Victoria Law

NationalityAmericanAlma materBrooklyn CollegeNotable worksResistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated WomenWebsitevictorialaw.net

Victoria Law, familiarly known as Vikki Law, is an American anarchist activist, prison abolitionist, writer, freelance editor, and photographer. Her books are Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (2009, 2012), Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (edited with China Martens, 2012), Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms (co-authored by Maya Schenwar, 2020), and Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration (2021).

Background and education

Victoria Law is of Chinese descent and was born and raised in Queens, New York. As an A student in high school, she committed armed robbery to initiate herself into a Chinatown gang, but was given probation as a first offense.^[1] Her exposure to incarcerated people at Rikers Island prompted her to get involved in prison support.^[2][3]

Career

Law continued fighting for prison abolition, co-founding Books Through Bars NYC as a joint project between Blackout Books and Nightcrawlers Anarchist Black Cross in 1996 at the age of nineteen.^[4] In 2003, at the prompting of women incarcerated in an Oregon prison, she launched the zine Tenacious: Art and Writing from Women in Prison.^[5] In 2009, after a decade of researching and writing about incarcerated women in the United States, Law published her first monograph with PM Press, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, with a second edition released in 2012.^[6] She is a frequent invited speaker, especially since publishing the first edition of Resistance Behind Bars.^[7]

Law works with Books Through Bars (now located at Freebird Bookstore^[8] in Brooklyn). She has participated in many of ABC No Rio's projects, including its Visual Arts Collective and the darkroom that she co-founded and co-built. She has had tangential involvement in the punk collective, as well, and was the primary caregiver of art and activist space's last remaining squatter, Cookiepuss (1996–2013), a calico cat.^[9]

In her twenties, after having a child, Law's activism began to include raising awareness of parents in anarchist communities' need for solidarity, including free childcare activities at events and protests. Together with long-time mamazine maker China Martens, Law began doing workshops and editing compilation zines about parenting for activists and their allies, called Don't Leave Your Friends Behind. The two eventually co-edited a book by the same name, also published by PM Press.^[10] As her child got older and Law engaged with the literature her child read, Law began to focus attention on the lack of racial diversity in young adult fiction, including writing a series of blog posts on girls of color in dystopia for Bitch Media.^[11]

Selected works

Books

• Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration, Beacon Press, 2021^[12]

• Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. The New Press, 2020. Co-authored by Maya Schenwar^[13]

• Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, PM Press, 2012, 2009^[14]
• Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities, PM Press, 2012. Edited with China Martens^[15]

Zines

In addition to many zines she has authored or edited:^[16]

• Tenacious: Art & Writing from Women in Prison, 2003–2020, editor^[17]
• Nefarious Doings series, about travel in Hong Kong and South Africa, 2006^[18]
• Mamazines, contributor^[19]

Articles, blog posts and web articles

In addition to print articles about gender, incarceration and resistance,^[20] she is a regular contributor to online news and culture venues, including Bitch Media,^[21] The Nation,^[22] and Truthout,^[23] among others.

Awards

• 2013, Health Behind Bars Fellowship, John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice^[24]
• 2011, Brooklyn College Young Alumna Award^[25]
• 2009, Prevention for a Safer Society PASS Award for book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women^[26]

References

External links

• Official website
• Resistance Behind Bars site