Final Straw: SWOP Behind Bars with Jill McCracken

Final Straw returns with a brand new episode with someone from SWOP Behind Bars.

Listen and Download HERE

This week, William spoke with Jill McCracken, codirector of SWOP Behind Bars, or the Sex Worker Outreach Project, Behind Bars chapter. Jill is also a professor at University of South Florida at St. Petersburg teaching rhetoric and gender and sexuality studies, with a focus on sex work, prostitution, and trafficking in the sex industry. For the hour we’ll hear Jill speak about the work that SWOP and SWOP Behind Bars do, FOSTA/SESTA and some realities faced or worked through by sex workers in the U.S.

The mission statement for SWOP Behind Bars reads:

“SWOP Behind Bars is a national social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of people who face discrimination from the criminal justice system due to the stigma associated with the sex trade.  We advocate for full decriminalization of consensual sex work, ending cash bail, drawing attention to the effects

of generational poverty on sexualized violence against marginalized and vulnerable women while providing services and support with a focus on ending violence and stigma through education and advocacy.”

More about SWOP Behind Bars can be found at https://swopbehindbars.org and more about SWOP in the U.S. in general can be found at https://swopusa.org with other groupings findable online. You can email Jill’s group at [email protected], find them on twitter or fedbook!

One person name dropped by Jill during the interview was Magali Lerman, a consultant at Reframe Health + Justice consulting, who said that a product of FOSTA was to destroy the middle class of sex workers.