We envision a world that does not require punitive systems of surveillance and social control to address harm but is instead building real safety and belonging through community-building efforts aimed at equity, diversity, and inclusion where everyone has access to the necessities of life and meaningful opportunities in society.
The Prison for Women Memorial Collective (P4WMC) was first inspired by a group of women, who had either done time or who had been volunteers at the Prison for Women (P4W), after attending the first public Healing Circle organized by the Kingston Elizabeth Fry Society and the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) at the now-closed P4W in the summer of 2015. At the time we believed it was the last Healing Circle that would ever happen there since the prison had been sold to Queen’s University in 2007 from the federal government…
An art exhibition of prisoner artworks will be on display at the Pumphouse Museum from July 4 – September 2, 2023 in partnership with the P4W memorial collective and the City of Kingston.
We’d like to extend our sincere gratitude to Steph Crosier and The Kingston Whig Standard for their enlightening coverage of Prisoners Justice Day.
We invite submissions reflecting on questions raised by the twentieth-plus anniversary of the closure of P4W.
Every year on August 10th since P4W’s closure in the year 2000, a group of women who were in prison there have gathered on these grounds to hold a healing circle in honour of the sisters they lost inside.
The P4W Memorial Collective is a group of women ex-prisoners from the Prison for Women (P4W) who are working towards the creation of a permanent memorial garden and community space on the grounds of P4W, in Katarokwi/Kingston, Ontario.
Through our work we honour the women who lost their lives in P4W, and uplift the stories of those women who survived.
