Brittney Griner has been entangled in Russia’s criminal justice system for over 200 days. This past August, she was convicted to nine years in a Russian prison for allegedly traveling to the country with a vape cartridge in her carry-on. Brittney Griner is an American WNBA player who works in Russia but has unfortunately gotten mixed up in a political scandal that landed her in a Russian prison. 

The fact that she is no longer in headlines after the verdict was released is indicative of the society we live in.  Had Brittney been an NBA player, it’s fair to believe that the uproar would be much louder. Brittney should still have our attention!

Instead, Brittney Griner is set to do time in a Russian penal colony. Russian penal colonies are dorm-style detention complexes where inmates are forced to do hard labor in highly inhumane facilities. Russian penal colonies, sometimes seen as “concentration camps,” are overcrowded, poorly sanitized and heated, and lack resources for basic human needs, such as food and clean water. This is not where Brittney belongs!

Millions across our country, and thousands particularly in Houston, responded in moral outrage at the outcome of this case. This righteous anger is just. With that, we should also ask are outcomes and jail conditions any better here, in the U.S.? Detainees here in Harris County face similar and sometimes even harsher conditions. For years Harris County jails and Texas prisons have been non-compliant in maintaining the bare minimum for living standards for people living there. Some facilities do not have working AC units, some are egregiously overpopulated, and others are infested with pests, and often inmates are forced to do hard labor without compensation. The U.S. incarceration rate is double the incarceration rate of Russia. 

While the condition of facilities and incarceral state here at home are troubling, we should continually post about Brittney and do our part to see that she comes home safely and soon. Brittney does not belong in a Russian prison, and surely not for nine years. 

Let us keep Brittney in our daily prayers as well as on our timelines. 

Let us not let her story fade into the background, only to look up nine years from now, after a broken system breaks another of our sisters. 

Let us continue to say her name and fight for her every day until she is home safe.