S3 Ep18: Valena Beety: The Criminalization of Mothers and Motherhood

Two weeks ago, I interviewed Justine van der Leun about criminalized survival, and why women so often end up in prison for “crimes” of self-defense. The truth is that women often end up in prison for behaviors that aren’t criminal at all—not just for self-defense or for killing. Today we are talking about the widespread victimization of women at the hands of the legal system.

Patriarchy specifically targets mothers, and women from oppressed groups, then weaponizes our identities. Sometimes it uses these identities to prosecute and incarcerate us. Attorney and activist Valena Beety has worked to overturn wrongful convictions, taught other lawyers about the injustices in the criminal justice system, and is now a powerful advocate for systemic change. She joined me on the podcast to discuss her new book, Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity.

The ways our criminal justice system (and associated systems, like CPS) silence and control women.

How motherhood creates unique vulnerabilities within the criminal justice system.

How women can end up in jail or prison even when they are innocent, and even when there was no crime at all.

The criminalization of tragedies: stillbirth, infant and child deaths, and miscarriages.

Prosecutions of abortions and miscarriages.

How our fear promotes victim-blaming, and how victim-blaming revictimizes women who survive trauma.

Criminalized victimization, and how the legal system weaponizes women’s trauma against them.

Bias in prosecution, and how prosecutors get tunnel vision and decide a woman deserves punishment no matter what.

The ways in which we criminalize and punish disabled mothers.

How a coercive system weaponizes women’s trauma, and can easily induce false confessions.