Prison Adoptee @PrisonAdoptee

#Adoptee born to a #Criminalized & #Incarcerated mother at the notorious #AndrewMercerReformatory Pls follow @AMReformatory #SecretMercerBabies andrewmercerreformatory.org Ontario, Canada Joined August 2012

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

4 days ago

1/3 An abused immigrant Italian woman was jailed for fighting back. While she was incarcerated, her child was “placed out” by the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) of Toronto. 🧵 A buried history of criminalized & incarcerated women and girls:

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Prison Adoptee @PrisonAdoptee

2 weeks ago

Adoption studies too!! "... What is the worst study? No, there’s just millions of studies. It is tempting to say, “This is the most horrible study,” and perhaps people engaged in the field feel even more intensely the anger and pain when they encounter a horrible study."

Prof. Peter C Gøtzsche @PGtzsche1

3 weeks ago

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

4 weeks ago

Transfers between Mercer & Good Shepherd (GS) were common. Many tried to escape both. Today, we remember Mildred Daniels—released from Mercer by order of an inspector, later detained at GS Detroit, where she fell to her death while trying to escape on Sept 5, 1906 #NeverForgotten

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

4 weeks ago

Race paternalism is a system under which the dominant group take authority to supply needs and regulate conduct of a minority group.

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

4 weeks ago

1/2 At the Training School for Girls, pregnant girls were transferred to CARCERAL institutions, including maternity homes. The report records 8 pregnant upon admission that year. No adoptee would know if their mother gave birth behind bars — labeled a juvenile delinquent.

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

a month ago

1/8 There’s a clear pipeline of control linking childhood labels, eugenics-based schooling, training schools, and finally incarceration at Mercer. This thread unpacks that system. 🧵

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

a month ago

On this day, Aug 28, 1880: The first two women were incarcerated at Mercer. Over the next 80 years, more than 20,000 women and girls—many of them pregnant—were held there before it closed in 1969. 🧵 (1/2)

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Prison Adoptee @PrisonAdoptee

a month ago

Generations of prison-born babies—born to these mothers, adopted out, and still unaware of their carceral birth history—continue to live with the consequences today.

Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

a month ago

Generations of prison-born babies—born to these mothers, adopted out, and still unaware of their carceral birth history—continue to live with the consequences today.

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Toronto Star @TorontoStar

a month ago

Forgotten Toronto: How Liberty Village got its name — and the brutal legacy of Canada’s first women’s prison trib.al/wcYJcHN

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

🧵1/ A lesser-known part of Ontario’s history: In the early 1900s, babies born in prison had their origins quietly erased. Starting around 1911, Ontario began removing identifying info from their birth records. Why? The answer is more disturbing than you might think. 👇

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

🧵In 1939, girls as young as 16 were jailed at Mercer Reformatory for “offenses” like being unmanageable or incorrigible under the Female Refuges Act. A troubling history of how authority and social systems punished women and girls for nonconformity. 1/2

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

There has been no apology to date, nor any inquiry—particularly into what happened to the babies born to incarcerated mothers. Read Velma's blog here: velmademerson.wordpress.com/the-mercer/ #Incorrigible

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

"Can you imagine being arrested and jailed because your boyfriend is Chinese? Most of us would never believe that was possible, but it did happen in Toronto, Ontario, Canada." Incorrigible trailer youtu.be/Kf_9U511eSA?si… via @YouTube

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

Professor Nahum Mushin AM, former Family Court Judge, on adoption. While inquiries into adoption have taken place worldwide or are ongoing, NO ONE in Canada has investigated the #forcedadoption of children of criminalized & incarcerated mothers. #ShameOnCA youtube.com/watch?v=yHUWnL…

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

Toronto’s Dark History: The Mercer Reformatory for Women | The T.O. You ... youtu.be/yCbA4EBkBto?si… via @YouTube

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Kim Pate @KPateontheHill

2 months ago

This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of Prisoners’ Justice Day – a day to honour those who have lived and died in prisons across Canada and to reaffirm our commitment to ending neglect, discrimination, and rights violations in our correctional system. Read more below:

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

In Nov 1958, Gladys Shenner’s article “The Scandal of Women's Prisons in Canada” appeared in Chatelaine, examining conditions in women’s prisons at the time. Read it here: archive.org/details/sim_ch… #WomensHistory #CanadianHistory #Chatelaine

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Carl Smith @decsmith50

2 months ago

A charity has apologised for the "inexcusable" destruction of around 4,800 personal records linked to adoptions in Scotland, including photographs and handwritten letters from birth parents. 😳 #scotland #adoption #adopteevoices #adopteerights bbc.com/news/articles/…

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

1/4 - This 1882 newspaper excerpt isn’t just about one woman—it exposes how society and its institutions repeatedly failed vulnerable women like 18-year-old Carrie Snyder. Labeled a “soiled dove,” she’s reduced to a moral stereotype, not seen as a victim of violence & oppression.

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Andrew Mercer Ontario Reformatory for Females @AMReformatory

2 months ago

𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙮 Street holds a brutal history of confinement. Institutions here and surrounding area imprisoned people from across Ontario—criminalized women and men, those labeled ‘insane,’ and youth. 1/3 #CarceralHistory #TorontoHistory