: Stories of Survival and Building Our Own SafetyToo often, when sex workers make the news, it’s because of tragedy. The headlines focus on loss, sensationalize violence, and erase the person behind the story. But every day, across every city and small town, sex workers survive in systems not built for their safety. They navigate stigma, manage risks, and create networks of resilience out of necessity and love. Survival, for many sex workers, isn’t just about making it through the night. It’s about carving out space for dignity and autonomy in a world that too often denies both. It’s about finding ways to protect...
2025-12-0605 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Lot’s Daughters – The Survivors with a Scandalous PlanIf Tamar makes church folks squirm, Lot’s daughters practically blow the doors off the Sunday School classroom. Their story in Genesis 19 is short, shocking, and often whispered about: two sisters who got their father drunk and conceived children by him.
They’ve been branded immoral, perverse, and shameful for thousands of years. But when you step back, their story looks less like scandal and more like survival. These weren’t reckless temptresses - they were women trying to preserve their family line after losing everything.
2025-12-0506 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 5: When Justice Isn't JusticeWhat happens when sex workers seek justice? Too often, the system betrays them. Reports are dismissed before evidence is even reviewed. Investigations stall without explanation. Prosecutions - if they happen at all - are token gestures that rarely result in accountability. Courts treat sex workers as unreliable witnesses or, worse, as criminals. When families of murdered sex workers plead for justice, they encounter indifference, closed doors, and coded language about “lifestyle choices.”
2025-12-0503 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 4: Stigma KillsStigma is a shadow that follows sex workers everywhere—often more destructive than the law itself. It doesn’t just appear in criminal codes or police reports; it shows up in the waiting room at a doctor’s office, in the judgmental glance of a teacher, in the housing application that never gets approved, and in the courtroom where custody decisions are made. Stigma whispers a dangerous lie: that sex workers are less than, immoral, and unworthy of protection. And when violence happens, stigma makes sure it is excused, minimized, or erased altogether.
2025-12-0404 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 Day 3: Criminalization Creates ViolenceFor many people, laws are supposed to protect. For sex workers, laws often do the opposite. Criminalization - whether full, partial, or through the so-called “Nordic model” - creates conditions that make violence more likely, not less. When sex work is illegal, sex workers cannot safely report abuse without risking arrest. Clients and predators know this and exploit the vulnerability. Police raids, stings, and surveillance are framed as “protection,” but in practice, they destabilize lives, disrupt safety networks, and push people further underground. Criminalization doesn’t end sex work - it just makes it more dangerous.
2025-12-0302 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17: Day 2 Why We Need December 17Violence against sex workers doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. It is created and sustained by the systems around us - criminalization, stigma, and neglect.
When sex work is criminalized, it forces workers into the shadows, often without legal protections or safe ways to report violence. Fear of arrest, deportation, or child removal keeps many silent, even when they are victims of assault or exploitation. Stigma adds another layer, painting sex workers as disposable, immoral, or somehow deserving of harm. Too often, when sex workers are murdered, assaulted, or disappeared, th...
2025-12-0203 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17: International Day to End Violence Against Sex WorkersDecember 17 is recognized worldwide as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers—a day of remembrance, resistance, and solidarity.
It began in 2003 in San Francisco as a memorial for the victims of the Green River Killer. Gary Ridgway, who confessed to murdering more than 70 women—many of them sex workers—said he targeted them because he thought no one would notice if they disappeared. His words revealed a truth sex workers already knew: stigma and criminalization make our lives more vulnerable to violence, while the wider world often looks away.
2025-12-0104 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad girls of the Bible – Tamar: The Widow Who Tricked a PatriarchTamar doesn’t usually make it into Sunday School flannelgraph sets. Her story in Genesis 38 is messy, scandalous, and uncomfortable for anyone who wants the Bible to be a neat moral guidebook. She was Judah’s daughter-in-law, widowed twice, promised security but denied it, and ultimately forced to take matters into her own hands. And what did she do? She disguised herself as a prostitute, slept with her father-in-law, and conceived the children that secured her future.
For centuries, Tamar has been branded immoral - a trickster, a schemer, a femme fatale. But in reality, she wasn’t a se...
2025-11-2806 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen the Record Keeper Knows What It’s Like to Be in the RecordsIn New Orleans, Calvin Duncan - a man who spent 30 years incarcerated for a murder conviction later vacated - has just been elected clerk of criminal court. His victory isn’t just historic; it’s a reminder that the people most harmed by the criminal legal system often understand its failures better than anyone else.
For decades, Duncan fought simply to access the records that shaped his life: transcripts, filings, police reports, all the documents that many incarcerated people, sex workers, and survivors are routinely denied. His election matters because records matter.
2025-11-2605 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes: Beyond Scandal - Seeing the System Behind the StoryThere’s a story making headlines again - a powerful man, a teenage girl, and a media cycle eager to flatten everything into a tidy narrative about “trafficking.” But when you read past the outrage and into the details, something else becomes painfully clear: this isn’t a story about sex work. This is a story about intersecting vulnerabilities, about a young person navigating homelessness, debt, instability, and the absence of any stable adult support. It’s about how a system fails a girl long before a man in power ever enters the picture.
This week’s New York Tim...
2025-11-2405 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen Burnout Reveals the Truth: What the Anti-Trafficking Field Can No Longer IgnoreEvery few years, the anti-trafficking field releases another report diagnosing its own dysfunction. The Safehouse Project’s recent white paper is the latest to outline the emotional toll of the work, the predictable cycles of vicarious trauma, low wages, inconsistent leadership, and the churn that destabilizes survivor support.
To many in the field, these findings feel revelatory.
But to sex workers, survivors, and people who have lived inside the systems that claim to “save” us, none of this is new. We have been naming these problems for decades. The core issue is simple: you cannot build tr...
2025-11-2106 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Rehab – The “Harlot” Who Saved a NationIf you’ve ever heard Rehab’s name in church, it almost always comes with a label: Rehab the prostitute. Out of all the things she did, all the roles she played, the one word attached to her forever is her occupation.
She’s remembered as the “harlot of Jericho,” a shady woman living on the city wall, useful only as a prop in Israel’s conquest story. But dig a little deeper, and Rehab turns out not to be a disposable side character at all - she’s a hero, a strategist, and one of only five women nam...
2025-11-2105 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsA Season of Solidarity - From Mourning to MovementAs we move toward December 17 - the 22nd Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers - we remember those we’ve lost and honor the fight that continues.
For many of us, this day is not just a memorial. It’s a reckoning. It’s the reminder that every name read aloud at a vigil represents a life cut short by stigma, criminalization, poverty, and indifference. And yet, even in mourning, we find movement. Grief has always been our catalyst.
This week, as we close our Season of Solidarity campaign, we’re reflecting on the p...
2025-11-1403 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Bathsheba – The Silenced Survivor Who Changed HistorySay the name Bathsheba, and most people picture a beautiful woman bathing on a rooftop, luring poor King David into sin. She’s been cast for centuries as the biblical seductress - the woman who tempted a man after God’s own heart.
But let’s be clear: Bathsheba didn’t tempt anyone. She didn’t lure anyone. She didn’t even have a choice.
Her story begins as one of survival in the face of royal abuse and historical silencing. But it doesn’t end there. Over time, Bathsheba becomes something the storytellers never wanted you to...
2025-11-1405 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 SWOP Behind Bars 3December 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
2025-11-1100 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 SWOP Behind Bars 2December 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
2025-11-1100 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDecember 17 SWOP Behind Bars 1December 17 is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, a global day of remembrance and action. At SWOP Behind Bars, we honor those lost to violence and fight for the safety and dignity of those still with us through our national hotline, reentry programs, and peer-led support networks.
2025-11-1100 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes: The Hunger GamesWhen the government shuts down, it’s not just offices that close - it’s the safety nets. Millions of people are sitting in their kitchens, staring at empty cabinets and “temporarily unavailable” messages on benefit portals. SNAP, the program that keeps children fed and families barely afloat, has been frozen in bureaucratic limbo once again - no warning, no contingency plan, just silence and shame. When the government stops, hunger doesn’t. It gets meaner. While systems glitch and offices go dark, families find less in their cabinets than yesterday. School lunch programs tighten rules. Food pantries run out before...
2025-11-1006 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: The Samaritan Woman at the Well – The Outsider Who Spoke TruthIf you grew up in church, you probably remember the Samaritan woman from John 4—the one who meets Jesus at a well, has “five husbands,” and is living with a man who isn’t her husband. Cue the Sunday School whisper: immoral… loose… fallen.
For centuries, she’s been branded the small-town scandal, the woman with a past. The sermons practically write themselves: Don’t be like her, girls.
But here’s the kicker: the text itself never calls her sinful. Not once.
2025-11-0705 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Mary Magdalene – The Woman Who Wasn’t What They Said She WasWhen people hear the name Mary Magdalene, the mental Rolodex usually lands on one of three words: prostitute, fallen, sinner. For nearly two thousand years, her reputation has been dragged through the mud by pulpits, paintings, and pop culture.
Here’s the kicker: the Bible never calls her a prostitute. Not once.
2025-11-0706 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsA Season of Solidarity - What if Your Giving Ended Violence?What if the power to end violence wasn’t locked inside a politician’s office or a police budget - but sitting right in your hands?
Giving Tuesday is here again, and everywhere you look, nonprofits are asking for support. But this year, we’re asking you to look deeper. To ask what kind of giving truly ends harm. Because not all “help” helps - and not all funding heals.
2025-11-0704 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsChange on Paper - Chains in Practice: A Practical Review of the November Fall ElectionsThe morning after the 2025 election feels a little like waking up after a storm - the sky’s clearer, but the debris is still everywhere. Democrats swept major races across the country last night, with Zohran Mamdani’s historic win in New York City and strong showings in Virginia and New Jersey signaling that voters wanted a shift in tone.
But make no mistake - this wasn’t the change, just a change. The same systems that criminalize poverty, overpolice survival economies, and leave marginalized workers behind are still very much intact.
2025-11-0508 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Weaponization of FoodA government shutdown happens when Congress fails to pass a spending bill to fund federal operations. When that money freezes, so do the programs it supports - including SNAP and WIC.
This shutdown began on October 1, 2025, after Congress couldn’t agree on a budget.
For people like me, that means one thing:
No benefits. No safety net. No food.
America loves to call itself the “land of opportunity,” but when you’re a disabled Black parent trying to keep three kids fed on one income, you learn quick: this country could not care les...
2025-11-0105 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Delilah – The Femme Fatale Who Took the FallWhen you hear the name Delilah, you probably picture the ultimate seductress - the sultry femme fatale who batted her eyelashes, whispered sweet nothings, and single-handedly brought down Israel’s strongest man. She’s been immortalized in art, sermons, and even pop songs as the woman who used her body to ruin a man.
But let’s slow this movie reel down. Is Delilah truly the villain of the story, or has history once again given us a woman flattened into the role of “temptress,” while the man’s faults get excused as “boys will be boys”?
2025-10-3105 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsFrom Surviving to Thriving: What Happens When You Fund FreedomWhen you give to SWOP Behind Bars, you’re not just donating — you’re investing in someone’s comeback story. You’re helping people move from surviving to thriving: from waiting on a bunk in county jail to stability, from a DOC number to a driver’s license, from isolation to connection.
Every dollar that flows through our programs has a heartbeat attached.
2025-10-3102 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsStripped of Promises: The Hidden Realities of Guam’s Exotic Dance IndustryLabor trafficking doesn’t always involve chains or cages. Sometimes it looks like contracts written in legalese, passports held just out of reach, or threats veiled as “rules.” It’s coercion in a cocktail dress. It’s violence dressed up as opportunity.
Whether it’s happening in a garment factory, a massage parlor, or a strip club - it’s still labor trafficking. The only variable is whose pain we believe, and whose we dismiss.
2025-10-2708 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsSeason of Solidarity - Funding Real SolutionsEver wonder where your donation actually goes? This week, we pull back the curtain on what “funding justice” really looks like—from commissary deposits to reentry kits—and how every dollar fuels freedom, not surveillance.
2025-10-2403 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen “Rescue” Is Rebranded: Compass Connections Takes the National HotlineAfter nearly two decades under Polaris, the National Human Trafficking Hotline has a new operator: Compass Connections, a San Antonio nonprofit with deep ties to child welfare, foster care, and adoption. On paper, this looks like a routine management change. But for those of us on the ground - sex workers, survivors, and people criminalized by “anti-trafficking” systems - it’s not just paperwork. It’s a shift in power. Hotlines are never neutral. They decide who gets believed, who gets funneled to police, and whose stories vanish.
2025-10-2005 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsFrom Taboo to Tool: How Myths About Sex Work Keep Power in PlaceOver the past few months in Receipts, Please, we’ve tackled ten of the most common myths about sex work—debunking them with data, lived experience, and truth. But those ten are only the tip of the iceberg. Myths about sex workers are everywhere, multiplying in the gaps left by silence, stigma, and fear. They persist because they serve powerful social functions: keeping women in line, upholding respectability politics, and justifying harmful laws.
Why so many? Because sex work disrupts the rules.
2025-10-1707 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsBad Girls of the Bible: Eve: The First ScapegoatWhen it comes to “bad girls of the Bible,” Eve takes the crown as the original troublemaker. She’s the woman who - according to centuries of sermons, paintings, and pop theology - single-handedly ruined paradise. Humanity was just vibing in Eden until Eve got hungry and gullible, right? That’s the story we’re told.
2025-10-1704 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsA Season of Solidarity: We Take Care of UsWhen systems abandon us, we take care of each other. This week, we’re reflecting on how mutual aid - not charity - has kept sex workers alive and connected for decades. Join us as we launch our Season of Solidarity and celebrate the power of community-led giving.
2025-10-1703 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend HotTakes - Economic BloodsportLet’s skip the polite economic euphemisms and call this what it is: we are headed straight for the mountain, and the seatbelt light just came on. Inflation’s not cooling; it’s calcifying. Wages haven’t caught up, rent’s still a blood sport, groceries feel like luxury items, and if you’ve tried to buy a used car lately, you know it’s giving “end times barter system” vibes.
And yet - corporate profits are fine. Wall Street’s fine. Private equity? Thriving. It’s us - the people who actually make things run - who are about to feel t...
2025-10-1304 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #10: Ending Demand Will End Sex Work“End demand” laws—sometimes called the “Nordic Model”—are promoted as a solution to sex work and trafficking. The idea is that if you punish clients, the industry will collapse. In practice, it has failed everywhere it’s been tried.
Spoiler Alert! It doesn't!
2025-10-1005 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes: When the Border Comes to Your City - and the even Police Say “Enough”We’re in strange terrain now: the federal government is treating cities like Portland and Chicago as frontline zones in a migration war. ICE, Border Patrol, tactical units, tear gas, mass arrests - this is no longer about border states. It’s urban invasion. And in a twist that surprises no one who works with criminalized communities, even police forces in those cities aren’t fully signing on.
2025-10-0606 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #9: Sex Work and Pornography Are Harmless EntertainmentThis myth is the flip side of the “glamorous and easy” narrative—the belief that all sex work and pornography are simply harmless fun, no different than any other form of adult entertainment. On the surface, it’s a comforting idea, especially for consumers who want to enjoy without questioning the conditions under which porn or sex work is produced. But the truth, as always, is more complicated. Sex work and porn are forms of labor, and like any industry, they contain both ethical practices and exploitative ones. Reducing them to either “pure entertainment” or “pure harm” flattens the reality and eras...
2025-10-0303 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #8: Criminalization Protects Vulnerable PeopleThis myth frames laws against sex work as protective shields for vulnerable populations. It suggests that arrests, raids, and crackdowns are acts of compassion—that by criminalizing sex work, the state is keeping people safe from exploitation. On the surface, this framing feels persuasive because it appeals to both morality and fear: who wouldn’t want to “protect” women, children, and marginalized people from harm? But in practice, the exact opposite is true. Criminalization is wielded most harshly against the very communities it claims to safeguard, leaving sex workers, survivors, and children more vulnerable, not less. Instead of functioning as a shi...
2025-09-2604 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #7: Sex Work Causes Community DeclineFrom city zoning boards to neighborhood watch meetings, sex work is often blamed for everything from falling property values to rising crime. The stereotype of the “red light district” as a breeding ground for danger and disorder is deeply ingrained in public imagination, and its influence stretches far beyond dinner-table gossip or neighborhood complaints. This myth has directly shaped legislation and policy: city councils pass exclusionary zoning laws that push workers out of sight, police departments justify costly “vice” units and sting operations, and local governments use “community safety” language to increase surveillance and criminal penalties. In reality, these measures do...
2025-09-1904 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #6: All Clients Are PredatorsThe idea that every client is a predator is one of the most persistent myths about sex work. While violence against sex workers is real and must be taken seriously, painting all clients with the same brush is inaccurate and harmful. This stereotype distracts from the real structural risks sex workers face and fuels policies that make their work more dangerous. From TV dramas to crime podcasts, the “violent john” trope is everywhere. But the evidence doesn’t support the claim that all clients are predators—and focusing on this myth obscures the actual source of risk.
2025-09-1204 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Ironic Death of Charlie KirkHeads up: this one’s messy, hard, and urgent. Charlie Kirk - 31, political firebrand and cofounder of Turning Point USA - was fatally shot at Utah Valley University while doing a Q&A about, of all things, gun violence. His last words to a crowd of 3,000 were literally “gun violence” before a single shot from a rooftop ended his life. It’s almost too on-the-nose, like the universe writing satire in real time. Kirk, who spent years cheerleading for a culture where more guns supposedly meant more safety, died in a moment that collapsed his rhetoric into reality. The shooter...
2025-09-1107 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsSafety Is a Feeling, Not a DestinationFor survivors, safety isn’t a destination or a set of rules. It is not found in the locks on the doors, the cameras on the walls, or the paperwork at intake. Those may create a sense of control for institutions, but they rarely create comfort for survivors.
Safety is a feeling that grows in the body over time. It comes when someone listens without judgment, when choices are honored, when identities are respected, and when support doesn’t come with strings attached. Survivors like Jenna know instinctively that being told “you’re safe here” doesn’t make it true
2025-09-1006 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsPassing the Gravy: How Systems Perpetuate Violence Instead of Ending ItShe was twelve the first time the bruises should have mattered. The teacher noticed. The nurse filed a report. A caseworker visited the home. But nothing stuck. Each institution touched her life just long enough to shuffle her along, like a plate passed around a crowded table. The bruises faded, the paperwork filed away, and the cycle resumed—because each system acted as though acknowledgment was enough.
By fourteen, the abuse had become exploitation. Older men promised safety, then abused that promise. She disappeared from school, only to be criminalized for truancy. Courts scolded her for not sh...
2025-09-0804 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #5: Sex Work Is Glamorous and Easy MoneyWhen sex work shows up in mainstream culture, it’s rarely depicted as the ordinary, complex labor that it is. Instead, it’s boxed into one of two caricatures: the tragic victim or the glamorous hustler. Tabloid headlines, reality TV, and glossy magazine profiles often play up stories of women who supposedly “made it big,” while crime shows and news specials focus on “fallen” women to be rescued. These dueling myths - pity on one end, glamor on the other - do the same kind of damage: they erase the daily realities of people who engage in sex work to survive...
2025-09-0505 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsCarrying Life, Carrying Love: Pregnancy, Homelessness, and Two Cats Who Never LeftIn my last post, I touched on what it meant to be pregnant while navigating homelessness and sex work. What I didn’t share then was how another part of my family—my cats—fit into that chaos. People told me to give them up, that it would be easier. But this post is about why I didn’t, and how their presence carried me through some of the hardest days.
2025-09-0306 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth #4 Sex Workers Should Just Get a "Real" Job!This myth comes from a mix of moral judgment and economic denial. For generations, society has drawn a sharp line between “respectable work” and “immoral work,” framing sex work as a failure of character rather than a rational response to economic need. Media stereotypes and anti-trafficking campaigns reinforce the idea that sex workers are simply choosing the “easy way out” instead of pursuing “honest jobs.” At the same time, this myth lets governments and employers off the hook - it hides the fact that many so-called “real jobs” pay poverty wages, exclude people with criminal records, or discriminate against trans and marginaliz...
2025-08-2908 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWEEKEND HOT TAKES: When Women and Girls Disappear from the ReportWe want to give credit where it’s due: More To Her Story, a youth-led feminist platform, was one of the first to sound the alarm on a deeply disturbing change in the 2023 U.S. State Department Human Rights Reports - the complete erasure of any dedicated section on women’s rights. Not a single mention of gender-based violence, maternal mortality, or structural inequality facing half the global population. While mainstream media outlets like The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Post eventually picked up the story, much of their coverage couched it in cautious, bureaucratic language. Let’s be cle...
2025-08-2504 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand A Chance! Myth 3 All Sex Workers Are WomenReality: Men, nonbinary, and trans people also do sex work, and ignoring them erases real needs, advocacy, and data from the conversation.
This myth isn’t just about who people imagine when they hear the words “sex worker”—it’s about who feminism has historically chosen to see, and who it has chosen to leave out. Much of mainstream feminist rhetoric around sex work has centered cisgender women, casting them either as victims in need of rescue or as symbols of patriarchal exploitation. That framing makes men, trans people, and nonbinary sex workers invisible, as if they don’t exis...
2025-08-2208 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsPoshie Pets: Healing, Resilience, and the Power of CaringYou may remember Breyana from 2016, when she was released from prison after serving far too much time for something she never should’ve been punished for—being a survivor of trafficking.
That injustice didn’t silence her. By 2020, she channeled her resilience into founding Poshie Pets, a Louisiana-based pet grooming and product line that transforms bath time into healing time—for pets and the people who love them.
2025-08-2003 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts Please! Myths Don't Stand a Chance! Myth #2: Decriminalization Will Increase TraffickingReality: Evidence from New Zealand and parts of Australia shows the opposite—decriminalization can improve safety, reduce exploitation, and increase cooperation with law enforcement for actual trafficking cases.
2025-08-1807 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsReceipts, Please – Myths Don’t Stand a Chance Myth #1 All Sex Work is Sex TraffickingEach month, SWOP Behind Bars will pull back the curtain on some of the most stubborn myths and misconceptions in our movement, armed with facts, figures, and a healthy dose of righteous indignation. This is where tired narratives come to die, and where we bring the receipts—cold, hard data you can quote at the next dinner table debate. Written and narrated by Alex Andrews, an internationally recognized sex worker rights advocate, co-founder of SWOP Behind Bars, and long-time feminist organizer, this series combines lived experience with relentless research to dismantle harmful rhetoric and replace it with truth.
2025-08-1507 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen Sport Turns to Moral Panic: Trafficking Rhetoric at Major EventsThere’s a familiar narrative that follows mega sporting events in the U.S.—that they spark an inevitable rise in human trafficking, especially the ever salacious sex trafficking. The Super Bowl is the most common example: reports of thousands of underage sex workers flood headlines, but the evidence doesn’t back that up. While adult-oriented online ads may tick up modestly, rigorous studies consistently debunk the notion of dramatic spikes in actual trafficking during such events.
With the 2026 FIFA World Cup coming to North America, it’s already shaping up to be the “new” Super Bowl for traffick...
2025-08-1110 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Importantance of Boundaries As A Single Mother and Sex WorkerBeing in the sex industry started for me at the age of 20. I was raised in one of the most dangerous cities, Camden, New Jersey. I was a single mother of 2 daughters at the time whose fathers were both absent, one was incarcerated and the other was absent by default. I was raised with family violence and my children and I were kicked out of my mother's house and sent to a women's shelter. At the time I wasn't bothered much emotionally by it, although I had two other grown sisters with children like myself, I was grown and...
2025-08-0609 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsIntesections of Sex Work, Violence and IncarcerationViolence and incarceration are everyday realities for people who trade sex. Fear of police encounters. Fear of arrest. Fear of being assaulted, exploited, or ignored. These aren’t side notes. They’re central to our lives—and yet they’re often brushed aside in public policy debates.
We talk about the intersections of policing, poverty, and marginalization like they’re obvious. But what’s less often explored is what happens after the arrest—what violence looks like inside jails and prisons, especially for sex workers.
2025-08-0107 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsPregnant Sex Workers Deserve Dignity TooI’m a California native born and raised in the suburbs of the state capital city. I understand that I grew up with more privilege than most Black kids my age. Privilege doesn’t absolve you of dysfunction, it delays it.
2025-07-3009 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes - The Ghislaine Maxwell EditionThis week, the national conversation once again spiraled around the so-called Epstein “client list.” The same question resurfaced:
Where is it? Who’s on it? When will it be released?
And just like every other time, the obsession with the list revealed more about the public’s craving for spectacle than their actual commitment to justice.
At SWOP Behind Bars, we spent the week unpacking what this really means—for survivors, for sex workers, and for anyone who’s ever dared to hold receipts on the powerful. From Trump calling his own base “stupid” for caring about tra...
2025-07-2806 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsFrom the Streets to the Cellblock: When “Rescue” Becomes a Rap SheetLet’s start with a cold, hard truth: the so-called “anti-trafficking” initiatives that claim to “rescue” sex workers often function more like a conveyor belt straight to jail. And spoiler alert—if your “rescue” ends with a mugshot, trauma, and court-mandated shame therapy, it wasn’t a rescue. It was a raid with a PR team.
Despite all the glossy PSAs, billboards, and tearful press conferences, most “anti-trafficking” operations disproportionately arrest adult consensual sex workers—not traffickers, not clients, and certainly not the multimillion-dollar industries that profit off criminalization. These operations rarely even identify trafficking victims. What they do reliably produce...
2025-07-2507 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes: About the Epstein “List”The sex worker rights movement has long explored how the public—and too often, the courts—struggle to grasp the realities of exploitation, especially when it hides behind wealth, consent, or celebrity. We’ve written about coercion, manipulation, and the blurry gray lines that survivors are expected to define in black and white.
But there’s something else we need to talk about.
Something that resurfaces every few months like clockwork:
The Epstein “client list.”
Where is it? Who’s on it? When will it be released?
2025-07-2108 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhy Carceral Feminism Gets Consent Wrong (Again)Spoiler: If your feminism relies on police and prisons, it’s not protecting us—it’s punishing us.
For a movement that claims to be rooted in liberation, carceral feminism sure loves a cage.
At its core, carceral feminism is the belief that the best—or only—way to address gender-based violence is through criminalization, policing, and punishment. It rose to prominence in the 1990s alongside tough-on-crime policies and second-wave calls for legal reform. And on the surface, it sounds reasonable: violence against women is bad, so let’s punish the people who commit it. Simple, righ...
2025-07-1806 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen the Bottom Falls Out: The Long-Term Damage of Today’s “Temporary” Economic CrisesMass layoffs are sweeping through sectors most folks never imagined would be touched: the National Park Service. The National Weather Service. The arts. The These aren’t just bureaucracies or background institutions—they’re pillars of our society. When they crumble, they don’t fall in isolation. They take whole communities with them.
2025-07-1407 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Gray is Real: The Complicated Nuance of Consent in Sex WorkConsent is often framed as a clean, binary decision: yes or no. Thumbs up or down. Red light, green light. But in sex work—and, honestly, in most parts of life—it’s never that simple. Consent is a spectrum, and anyone who’s ever worked in the industry can tell you: the messiest parts of our labor live in the in-between.
2025-07-1103 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe Sean Combs Verdict, and the Misunderstanding of ExploitationCoercion Without Chains
The prosecution didn’t rely on sensational imagery of kidnapping or armed threats. Instead, they introduced a more unsettling and nuanced concept: coercive control—a sustained pattern of emotional abuse, surveillance, and violence that distorts intimacy and erodes autonomy.
2025-07-0707 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsCollege After IncarcerationOne of the most immediate and damaging barriers is the college admissions process itself. Many schools still include criminal history questions on their applications—known as “the box.” While “Ban the Box” efforts have succeeded in pushing back on this in employment and housing, college applications remain a site of unchecked bias. Applicants with records are often forced to write justification essays or go through special disciplinary review boards that operate with little transparency or appeal.
2025-07-0407 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsCorrespondence Course Hustle — Higher Education from a CellFor most people, the idea of college brings to mind lecture halls, laptops, and late-night study sessions. But for incarcerated women—especially survivors of trafficking and violence—higher education looks very different. It’s not about campus tours or dorm life. It’s about handwritten essays, 37-page packets, weeks of waiting for feedback, and figuring out how to pay for a textbook with commissary wages. In this second post of our six-part series, we follow Cassandra’s journey through a prison-based paralegal course—one she tackled without internet, support, or even reliable mail service. What she endured wasn’t just a course...
2025-07-0308 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsSeen but Still Silenced: The Complicated Gratitude of the Sex Worker Rights MovementWhen a certain child rescue organization—you know, the one whose name sounds like a Christian indie band—published their recent reflection titled “Mistakes happen in anti-trafficking work. We must learn from them,” a strange thing happened across the sex worker rights community.
We collectively blinked. Really slowly.
Not in shock, but in that tired, long-suffering way you blink when someone finally repeats back something you’ve been saying for twenty years and calls it a revelation.
2025-06-3006 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsClassroom Contraband — What They Don’t Teach You in PrisonFor years, prisons were called “crime schools” because people learned more about how to survive in the underground economy than how to build a stable life. But over the past two decades, peer educators, survivor-led programs, and small but mighty prison college initiatives have begun to shift that narrative. Inside, women are not just learning—they’re teaching. They’re guiding each other through case law, GED exams, and grief recovery. They’re mentoring each other, mapping out legal strategies, and explaining reproductive health when medical staff won’t.
2025-06-2708 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsTariffs and other Economic Nonsense - When Protection Becomes the ProblemRemember when tariffs were marketed as the golden ticket to economic salvation? They were supposed to protect American jobs, revive domestic industry, and punish “bad actors” overseas. Just slap a tax on imports, they said, and factories would roar back to life. Jobs would multiply. Wages would rise. The middle class would thrive.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
2025-06-2504 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes - The Most Expensive DUI in MA historyThis week Karen Read of Massachusetts was found Not Guilty by a jury of her peers, regarding the suspicious death of her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe in 2021.
Here's what Blair Hopkins, Executive Director has to say about that!
2025-06-2304 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDegrees of Separation: Why We Must Redefine What Counts as EducationFor criminalized women—especially those who’ve survived trafficking, incarceration, and generational poverty—the idea of “formal education” often feels like a fortress: high walls, locked gates, and a very specific key held by someone on the other side. If you didn’t get your high school diploma at 18 or walk across a stage in a cap and gown, you’re somehow seen as less equipped, less capable, less… educated.
But let’s break down how that gatekeeping actually works.
2025-06-2209 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsTop Ten Myths and Misconceptions About the Adult Industry—And the Truth Behind ThemLet’s be real—if myths about sex work were dollar bills, every stripper in America would be retired by now, sipping cocktails on a beach somewhere and finally getting paid what she's worth. But instead of cashing in, sex workers are still stuck cashing out the emotional and legal damage from decades of moral panic and misinformation.
These tired narratives don’t just misinform—they fuel stigma, drive harmful legislation, justify police violence, and shape the way society treats people who trade sex for survival, for empowerment, or simply because it pays the bills. They show up in co...
2025-06-1811 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes - A Country in ChaosHope your coffee is strong and your boundaries stronger, because this weekend delivered a full-course meal of carceral nonsense, QAnon fever dreams, ICE agents crashing into elementary school zones, and a grown man throwing himself a military parade for his birthday. So yeah—just another totally normal weekend in the land of the free
2025-06-1606 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsDegrees of Survival — When Learning Is a Lifeline for Trafficking SurvivorsEducation is one of the few concrete tools that can reduce the risk of re-exploitation. Survivors who are able to return to school—whether to finish a GED, complete a college degree, or learn a trade—gain more than academic knowledge. They gain economic mobility, self-efficacy, a supportive peer community, and the tools to advocate for themselves in complex systems. Studies consistently show that financial insecurity is one of the primary drivers of trafficking and exploitation. Survivors without access to income—especially those exiting jails, shelters, or unstable living environments—are at significant risk of being retrafficked. Education, especially when pai...
2025-06-1310 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsFriday the 13th, Prank Calls, and Trafficking Conspiracies We Wish We Made UpThere’s something about Friday the 13th that makes people lose their ever-loving minds. Maybe it’s the full moon vibes. Maybe it’s too much true crime TV. Maybe it’s just the collective unraveling of common sense. Either way, if you run a sex worker support hotline like we do, you know it’s gonna be a wild ride.
2025-06-1205 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWhen Feminism Wears Lip Gloss: How Pink Patriarchy Undermines the Fight for LiberationThere’s a version of feminism out there that wears a pussyhat, clutches her pearls, and still calls the manager when a sex worker speaks at a panel. She’s the board member who proudly posts “women supporting women” selfies, yet signs off on policies that systematically exclude trans women, criminalized mothers, and survivors who sell sex just to stay housed. She believes in women’s empowerment—as long as it arrives wrapped in a college degree, a polished LinkedIn profile, and a sworn rejection of OnlyFans.
2025-06-1104 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsWeekend Hot Takes - The Los Angeles ResistanceThis past weekend, Los Angeles found itself at the epicenter of a fierce showdown: thousands hit the streets in defiance of ICE raids and the sudden deployment of the California National Guard—ordered directly by former President Trump. Protesters blocked freeways, clashed with law enforcement, and even set a few cars ablaze in a wave of collective outrage. Tear gas, flash-bangs, rubber bullets—the headlines read like a war zone.
2025-06-0904 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsThe GED Gap — Why Basic Education Still Isn’t Basic (Especially if You're a Woman in a CageThe GED Gap — Why Basic Education Still Isn’t Basic (Especially if You're a Woman in a Cage
Let’s be clear: education has always been hyped as “the great equalizer.” A ladder out of poverty. A ticket to freedom. Blah blah bootstrap narrative. But for incarcerated women—especially survivors of trafficking, abuse, and generational poverty—education isn’t just inaccessible, it’s practically mythical.
We’re talking about women who’ve been locked out long before they were locked up. And yet, somehow, a GED still manages to be treated like a luxury item instead of a baseline...
2025-05-3107 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the Margins“I Don’t Want You to Worry About Me”: A Letter No Mother Should Ever Have to WriteAshley’s only “crime” was surviving. Years earlier, she had been trafficked. Then criminalized. Then released. And like so many others, when resources ran out and opportunities closed, she turned back to the only means of survival she knew. The system didn’t offer support. It offered a cell.
And when she asked for help—real help, in the form of a diversion program—they slammed the door in her face.
She was taken from court the next morning. Cuffed, processed, gone. Just like she knew she would be.
2025-05-2804 minSWOP Behind Bars Advocacy from the MarginsModels for Change: Community-led and policy-driven solutions that center healing and equityWe’ve spent the last five blog posts tracing the landscape of reproductive injustice, pregnancy and birth behind bars, mental health neglect, and the painful gaps that derail reentry for women who’ve been incarcerated. And now, in this final post, we turn toward hope and action.
Because while the criminal legal system continues to fail women—especially Black, brown, trans, disabled, and low-income women—communities are leading the way in building alternatives that center healing, not harm.
2025-05-2303 min