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Victoria Law

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victoria Law
Victoria Law at an ABC No Rio Halloween open house
Victoria Law at an ABC No Rio Halloween open house
Born
Jamaica, Queens, New York City
Occupation
  • Freelance writer and editor
  • Prison abolition activist
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBrooklyn College
Notable worksResistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women
Website
victorialaw.net

Victoria Law, familiarly known as Vikki Law, is an American anarchist activist, prison abolitionist, writer, freelance editor, and photographer. Her books include Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (2009), Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms (co-authored by Maya Schenwar, 2020), and Corridors of Contagion: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration (2024).

Background and education

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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

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Law continued fighting for prison abolition, co-founding Books Through Bars NYC, a books-to-prisoners organization, 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 the 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

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Books

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Zines

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In addition to many zines she has authored or edited:[18]

Articles, blog posts and web articles

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In addition to print articles about gender, incarceration and resistance,[23] she is a regular contributor to online news and culture venues, including Bolts,[24] The Nation,[25] and Truthout,[26] among others.

Law has contributed to Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance[27] which shares women's experiences in the criminal justice system. The site gives a voice to previously and currently incarcerated women along with those who seek social justice in the criminal justice system for these women. Law wrote two articles for the site, Invisibility of Women Prisoner Resistance[28] and Where Abolition Meets Action: Women Organizing Against Gender Violence.[29]

In 2023, she interviewed Leigh Goodmark about the release of her latest book.[30]

Awards

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  • 2013, Health Behind Bars Fellowship, John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice[31]
  • 2011, Brooklyn College Young Alumna Award[32]
  • 2009, Prevention for a Safer Society PASS Award for book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women[33]

References

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  1. ↑ Bennett, Hans (July 21, 2009). "Beyond Attica: The Untold Story of Women's Resistance Behind Bars". AlterNet. Archived from the original on November 30, 2020. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  2. ↑ "The untold story of women's resistance behind bars". www.workers.org. Archived from the original on September 7, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  3. ↑ "Vikki Law". Mask Magazine. Archived from the original on January 4, 2015. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  4. ↑ Kimball, Whitney (September 5, 2012). "The ABC No Rio Interviews: Vikki Law". Art F City. Archived from the original on January 15, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  5. ↑ Chidgey, Red; Zobl, Elke. "Tenacious: Art and Writing from Women in Prison. An interview with Vikki Law from New York, United States". Grassroots Feminism. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  6. ↑ Law, Victoria (2012). Resistance Behind Bars: the struggles of incarcerated women (2nd ed.). Oakland: PM Press. ISBN 9781604865837. OCLC 878836279.
  7. ↑ Law, Victoria. "Events". Resistance Behind Bars. Archived from the original on July 23, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Volunteer at Books Through Bars". Freebird Books. Archived from the original on July 2, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  9. ↑ Vidani, Peter. "Cookiepuss: RIP much loved ABC No Rio cat". ABC No Rio. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  10. ↑ Law, Vikki; Martens, China (2012). Don't leave your friends behind: concrete ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Oakland: PM Press. ISBN 9781604867978. OCLC 815480102.
  11. ↑ Law, Victoria (March 22, 2013). "Do Girls of Color Survive Dystopia?". Bitch Media. Archived from the original on September 22, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  12. ↑ Bromwich, Rebecca Jaremko (2014). "Book Review – Resistance Behind Bars: the Struggles of incarcerated women" (PDF). Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research. 25 (Climate Change and Its Discontents).
  13. ↑ Don't leave your friends behind : concrete ways to support families in social justice movements and communities> 'Victoria Law'. OCLC. OCLC 815480102. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  14. ↑ Kilgore, James (July 22, 2020). "We Must Not Exchange One Cage for Another — Let's Abolish All Forms of Prisons". Truthout. Archived from the original on January 15, 2026. Retrieved June 8, 2026.
  15. ↑ Santiago, Christopher (August 23, 2022). "Beyond Bars: Book Review – 'Prisons Make Us Safer' and 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration by Victoria Law". National Lawyers Guild. Archived from the original on June 13, 2025.
  16. ↑ ""Prisons Make Us Safer" by Victoria Law: 9780807029527 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  17. ↑ Law, Victoria (September 10, 2024). Corridors of Contagion: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration. Haymarket Books. ISBN 9798888902561.
  18. ↑ "Search results for 'su:zines au:law' > 'Vikki Law'". OCLC. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ Tenacious : art and writings from women in prison. Barnard College Library/Columbia University Libraries. OCLC 62874649. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  20. ↑ "nefarious vikki law". Barnard College Library/Columbia University Libraries. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Tell me about the first time you came to abc no rio | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Archived from the original on May 27, 2025. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  22. ↑ "vikki law mamazines". Barnard College/Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  23. ↑ "Links to Articles about Gender, Incarceration and Resistance". Victoria Law. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  24. ↑ "Victoria Law". Bolts. Archived from the original on July 6, 2024. Retrieved July 6, 2024.
  25. ↑ "Victoria Law". The Nation. July 10, 2013. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  26. ↑ "Health Behind Bars conference program, Fellows Biographies". truthout. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  27. ↑ "Home Page". Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance. March 30, 2026. Archived from the original on March 15, 2026. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  28. ↑ Law, Victoria (March 30, 2026). "Invisibility of Women Prisoner Resistance". Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  29. ↑ Law, Victoria (March 30, 2026). "Where Abolition Meets Action: Women Organizing Against Gender Violence". Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance. Archived from the original on August 11, 2024. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  30. ↑ Law, Victoria (February 2, 2023). "Leigh Goodmark on "Imperfect Victims" and the Need for Abolition Feminism". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
  31. ↑ "Health Behind Bars, Fellows Biographies" (PDF). John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 12, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  32. ↑ "2011 Young Alumna Award – Victoria Law '02". Brooklyn College Alumni. December 5, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  33. ↑ "2009 PASS Award Winners" (PDF). National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 25, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
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