Ann Hansen Ottawa Book Launch, Octopus Books
Join author and prison abolitionist Ann Hansen for the Ottawa book launch of her new prison memoir Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society’s Crimes at 25One Community hosted by Octopus Books.
As the disparity between rich and poor, white, and non-white deepens; the incompatibility between environmental sustainability and economic growth sharpens; the conflict between the privileged white people in the western world and the rest of the global population intensifies, the need to understand prisons, the global elites’ social control mechanisms, is more important than ever. Ann Hansen has written an account of her time in the Prison for Women (P4W) from 1984-1991, followed by two short stints in Quinte, the Central East Correctional Center in Lindsay and Grand Valley Institution for Women, in order to give people a window into life inside the women’s prison compound of the 1900s and its transformation into an American-style prison industrial complex in the 21st century. An understanding of prisons is essential to any activist or any of the growing population of marginalized peoples. If you are in resistance, or simply poor or marginalized, you will more than likely get a chance to experience this prison industrial complex yourself. In the meantime, it is always good to know your enemy.