It started with a question. “What college degree do you have?” Tasha had just been released and was sitting in the intake office of a...

For 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.

When people imagine what “freedom” looks like for trafficking survivors, they often picture a dramatic rescue or a courtroom triumph—handcuffs off, a predator jailed, a survivor walking into the sunlight.

Education is more than a classroom, a test, or a diploma. For criminalized women, survivors, and sex workers, it’s a form of resistance. It’s a survival strategy. It’s a way to reclaim power in systems designed to keep us voiceless.

Education is often sold as the golden ticket—the “way out,” the “great equalizer,” the shiny ladder out of poverty. But for women who’ve...

Community-led services and support for incarcerated women being released from prison are grounded in one radical belief: that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. Rather than imposing top-down programs that often miss the mark, grassroots organizations across the country—many founded and led by formerly incarcerated women—offer holistic, peer-based support that centers dignity, autonomy, and lived experience.

The moment a woman is released from incarceration is supposed to mark a new beginning. But for many, especially those with untreated health conditions, trauma, or chronic illnesses, reentry is more like walking off a cliff with no net below.