Bresha Meadows was released to return to her family on February 4, after surviving juvenile and mental health incarceration since her arrest in July 2016.
Bresha was only 14 years old when she was charged with killing her father, who her mother and family said had inflicted years of abuse on them. Instead of receiving compassionate care, Bresha was criminalized for what many consider to have been self-defense.
Bresha’s attempts to escape domestic violence and seek help were blocked by multiple systems that ultimately failed to support her, including the police and Child Protective Services. Bresha’s story reveals the powerful pipeline between girls’ experiences of domestic and sexual violence and their forced entry into carceral systems.
We are both part of #FreeBresha, the small organizing collective that brought Bresha’s case to national and international attention. In August 2016, we formed a volunteer, ad-hoc defense committee to demand her freedom. A defense committee or campaign is a grassroots effort to secure the freedom of a person targeted for criminalization, through community organizing, political pressure, community education, legal and media advocacy, and other strategies. As part of an effort to #FreeBresha, we organized calls to action and then coordinated and publicized widespread decentralized actions into an organizing force to be reckoned with. Supporters across the world demanded care and resources, not cages, for Bresha and all survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
We took a number of actions to #FreeBresha. We created a petition to drop the charges against her. We organized mass letter-writing to the prosecutor to release her immediately. We demanded media attention. We invited supporters to send postcards, letters, and books to Bresha. We promoted book drives and delivered thousands of books by women of color nationwide. We raised money for legal experts and emergency family support. We raised awareness about the abuse-to-prison pipeline for Black girls and women by producing a curriculum that was used at teach-ins and events across the country. We protested. We amped up support when Bresha was on suicide watch. We organized vigils. We solicited and circulated powerful artwork. We mobilized our allies in the antiviolence sector. We uplifted survival and freedom campaigns for other criminalized survivors. We wrote poetry and songs. We stormed Twitter. We organized court support for Bresha’s hearings.
Bresha still has two years of probation before her, so she is still under state surveillance. She is home but still not “free.” We will remain vigilant on her behalf. All who demanded Bresha’s freedom played a role in her survival and release and in pushing national discourse toward decriminalizing survival. Now, it continues to be on all of us to keep doing the work to end the criminalization of survival and to demand safe, resourced futures for Black girls like Bresha and for all survivors.
Welcome home Bresha. #FreeThemAll
