Criminalized Survivors Face Judgement and Abuse From Their Own Defense Attorneys
“They’re offering you 40, I think you should take it.” This was Kwaneta Harris’s first interaction with her lawyer. Forty years in prison for protecting her life from a man she once cared for deeply. She declined the plea offer, and her lawyer promptly left. Writing about criminalized survivors often focuses on the harms inflicted by prosecutors, judges, prisons and parole commissions.