Law professor Valena Beety, founder of the Indiana Innocence Project, has written a jarring account of the multiple ways that women and queer people—particularly if they are poor and/or of color—are being arrested, convicted, and jailed for miscarriages, accidents, and sexual behavior that is considered deviant. In Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity, she focuses on the ways that the legal system uses racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia to prosecute people, many of whom have not committed an actual crime.  

Instead, as Christina Swarns, executive director of the Innocence Project, notes in her Introduction to the book, police, medical professionals, and juries often work together to  discipline community residents for their racial, economic, and gender identities rather than because they’ve done something unlawful.

Read full article: Pink Crime: How the Legal System Criminalizes Motherhood, Pregnancy and Queerness