Here are some links to projects we think you might also find interesting or helpful if you are interested in Boys on the Inside.

Washington Based Prison Programs:

Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project – Keeping the Faith–The Prison Project serves women in Washington State Prisons through dance, expository writing, visual art and performance. This program has been conducted in Washington State Prisons since 1995, and has served hundreds of women in prison as well as offering their incarcerated peers in the audience a chance to discuss topics relating to their own lives after each performance.

Pongo Poetry Project – A volunteer, nonprofit effort with Seattle teens who are in jail, on the streets, or in other ways leading difficult lives.

The IF Project: Incarcerated Voices – a collaboration of law enforcement, currently and previously incarcerated adults and community partners focused on intervention, prevention and reduction in incarceration and recidivism (in Washington).

Books to Prisoners – Books To Prisoners is a Seattle-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster a love of reading behind bars, encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-empowerment, and break the cycle of recidivism.

ACLU Washington: The Rights of Transgender Individuals in Jails and Prisons – The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees an individual’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, requires prison and jail officials to protect all incarcerated individuals from violence by other incarcerated individuals and staff. If prison officials know of a substantial risk of harm to an individual, they must take reasonable steps to reduce the risk.

Black Prisoners Caucus – African American men incarcerated at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe founded the Black Prisoners’ Caucus (BPC) in 1972. The men organized Black Culture Workshops between 1969 and 1972. These workshops laid the foundation for the development of BPC. The organization fosters respect, responsibility, self worth and unity. The BPC stands as a testimony to the potential of the African American community to create a healthier future for ourselves. In spite of the challenges, the men of the BPC have kept the organization moving forward since 1972.

University Beyond Bars – University Beyond Bars (UBB) provides higher education to people behind bars to fulfill the potential of those our society has imprisoned and to transform them into productive, contributing citizens. We work to create a cooperative learning community inside Washington State prisons where all experience is valued and the benefits of higher education are made available to all who desire them.

Related Films:

Out in the Night – Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a ‘Gang of Killer Lesbians’.

The Aggressives / Beyond The Aggressives – Director Daniel Peddle spent five years recording the lives of six “aggressives” — lesbians who strive to be as masculine as possible in lifestyle and appearance. The result is a portrait both enlightening and endearing as we watch each woman come up with her own inventive ways of expressing her identity.

Cruel and Unusual – Cruel and Unusual: Transgender Women in Prison (USA). Documentary by Janet Baus & Dan Hunt. (2006)

Orange is the New Black (TV) – The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money to her drug-dealing girlfriend.

Books:

The New Jim Crow – a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.

Beyond ‘Orange is the New Black’: 8 eye-opening prison books

BOI Identity and Clothes:

Queer Bois – Blog/Website

Tomboyx – clothing line

Wolffang – clothing line

Butchbaby & Co – clothing line

Dapper Boi – clothing line