This collection contains program records, conference materials, correspondence, ephemera, and photographs from the Santa Cruz Women’s Prison Project (SCWPP) and Music Inside/Out (MI/O), a SCWPP affiliated organization committed to bringing musical instruments and performances to people inside. Additional materials are related to guerilla theater, alternative education, and poetry, as well as other forms of creative resistance.
Materials in this collection were donated by Debra Elise Miller and are from Debra’s time at the University of California, Santa Cruz between 1971-1975.
Santa Cruz Women’s Prison Project (SCWPP):
The Santa Cruz Women’s Prison Project (SCWPP) was an educational project committed to the rehabilitation of communities and the abolition of prisons. Working toward these goals, people from the Santa Cruz and greater Bay Area communities became involved with prisoners of the California Institution for Women (CIW), the nation’s largest prison for women. The main focus of the project was to conduct workshops within the prison on issues immediately relevant to raising the social and political consciousness of organizers and women prisoners. The project provided UC Extension credit for classes such as creative writing, women’s health, and social action.
The SCWPP was formed in 1972, when Karlene Faith gained prison access to conduct graduate research for her dissertation on women in prison. She co-taught a course in August 1972 to CIW prisoners with Jeanne Gallick, a fellow graduate student. The imprisoned women received the first college credit to be granted to prisoners in the history of the institution.