by Daniella Dane
2025 LSPC Elder Freeman Policy Fellow
The first and only time I have ever had a broken heart was when my mom passed away on the 23rd of March 2003. I was only eight years old at the time. My mother’s death was a result of domestic violence committed by my younger brother’s father. The police arrived at our home on numerous occasions because neighbors had called in concern for my mother’s safety. The police would never arrest my mom’s abuser nor investigate her murder. This was because he was white, while my mother was of Mexican descent. His family was affluent and wealthy while my mother and her family only knew poverty. It was because she was a woman, and he a man.
In 2021, I was falsely arrested for domestic violence. Sadly due to generational trauma, as an adult I found myself in an abusive relationship as well. Similar to my mother’s situation the neighbors had called the police. When the Berkeley police did arrive outside of my partner’s house I was, at the time, waiting for my rideshare outside. However I did not get inside the car because of course, I thought the police would arrest my boyfriend since he was of Mexican descent. As the police began to question my boyfriend, I stood by his side with tears running down my face. The police had questioned me and asked if I was harmed and I obviously said no. Knowing about the racism of the police and about mass incarceration, growing up I was raised not to talk to the police and as an adult today I still don’t. My boyfriend at the time had told the police I had pushed him which, of course, was a lie. Not only was I taught not to talk to the police but in domestic violence relationships the victim usually protects the abuser.
The nine police officers, who were all male and white except for one Asian American police officer decided I was the perpetrator and arrested me after telling me that I was only going to be detained. I was ashamed and embarrassed, although I was aware of the misogynistic and gender oppression the police had inflicted on me. I had known the Berkeley police had exploited my body to meet their annual quota. The fact that I was arrested on New Year’s Eve in 2021 and, of course, the Berkeley Police were investigated in 2022 for using the quota system.
March is Women’s History Month and a time of year where women are acknowledged for the achievements and contributions they have provided to the world. However I celebrate women every day. I remember my mother and grandmother and their ancestors before them. I remember the ways in which my grandma struggled to survive and how her strength and resilience bought my mother into this earth.
I reminisce about the time I spent with my mother before her spirit left this world and how through me her legacy lives on. I think about my tia, and my best friends who despite being single parents, provide for their children in every possible way and how they want for nothing. Being a Ronald Elder Freeman Policy Fellow at LSPC has empowered me as a woman and has reminded me of the power all women have. I am no longer ashamed or embarrassed of the pain I have endured throughout my entire life.
Being at LSPC, I now have the opportunity and strength to fight the persecution and exploitation women have endured since the beginning of time. The carceral system is one of the main institutions that eliminates reproductive justice for women. The system of mass incarceration strips women of their bodily autonomy and are dehumanized. We are denied adequate reproductive health care, have their children taken from them and are not allowed to parent the ways in which they would wish to. Women have been shackled during birth and are sexually abused and assaulted in ways that are more horrifying than that of being stripped searched.
Through the policy work of LSPC, we fight we fight for the basic rights of women we are therefore working to dismantle the prison system for all genders.
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