Law Grad 's Fellowship Will Bolster Work with Women Prisoners From: University of Cincinnati Currents Date: March 3, 2000 By: Carey Hoffman Phone: (513) 556-1825 Archive: General News A member of the Class of 1999 has become the first College of Law graduate to receive a prestigious Open Society Institute fellowship. Monique Hoeflinger has been awarded a two-year Soros Justice Fellowship from the institute's Center on Crime, Communities and Culture. She is one of eight post-graduate law fellows selected nationwide. Fellowships awarded by the institute, which is chaired by prominent international financier George Soros, typically go to Ivy League graduates. While at UC, Hoeflinger was a member of the College of Law's Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights and developed a strong interest in issues dealing with women and human rights. She is currently at Ohio State University completing a master's degree in women's studies. The Center on Crime, Communities and Culture works to create leaders in the field of criminal justice who are committed to finding more humane and effective responses to crime and victimization. Hoeflinger was selected for her fellowship on the basis of her proposal, which includes a "Legal, Educational and Empowerment Series" that is aimed at addressing the plight of women in Ohio's prisons. While perhaps not a politically popular issue, the rights of women prisoners have been identified as a serious cause for concern in the United States, says Hoeflinger. Amnesty International identified numerous abuses among the women's prison population during a campaign last year. Bert Lockwood, director of the Urban Morgan Institute, recalls "one of the medieval things brought out" during a regional Amnesty International conference hosted in Cincinnati 18 months ago was the testimony of a former Illinois prisoner about how she was shackled to a bed while giving birth in prison. Instances of emotional and physical abuse, including rape, are also commonly found, as are problems in areas such as adequately meeting women's health needs and social issues like child custody. "Women have become the fastest-growing segment of the prison population," Hoeflinger says. "And women are being locked up in a system designed for and dominated by men." Hoeflinger's project will begin next September and has several components. One part will be an educational course run as a pilot project inside a women's correctional facility in Ohio. The course will address the gender-specific needs of this population, including women's health and their legal rights as mothers. A second part will be outreach, where mainstream women's organizations will be educated about the plight of women prisoners and asked to consider becoming more involved with this population as part of their mandate. A third component will be advocacy for the women's civil legal needs, including those that develop upon re-entry from prison into society. A fourth and final component is to be development of a resource manual for women prisoners and their advocates. Hoeflinger is supported in this project by the Prison Reform Advocacy Center (PRAC) and its chairman, prominent Cincinnati human rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, for whom Hoeflinger clerked during law school.