Writer To Talk About Life Inside MCI-Framingham

Acclaimed writer Cristina Rathbone will speak about Women Behind Bars: Life Inside Wednesday April 18 at 7 p.m. in the Dwight Performance Arts Center on the campus of Framingham State University.

The public is invited to the free lecture.

Rathbone is author of A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars – the definitive account of life at the oldest women’s prison in the United States, located in Framingham.

• Women are the fastest growing group of prison inmates in the United States; more than a 100,000 are now locked up. 
• Two-thirds of them are mothers, many of whom were the primary caretakers of their children when they were sent away. 
• Seventy-three percent of incarcerated women are in prison for non-violent offenses.

Rathbone spent five years learning about the women at

Her research shows why often people do not see the reality of women’s experiences behind bars. Too often people choose to believe that the more than 400 women locked up in Framingham alone – just like so many others across the U.S. – are entirely different from us. 

People see them as cut off, set apart, and not worthy of our attention; as someone else’s daughters, as someone else’s mothers, as strangers; as people without dignity. Rathbone will tell their powerful stories in her free presentation.