2009 Woman of Vision Award
Gina Womack, along with other parents, founded Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) in 2001.
Ten years ago Gina Womack hadn’t thought much about the juvenile justice system in Louisiana. Today, she is a powerful and committed activist for reform.
“I was just a person who believed in ‘right,’” Gina says of her journey. “We should all have equal rights and access to quality education, quality health care, quality everything, and it’s just wrong that we don’t.”
Her involvement in juvenile justice began when she saw an opening for an administrative assistant position with the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL), a New Orleans-based organization working to reform the juvenile prison system. With nonprofit experience and a willingness to work with kids who had been charged with crimes, she got the job.
Answering call after call from parents, Gina immediately learned of the deep injustices they and their children faced. “You constantly heard a consistent story,” she recalls—stories of unjust treatment in detention facilities, inadequate lawyers, absent social services and the obvious targeting of kids of color with few resources. Parents reported feeling isolated and powerless, often ostracized by family, church and community members with nowhere to turn.
“I thought if they could come together and share stories that it would be a source of support,” Gina remembers. So she lobbied the director of JJPL to organize an informal support group for parents. As the parents met regularly, “They quickly realized that they weren’t the problem like they had been told or thought, and that if their stories were so similar, there was something much deeper going on,” says Gina. As a result, parents increasingly wanted to be involved in changing the system overall.
At the time, in 2000, JJPL had filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of children in prison and was developing a campaign to shut down one of Louisiana’s worst juvenile prisons, the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. Gina introduced the campaign to the family members, and they jumped at the chance to play a role. With first-hand experience and a willingness to share testimony, parents figured that they could be the missing link.
To create a more formal vehicle for their advocacy, Gina helped the parents establish Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), a powerful new organization that would build the leadership of and give voice to children’s strongest allies: their families. JJPL and FLLIC worked in coalition to persuade the state legislature to pass the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003, which called for the closure of Tallulah and the creation of alternative community-based programs. Parents’ stories had made a critical difference. The number of juveniles in detention statewide dropped dramatically—from nearly 2,000 in 2000 to 541 in 2007.
Then, in 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. FFLIC managed the crisis by reunifying stranded and starving young detainees with their families. But another crisis soon emerged: officials used the storms as justification for a tougher, zero-tolerance policy that would force more youth out of school and into prison. In one egregious example, a six-year-old boy was expelled for mistaking antacids for candy and passing them out to fellow students. A drug possession charge went on his permanent record and he was placed in an alternative school with kids several times his age.
FFLIC expanded their focus to take on the escalating “school-to-prison pipeline” in New Orleans and beyond.
While many children still face a dilapidated, criminalized school system—in trouble long before the hurricanes—FFLIC has made significant strides. Led by its expert organizers, FFLIC has trained hundreds of parents, teachers, security guards and school administrators to understand and promote rights-based alternatives to zero-tolerance policies. And they’ve reduced the number of security guards in New Orleans schools by more than 50 percent.
FFLIC, with Gina at the helm, has become a force to be reckoned with. “We don’t accept the status quo,” says Gina. “Our job is to advocate, agitate and push, push, push.” Now with five chapters across Louisiana, FFLIC is respected by youth, parents and policymakers alike. “It’s nice to know that when we walk in a room, people will straighten up,” Gina says with a smile.
Recognition and support from organizations like the Ms. Foundation help keep Gina and FFLIC’s parent activists going.
“It really means a lot to families that what they’re doing, what they’re saying and what they’re going through matters on a national level.”
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