Dear Governor McKee,

We write as a group of local and national social justice advocates, legal advocates and women who have been directly impacted. ClemencyWorks is a national clemency awareness campaign connecting and collaborating with organizations across the country uplifting the immediate need to use clemency as a tool to release our incarcerated women and girls starting in the New England states, that includes Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Clemency is a tool that President Biden and state Governors, like you, can use to immediately release women who are elderly, survived and punished, Long-timers and sick and/or living with a terminal illness.

There are approximately 80 women incarcerated at any one point in time at the Rhode Island Women’s Prison, many of the women who meet the criteria identified for release.  

Clemency is Racial Justice. In Rhode Island and nationally, Black, Brown, and poor women receive longer and harsher sentencing. In Rhode Island women are cycled in and out of the prison causing constant traumatic disruption to families and communities. Clemency can be a tool to correct systemic racism and ease the undue burden of the criminal legal system on Black, Brown and poor women. Because we believe that no woman or girl can heal in prison.

As Governor of Rhode Island, you have the power to immediately release women by granting them clemency. We urge you to use this power and release our women:

Trearra Hudgen

Katherine Bunnell

Crystal Berube

Danielle Lefebvre

Ashley Weaver

We are urging the release of these women now. Our women need to begin the healing process and be reunited with their families and loved ones. They have a community positioned to support their immediate release.

#ClemencyWorks