Women who killed in self-defense serve three times longer than the men who killed their wives, Renz Correctional Prison, Jefferson City, MO

One Book One Northwestern, 2020–21

This artwork was selected in response to themes in Northwestern’s community-wide reading of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014) by Bryan Stevenson.

In this photograph, an imprisoned woman on the top bunk looks out from her cell and exchanges glances with a guard, whose dark outline contrasts with the stark white background. The two figures are represented as visual opposites, yet they are intimately connected by their respective roles in the carceral system. The artist Donna Ferrato, who has spent nearly 40 years photographing subjects related to domestic violence, provides the image with a long title that asks us to consider the gender disparities in prison sentencing. Of the works in this series, the artist writes, "I hope you will contemplate this: There are countless women in prison whose sole crime was to protect themselves and their children from murderous husbands or boyfriends. Many things are shocking about family violence, but none more so than the fact that women are behind bars for trying to save their own lives." In chapter 12 of Just Mercy, "Mother, Mother," Bryan Stevenson points to the severe and unfair sentences faced by women who are charged for acting in self-defense, are subject to laws that punish mothers in marginalized communities, or are wrongly convicted for crimes they did not commit.