Medical Care

One pressing issue for women prisoners is the lack of or poor medical care they receive. While all prisoners face poor medical care, prison administrations
often ignore or neglect the particular health care needs of women prisoners.
That the majority of lawsuits filed by or on behalf of women in prison are for
inadequate medical services testifies to the importance placed on health care
and treatment.1 Even prison wardens agree that several of the particular needs
of pregnant women "have yet to be dealt with in any of the facilities,"
including adequate resources to deal with false labors, premature births and
miscarriages; lack of maternity clothing; the requirement that pregnant inmates
wear belly chains when transported to the hospital; and the lack of a separate
area for mother and baby.2 Pregnant women are also not provided with the
proper diets or vitamin supplements, given the opportunity to exercise or
taught breathing and birthing techniques. The director of Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children, Ellen Barry, accused the prison system of a "shocking
disregard of basic humanity that I saw reflected in the type of treatment to
which pregnant women were subjected." One horrifying example is that of a
twenty-year-old woman who was almost five months pregnant when incarcerated.
Soon after, she began experiencing vaginal bleeding, cramping and severe pain.
She requested medical assistance numerous times over a three-week period, but
there was no obstetrician on contract with the prison. She was finally seen by
the chief medical officer, an orthopedist, who diagnosed her without examining
her physically or running any laboratory tests, and given Flagyl, a drug that
can induce labor. The next day, the woman went into labor. Her son lived
approximately two hours.3

Dr. Patricia Garcia, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Northwestern
Universitys Prentice Womens Hospital, has stated that shackling a laboring
mother "compromises the ability to manipulate her legs into the proper position
for necessary treatment. The mother and babys health could be compromised if
there were complications during delivery such as haemorrhage or decrease in
fetal heart tones."4 Despite these dangers, women continue to be shackled in
the name of security. In an interview with Amnesty International, one woman
described giving birth while an inmate in Chicago. Her legs were shackled
together during labor and, when she was ready to birth, "the doctor called for
the officer, but the officer had gone down the hall. No one else could unlock
the shackles, and my baby was coming but I couldnt open my legs."5

In addition to medical ignorance/neglect by staff, women who have given birth
are not only immediately separated from their newborns, but, in the name of
security, are sometimes subjected to vaginal exams despite the risk of
infection.6

Pregnancy is not the only specifically female medical concern ignored by prison
officials. Prevention, screening, diagnosis, care, pain alleviation and
rehabilitation for breast cancer are virtually non-existent in prisons. In
1998, a study at an unnamed Southern prison found that seventy percent of the
women who should have had mammograms under standard medical protocol had not
been tested. Although many of the women were at high risk because of family
histories, they were not provided with a clinical breast exam, information or
basic education on self-examination upon admittance.7

Not only are the particular health care needs of women ignored or dismissed,
but health care in general is often inadequate or life-threatening.8 In
February 2000, Wisconsin prisoner Michelle Greer suffered an asthma attack and
asked to go to the Health Services Unit (HSU). When the guard and captain on
duty contacted the nurse in charge, he did not look at Greer's medical file,
simply instructing her to use her inhaler (which was not working). Half an
hour later, Greer's second request to go to HSU was also ignored. After
another half hour, Greer was told to walk to HSU but collapsed en route. When
the nurse in charge arrived, it was without a medical emergency box or oxygen.
A second nurse arrived with the needed emergency box, but again with no oxygen.
Forty-five minutes after her collapse (and less than two hours after her
initial plea for medical help), Greer died.9

However, women have been active about trying to change their sometimes
life-threatening medical neglect. The most successful and well-known
prisoner-initiated project organized around health care is the AIDS Counseling
and Education Project (ACE) at Bedford Hills. AIDS is the leading cause of
death among U.S. prisoners, being five to ten times more prevalent in prison
than in the outside society.10 In 1999, the New York State Department of
Health found that the rate of HIV infection among women entering the New York
State Correctional Facilities was nearly twice that of their male
counterparts.11 In 1987, women at the maximum-security Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility in New York, motivated by watching their friends die of
AIDS and by the social ostracism and fear of people with AIDS, started ACE.12

ACE founders hoped to educate and counsel their fellow inmates about HIV/AIDS
as well as help to care for women with AIDS in the prison infirmary. While the
prison superintendent, Elaine Lord, gave the group permission for the project,
ACE continually faced staff harassment and administrative interference. For
instance, because both Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, alleged members of the
Weather Underground, were active ACE members, the group was constantly
monitored and sometimes prevented from officially meeting. The fear that the
one-to-one peer counseling sessions would lead to inmate organizing and the
staff's own ignorance and fear of HIV/AIDS led to staff harassment and
interference. Educators from the Montefiore Hospital holding training sessions
were banned from the facility for suggesting that the Department of
Correctional Services lift its ban on dental dams and condoms.13 A year after
its formation, ACE members were prohibited from meeting at its regular time, to
use its meeting room, give educational presentations or to refer to themselves
as "counselors."14

Despite these setbacks, the members of ACE not only managed to implement and
continue their program, but also received a grant for a quarter million dollars
from the AIDS Institute and wrote and published a book detailing the groups
history and its positive impact on women with AIDS as a guide for other prison
AIDS programs. One interesting aspect is that despite ACE's success, male
prisoners attempting to set up similar programs at their facilities continue to
meet with administrative resistance and retaliation.

Other women political prisoners have also focused on the AIDS crisis behind
bars. Marilyn Buck, for example, started an AIDS education and prevention
program in California.15 However, with the exception of ACE at Bedford Hills,
researchers and scholars have either largely ignored these programs or
overlooked the difficulties and administrative harassment faced by those
organizing around HIV/AIDS issues in prison.

Women have also worked individually and without the auspices of administrative
approval to change their health care. Until her recent death, Charisse Shumate
worked with her fellow inmates with sickle-cell anemia to understand the
disease and the necessary treatments.16 She also advocated the right to
compassionate release for any prisoner with less than a year to live and was
the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit Shumate v. Wilson.17
Unfortunately, Shumate herself died at CCWF, away from family and friends,
because the Board of Prison Terms recommended clemency rather than
compassionate release. Governor Gray Davis refused to approve the Board's
recommendation.18 Four years before her death, Shumate wrote : "I took on
[the battle] knowing the risk could mean my life in more ways than oneAnd yes,
I would do it all over again. If I can save one life from the medical
nightmare of CCWF Medical Department then its well worth it."19 Her work did
not cease with her death. Women who had worked with her continue the task of
teaching others how "to understand their labwork and how to chart their
results, keep a medical diary, hold these people accountable to what they say
and do to them."20 Sherrie Chapman, one of the twenty-six inmates who
testified in Shumate v. Wilson, became the primary plaintiff in a class-action
suit over medical conditions as well as filing a civil suit charging the CDC
with cruel and unusual punishment after waiting over a decade for cancer
treatment.21

Just as scholars and researchers have ignored women's organizing around
HIV/AIDS, they have also ignored the struggles of individual women for adequate
health services and support. The works of ACE, Marilyn Buck, Charisse Shumate
and other women may not be as dramatic as a work strike or a boycott, but they
nonetheless address crucial issues facing women in prison and contradict the
notion that women do not and cannot network and organize to change their
conditions.

CONTINUE

NOTES:

Medical Care

1 Belknap, Joanne. "Programming and Health Care Accessibility for
Incarcerated Women." States of Confinement: Policing, Detention and Prisons.
Joy James, ed. New York: St. Martins Press, 2000. 112.

2 Boudouris, James. PhD. Parents in Prison: Addressing the Needs of Families.
Lanham, MD: American Correctional Association, 1996. 11.

3 "Inside the Womens Prisons of California." Revolutionary Worker #911.
15 June 1997. http://www.rwor.org/a/v19/910-19/911/prison.htm. Cites Ellen
Barry's paper "Women Prisoners and Health Care: Locked Up and Locked Out."

4 Amnesty International. "Not Part of My Sentence : Violations of the
Human Rights of Women in Custody." March 1999. 11.

5 Ibid. 10.

6 Pollock-Byrne, Joycelyn. Women, Prison and Crime. Pacific Grove, CA:
Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1990. 147-152.

7 Cooper, Cynthia. "A Cancer Grows." The Nation. 6 May 2002.

8 In 1976, in Estelle v. Gamble, the Supreme Court ruled that deliberate
indifference to serious medical needs violates the Eighth Amendment. Despite
this ruing, prison health care continues to neglect and even jeopardize the
health of both its male and female inmates.

9 Pens, Dan. "Bag'm, Tag'm and Bury'm: Wisconsin Prisoners Dying for Health
Care." Prison Legal News, volume 12, #2. February 2001. 1-2.

10 The Women of the ACE Program of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.
Breaking the Walls of Silence: AIDS and Women in a New York State
Maximum-Security Prison. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998. 23.

11 Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York.
"Women Prisoners and HIV." Cites Laura Manuschaks HIV in Prisons and Jails,
1999. Bureau of Justice Statistics. July 2001, revised 25 October 2001.

12 ACE, 41-44.

13 ACE, 54.

14 ACE, 66-67.

15 Resistance in Brooklyn. Enemies of the State: A frank discussion of past
political movements, victories and errors, and the current political climate
for revolutionary struggle within the u.s.a. with european-american political
prisoners Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert and Laura Whitehorn. 1998. Marilyn Buck
is imprisoned for conspiracy to free Assata Shakur and armed bank robbery to
support the New Afrikan Independence Struggle. She is currently at FCI Dublin
in California.

16 The Fire Inside. (Newsletter of the California Coalition for Women
Prisoners) #4. May 1997.

17 Shumate v. Wilson was the class-action lawsuit filed by inmates at the
Central California Womens Facility and the California Institution for Women
against the state, alleging that those with cancer, heart disease and other
serious illnesses were being denied medical care and that the prisons medical
staff failed to protect the confidentiality of inmates with HIV and AIDS. In
August 1997, the California Department of Corrections agreed to a settlement in
which untrained prison employees would be barred from making judgments about
inmates medical care, the prisons would ensure medicines without undue lapses
or delays, and medical staff would offer preventive care, including pelvic and
breast exams, pap smears and mammograms. See "California Agrees to Settle
Inmates HIV Privacy Claims." AIDS Policy and Law; Prisons, Vol. 12, #17. 19
September 1997. On 31 July 2000, in light of evidence of tampering with
medical files in preparation for the assessors visits, the Department of
Health Services reports citing CCWFs failure to comply with regulations, and
the CDCs failure to retest prisoners who had received fraudulent lab results,
the plaintiffs attorneys submitted a motion to reopen discovery in the case.
The motion was denied by Judge Shubb and the case was dismissed in August 2000.
(See "Strategies for Change : Litigation."
http://www.prisonerswithchildren.org/litigation.ht m

18 Pierson, Cassie M. Memorial for Charisse Shumate. First Unitarian Church,
San Francisco, California. 23 September 2001.

19 Shumate, Charisse. "The Pros and Cons of Being a Lead Plaintiff." The
Fire Inside. December 1997.

20 Letter from Central California Womens Facility. Dated 3 March 2002.

21 Thompson, A. Clay. "Cancer in the Cells." San Francisco Bay Guardian. 24
February 1999.

CONTINUE

Children

Separation from children is another major issue for women inmates. In 1998,
more than a quarter million children under the age of eighteen had a mother
behind bars.1 When a 1990 American Correctional Association survey asked women
prisoners to name "the most important person[s] in your life," fifty-two
percent identified their children.2 These numbers should warrant that all
women's prisons have family and parenting programs available. However, such is
not the case. Inmate mothers, many of whom were single heads of household
prior to incarceration, are left on their own to navigate the rocky path of
maintaining contact and custody of their children. Faith argues that this lack
is due to the idea that "no woman who has used drugs, worked as a prostitute or
otherwise shown 'deviant' or criminal tendencies can be a 'good' mother."3
Women prisoners are viewed as incapable of being good mothers and thus do not
automatically deserve the same respect and treatment accorded to mothers on the
outside. While this may be the case in some instances, such as drug-addicted
mothers, such a sweeping generalization ignores the fact that many inmate
mothers were single heads of household, the sole provider for their children
and may have been forced to rely on illegal means to support their family. The
view of the inmate mother as somehow unfit and unworthy has been used to
legitimate prison and social services policies regarding the children of
imprisoned parents. A 1978 directive of the Department of Social Services
specified that it can refuse imprisoned parents visits with their children
placed in foster care if it believes that visits will hurt the children.4 In
1997, the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (AFSA) was enacted, reducing
the time in which children may remain in foster care before parental rights are
terminated. Under this act, if an incarcerated parent does not have contact
with his or her child for six months, he or she can be charged with
"abandonment" and lose parental rights. If the child is in foster care for
fifteen of the last twenty-two months, the state can terminate parental rights.
Once these rights are terminated, parents have no legal relationship with their
children and are not permitted to have any contact with them.5

Maintaining family ties, however, is not an issue addressed by many of the male
prisoner activists. In this way, prison and its inmates reflect the outside
world and its expectations: women are expected to be the keepers of hearth and
home and, when a mother is incarcerated, the burden to maintain ties to her
children falls upon her. In 1998, over two-thirds of all women prisoners had
children under the age of eighteen, and, among them, only twenty-five percent
said that their children were living with the father. In contrast, ninety
percent of male prisoners with children under the age of eighteen said that
their children were living with their mothers.6 Ten percent of inmate mothers
in contrast to two percent of inmate fathers stated that their children were
living in a foster home, an agency or an institution.7 Thus, mothers in prison
are forced to navigate the legal maze of family law more often in order to
maintain contact with and retain legal custody of their children.

A 1993 survey of women prisoners in eight states and Washington, DC, found that
fifty-four percent of the inmate mothers interviewed were never visited by
their children.8 One major factor in this lack of visitation is distance:
More than sixty percent of inmate mothers were incarcerated more than one
hundred miles from their child's home. Less than nine percent were within
twenty miles of their child.9 However, the courts have reflected the opinion
that inmate mothers have forfeited their rights to see their children. In
1987, Pitts v. Meese determined that prisoners have no right to be in any
particular facility and may be transferred both within and out of state
according to the institution's needs.10 Such a decision gives prison
authorities the power to effectively sever a woman's ability to see her child.
Not only the distance, but the travel time and expenses make frequent visits
less likely. For instance, while Barrilee Bannister is imprisoned in
Pendleton, Oregon, her eight-year-old daughter lives with Bannister's relatives
in Gloversville, New York.11 "I'm lucky to see them every six or eight
months," writes Bannister.12 In almost every letter, she expresses her longing
for her daughter: "When I was arrested, she was four months shy of becoming
three years old. Ive missed the best years of her life. Shell be thirteen
and a half when I get out."13 However, Bannister still retains full custody
of her daughter, a rarity among inmate mothers.14 Distancing women from their
families is often used, effectively weakening, if not severing, a woman's ties
from her loved ones. Maintaining parental ties has not been won through
prisoner boycotts, work stoppages or hunger strikes, tools traditionally used
by male inmates to challenge their conditions.15 Rather, those women who want
family maintenance programs must work with their prison administrations, a far
less glamorous path for researchers and activist academics.

One example of such a program is the Childrens Center at the Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility in New York. The Center houses a nursery where inmates
and their babies are allowed to live together for the childs first year as
well as a program helping the new inmate parents "learn to be mothers."
Although it is staffed by inmates, the Center is administered by the Brooklyn
Diocese of Catholic Charities and funded by the state's Department of
Correctional Services.16 However, under the Center's auspices, inmates,
realizing the need for supportive programs for mothers, organized two parenting
courses for Bedford's inmates--one on infancy for new mothers and pregnant
prisoners and the other a ten-week course called "Parenting Through Films,"
with each week devoted to a new subject on growth and care for children.17
These were the prison's first courses both organized and taught exclusively by
inmates. Out of the Children's Center also came more far-reaching change.
Until 1983, children of prisoners placed in the New York State foster care
system did not have the legal right to visit their parents in prison. Inmates
at Bedford Hills who had been unable to have their children visit them because
of this formed the Foster Care Committee which, with the help of outside
advocates, led to new legislation not only giving prisoners with children in
foster care the same rights and responsibilities as parents who are not
incarcerated but also the right to monthly visits provided that the prison was
not too far away.18 In addition, inmates involved in the Children's Center
published a foster care handbook for women prisoners whose children had been
placed in the foster care system.19

The success of the Children's Center did not go unnoticed by the more
reform-oriented penal authorities: Modeled on the Children's Center, a similar
nursery at the Taconic Correctional Facility opened in 1990 with twenty-three
inmate mothers.20

That prisoners strive to maintain contact with their children and other family
members can also be a reason not to do anything that would label them as
"troublemakers" or "rabblerousers." "They [the prison staff and administration]
would attack people [advocating for reform] through their emotions," stated one
inmate at Bedford Hills. "Like the family would come in to visit somebody and
they wouldn't find the inmate's chart and tell the family they weren't there
and turn the family away at the gate."21 Another inmate claimed that prisoners
who publicly criticize the Bedford Hills personnel were often denied entry into
the facility's Family Reunion Program.22 Women inmates impregnated by prison
staff may also be denied participation in the nursery program solely because of
the father's status. Human Rights Watch found that two of the women they
interviewed who had been sexually assaulted and impregnated by prison staff
were denied entry.23 Thus, an inmate's desire to spend (more) time with her
child(ren) can also be used to dissuade her from organizing for change.

Women who give birth while incarcerated not only face the trauma of
immediate separation from their newborns but also administrative and social
service pressure to relinquish their new child. The case of Kebby Warner, a
pregnant woman imprisoned for a bad check, illustrates the institutional belief
that inmates cannot and should not retain custody, or even contact, with their
children.

Warner, after having been misdiagnosed as having a stomach flu during her
first month in prison, was informed that she was pregnant. Luckily, Warner's
parents agreed to take care of the baby while she was incarcerated. After the
birth of Helen, Warner refused to passively accept the prison requirement that
separates mother and newborn after only one day: she refused to eat and thus
won two more days in the hospital with her child. When the guards finally
managed to separate them and bring her back to prison, she was told that if she
had wanted to have children, she should have stayed out of prison. This one
remark sums up the prevailing view of inmate mothers.

Although her parents had custody of her daughter, the pain and stress of
separation still weighed upon her mind, leading to anger and fights with other
inmates, disciplinary tickets and "the reputation of defiance," which resulted
in a denial of parole. With the death of her father, however, came another
loss: her mother, unwilling to care for a half-black baby alone, gave Helen to
the foster care system.

The law allows for the termination of parental rights after two years. In
Warner's case, this was certainly true. When her daughter was two years old, a
judge terminated Warner's parental rights on the grounds that she "neglected
and abused my child due to the length of my incarceration." When she started
to appeal this decision, her caseworker and the Family Independence Agency
threatened to place Helen with a new foster family who would adopt her
immediately, thus permanently sealing her file and preventing Warner from ever
being able to find her. Under this pressure, Warner finally signed an
affidavit relinquishing her rights as a parent.

However, this loss inspired Warner to action against the prison-industrial
complex's policy of breaking up families: she is currently forming a support
organization for incarcerated parents. The organization she envisions "will
stand at the courthouse and protest the kidnapping of a child that deserves to
know who her mother/father is."24 Thus, although the prison-industrial complex
negatively impacts families and severs family ties in an attempt to break the
individual inmate, women both collectively and individually resist such
efforts.

CONTINUE

NOTES:

Children

1 Greenfeld and Snell, 8.

2 Owen.120. Cites American Correctional Association's "The Female Offender:
What Does the Future Hold?" Washington, DC: St. Mary's Press, 1990.

3 Faith. 204. Cites Serapio R. Zalba's Women Prisoners and Their Families.
Sacramento: Department of Social Welfare and Corrections, 1964.

4 Henriques, Zelma Weston. Imprisoned Mothers and Their Children: A
Descriptive And Analytical Study. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
1982. 132.

5 Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York. "The
Effects of Imprisonment on Families." 3.

6 Morash et al. 1.

7 Snell, Tracy L. "Women in Prison : Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991."
U.S. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 6.

8 Human Rights Watch. 18. Cites Barbara Bloom and David Steinhart's Why
Punish the Children? A Reappraisal of the Children of Incarcerated Mothers in
America. San Francisco, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1993.
Table 2-9.

9 Ibid. Cites Bloom and Steinhart. Table 2-10.

10 Pollock-Byrne. 173. Cites Pitts v. Meese, 684F. Supp. 303 (D.D.C. 1987).

11 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Postmarked 26 January 2001.

12 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 2 March 2001.

13 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 8 March 2002.

14 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 2 March 2001.

15 This is not to say that women prisoners do not employ tactics of
disruption. In 1971, women at Alderson Prison staged a four-day work stoppage
in solidarity with the uprising at Attica. The1975 demonstration at the North
Carolina Correctional Center for Women protested not only "oppressive working
atmospheres," but also "inaccessible and inadequate medical facilities and
treatment, and many other conditions." (Kurshan, Nancy. "Women and
Imprisonment in the United States: History and Current Reality." Monkeywrench
Press, 25)

16 Morash et al. 8.

17 Harris, Jean. Stranger in Two Worlds. NY: MacMillan Publishing Company,
1986. 286.

18 Boudin, Kathy. "The Children's Center Programs of Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility" in Maternal Ties: A Selection of Programs for Female
Offenders. Cynthia L. Blinn, ed. Lanham, MD: American Correctional
Association, 1997. 68.

19 The success of the programs at Bedford Hills is documented by books,
articles and manuals written by its inmate participants. Unlike the writings
and publications of most prisoner activists, these documents are more widely
accepted and acknowledged by general society.

20 Boudin, 84. The American Correctional Association has published several
books on mothers in prison, giving the misleading impression that there are
more than enough programs and facilities which encourage family contact.

21 Diaz-Cotto, 347. Cites anonymous interview, New York City. 15 April 1989.

22 Ibid, 366-7. Cites anonymous interview, New York City. 22 March 1989.

23 Human Rights Watch, 298.

24 Letter from Kebby Warner. Dated 29 April 2001.

CONTINUE

Sexual Abuse

A far greater problem for women prisoners than male prisoners is the sexual
aggression of male corrections officers. In 1996, international human rights
group Human Rights Watch released All Too Familiar, a report documenting sexual
abuse of women prisoners throughout the United States. The report, reflecting
two-and-a-half years of research, found that sexual assaults, abuse and rape of
women prisoners by male correctional employees were common and that women who
complained incurred write-ups, loss of "good time" accrued toward an early
parole and/or prolonged periods in disciplinary segregation.1 In 1994, the
U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation of two women's prisons in
Michigan and found that "nearly every womaninterviewed reported various
sexually aggressive acts of guards."2 These instances included not only rape
and sexual assault, but the mistreatment of prisoners impregnated by guards,
abusive pat frisks and other body searches and violations of privacy, including
searches of the toilet and shower areas and surveillance during medical
appointments. One pregnant inmate was escorted by two male officers while in
labor. The two men handcuffed her to the bed in the delivery room and then
positioned themselves where they could view her genital area and make
derogatory comments throughout her delivery.3

The case of Heather Wells, an inmate at Washington Corrections Center for
Women, illustrates not only the prevalence of sexual assault but also the
prison system's treatment of mothers. In December 1996, Wells was raped and
impregnated by a guard in the prison laundry room. She charged the guard with
rape but, even after a paternity test proved her claim, the state of Washington
did not file charges. Instead, the guard was allowed to quit his job and move
out of state. Only weeks after the baby was born, she was taken from Wells and
placed in a foster home.4 This callousness in separating a mother and her
newborn infant is commonplace in most women's prisons, reflecting the attitude
that incarcerated women have forfeited their rights (and feelings) as mothers.5

Unlike the sexual predation in male prisons, the perpetrators in female
facilities are usually those in a position of authority, such as guards and
other prison staff. This makes it impossible for women prisoners to form
protective groups like their male counterparts. Guards hold the keys to their
cells and are authorized to watch inmates, conduct full-body frisks and strip
searches, and enter cells at any time. Thus, the direct approaches of male
groups such as the Angola Three or Gay Men Against Sexism, male inmate groups
that bypass the administration by physically protecting weaker prisoners from
sexual predators, do not work for women who wish to stop the sexual harassment
and rape in their facility.

In the case of Barrilee Bannister, sentenced under Oregon's mandatory
sentencing law, she and seventy-eight other women were sent to a privatized,
all-male prison in Arizona run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Not only were they separated from family and friends, but from any outside
support that could have prevented their sexual abuse. Only weeks after the
women's arrival, some were visited by a captain, who shared marijuana with
them. He left it with them and then returned with other officers who announced
that they were searching the cell for contraband. However, they promised that
if the women performed a strip tease, they would not search the cell. "Two of
the girls started stripping and the rest of us got pulled into it," Bannister
recalled. "From that day on, the officers would bring marijuana in, or other
stuff we were not suppose[d] to have, and the prisoners would perform [strip]
dances." From there, the guards became more aggressive, raping several of the
women. Bannister reported that she was not given food for four days until she
agreed to perform oral sex on a guard.6

Once out of segregation, Bannister called outside friends and told them her
story. They, in turn, informed the media. The media attention led to the
return of some of the women to Oregon, where they filed a federal suit,
resulting in a public apology, a promise of stricter rules concerning sexual
abuse, and the reimbursement of attorney's fees.7 The negative publicity also
led to the suspension and dismissal of three dozen CCA staff members.8

Bannister's story is unusual only in that the women themselves were able to
organize and obtain sufficient outside support to stop their abuse. Women
inmates who have been assaulted by prison staff usually lack the outside
support services which male prisoners may turn to. For instance, male inmates
raped by other inmates can turn to outside groups such as Stop Prisoner Rape
(started by an ex-inmate who was himself raped in prison). Women raped by
prison staff, on the other hand, face not only administrative harassment and
retaliation for complaining but also a lack of support services outside the
reach of the prison administration. Dawn Amos, herself having experienced
sexual misconduct, stated that when two women were physically and sexually
abused, they were transferred to a facility in Denver while the offending
officer remained, unreprimanded, on the job. In her own case, the District
Attorney has yet to press charges against the offending officer. "Im still in
the middle of trying to find an attorney to take my case," she stated.9 This
absence of a support network, both inside and out, not only mirrors but
magnifies the general lack of support for rape victims.

CONTINUE

NOTES:

Sexual Abuse

1 Human Rights Watch Women's Project. All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of
Women in U.S. State Prisons. Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, 1996.

2 Ibid. 236-7. Cites letter from Deval Patrick, assistant attorney general,
U.S. Department of Justice, to John Engler, governor, Michigan. 27 March 1995.

3 Ibid. 248-9.

4 Cook, Christopher D. Parenti, Christian. "Rape Camp USA: The Epidemic of
Sexual Assault in Women's Prisons." Disbarred: The Journal of the National
Lawyers Guild Prison Law Project, #16. 1.

5 This attitude is reflected in the 1977 Los Angeles County Department of
Adoptions vs. Hutchinson decision. The court terminated a woman's parental
rights six months before her release from prison on the flimsy reasoning that
she was not going to be released immediately. (See Joycelyn Pollock-Byrne's
Women, Prison, and Crime. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1990.
177. Cites Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions vs. Hutchinson, No. 2
Civil 48729.)

6 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 21 June 2001.

7 Ibid.

8 Thaxton, Rob. "Red, White and Blue Fascism." Chain Reaction #5. 6-7

9 Letter from Dawn Amos. Dated 28 September 2001.

CONTINUE

Education

While women prisoners face issues not pertinent to male prisoners, they also
share issues. However, these similarities are often neglected. One issue
commonly overlooked when defining the issues of women prisoners is education.
Studies of the impact of education have traditionally focused on male inmates.
While education is not a particularly masculine concern, the omission of women
in these studies indicates that researchers do not perceive this as an
important issue for women.

However, such is not the case. In the 1970s, inmates participating in the
Santa Cruz Women's Prison Project, the first program to ever offer university
courses in a women's prison, demonstrated their eagerness for higher education.
In 1972, when Karlene Faith, one of its teachers and coordinators, was
temporarily banned from the prison, inmates organized a work strike and a
sit-in before the warden's office. Similarly, when the project was barred in
1973, the students circulated petitions, held work strikes and met with the
administration to protest the project's removal.1

In 1981, the administration at Bedford Hills finally agreed to observe
Powell v. Ward and set up a $125,000 "settlement fund" to be spent by the
prisoners for improvements at the prison.2 Inmates spent all of this fund on
educational tools: expansion of the library collection, books on
African-American history, the hiring of an educational consultant, computers
for business classes, and Spanish vocational classes.3 That the inmates chose
to spend exclusively on books and other educational materials shows that women,
like men, are often eager to learn.

More than a decade later, when the cuts in federal and state funding ended
prison college programs, the inmates at Bedford Hills worked with the prison
administration and representatives from various colleges and universities
throughout New York State to restore higher education programs. In 1996, they
succeeded in implementing College Bound, an undergraduate college program aimed
toward a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Nearly thirty-three percent of
Bedford's inmates pay the equivalent of one month's wages to participate in
either the college or pre-college program.4 This fact alone should disprove
the unspoken notion that education is not an issue for incarcerated women.

Professor Michelle Fine, with the aid of eight Bedford inmates, conducted
interviews with College Bound participants, their children and correctional
staff. While her study focused mainly on the effect of education on
recidivism, she also observed that graduates have gone on to develop,
facilitate and evaluate prison programs addressing issues such as anger
management, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, sexual abuse,
parenting support and prenatal care.5 They have also gone on to help their
fellow inmates with their education. Martina Leonard, the executive assistant
to the president of Marymount Manhattan College, one of the colleges offering
courses to the College Bound program, recounted that former students
transferred to another New York State prison became "leadersTheyre tutors and
mentors to other students and they feel that just having that college program
at Bedford Hills has really allowed them to begin tohelp other people."6
Thus, the impact of higher education transforms womens self-perception from
passive objects and victims into active agents of both self-and social change.

Ironically, Fine observes that for many women, "prison has become a place for
intellectual, emotional and social growthA space free of male-violence, drugs
and overwhelming responsibilities, college-in-prison carves out a space which
nurtures a kind of growth and maturity that would perhaps not have been
realized on the outside."5 While Fine does not delve deeply into this issue,
it does suggest that women often are unable to focus on learning with the
myriad of responsibilities and distractions of the outside world. Most of the
women who attended the College Bound program from 1997 to 2000 came with past
histories of academic failure : Upon entering Bedford Hills, forty-three
percent had neither a high school diploma or GED ; twenty-one percent had a GED
and twenty-two percent a high school diploma ; and only fourteen percent had
some college credit.7

Other women have found ways to circumvent the 1994 Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act's prohibition of federal financing of prisoners' education.
Dawn Amos, for example, applied for and was awarded scholarships for college
courses despite her status as a prisoner.8

At the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, a woman who had
participated in the facilitys Tapestry Therapeutic Community, a residential
drug and alcohol treatment program within the prison, recognized the need for
education. "Many of the women here have not had a chance to get their
education ; due to their drug addiction," she wrote. "In fact, some of us can
barley [sic] read." She proposed the idea of a book club "to instill the
importance of Education, and the joy of reading, and sharing with others" to
the Tapestry staff and, once her idea was approved, solicited book donations
from various books-to-prisoners programs.9 The books she requested from Books
Through Bars in New York City were surprising choices : feminist studies,
radical political analyses of the Israel/Palestine conflict, a political
biography and The Canterbury Tales.10 Thus, women find ways to further their
education despite the lack of governmental and institutional funding.

CONTINUE

NOTES:

Education

1 For a detailed account of the Santa Cruz Women's Prison Project, see Faith's
Unruly Women.

2 Powell v. Ward affirmed an inmate's right to due process during disciplinary
hearings.

3 Diaz-Cotto, 351-2.

4 Fine, Michelle. Torre, Maria Elena. "The Impact of College Education on
Inmates in the New York State Region." Testimony to the New York State
Democratic Task Force on Criminal Justice Reform. Public Hearings. State Office
Building. Brooklyn, New York: 4 December 2000. 2.

5 Fine, Michelle et al. "Changing Minds : The Impact of College in a Maximum
Security Prison." Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
September 2001. http://www.changingminds.ws/04_results/07.html

6 Ibid. 20.

7 Fine, Michelle et al. "Changing Minds."
http://www.changingminds.ws/02_executivesummary/04 .html

8 Letter from Dawn Amos. Dated 7 April 2001.

9 Letter from Ohio Reformatory for Women to Books Through BarsNew York City.
Undated. Although there are various programs which send free books to
prisoners throughout the United States and Canada, only one exists specifically
for women. The other programs receive requests mostly from men, lending to the
belief that women prisoners neither organize nor network.

10 Letter from Ohio Reformatory for Women to Books Through BarsNew York City.
Dated 17 January 2002.

CONTINUE

Prison Labor

With the explosion of critical literature about the prison-industrial
complex in the mid-1990s came a rising outcry about the use of prisoner labor.
Women prisoners, however, were once again overlooked by both academics and
activists in this debate.

When asked, women in prison state that there are very few job opportunities
available to them and that almost none of these jobs are for outside
corporations. They believe that male prisoners have access to better jobs and
better wages, in some cases actually receiving minimum wage for their efforts.
While in reality, male inmates often receive little, if any, pay for their
work, they often have a greater variety of jobs to choose from.

One of the common threads among women prisoners is that if they do work, the do
so at jobs considered "feminine," such as cooking, cleaning, clerking or
teaching. Male prisoners also do this type of work but, for the most part,
mens prisons have more job choice. In Oregon, where Measure Seventeen
mandates that all prisoners work, male inmates have access to jobs which
provide them with skills such as small engine repair, cabinetry, welding,
furniture making, plumbing and computer programming.1 They also have the
opportunity of working for the clothing manufacturer Prison Blues, which,
although eighty percent of an inmates earnings are withheld for incarceration
costs, victim restitution, family support and taxes, pays a starting wage of
$6.60 per hour. These jobs are so desirable among the (male) prisoner
population at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution that there is a three
year waiting list for an interview.2 Women prisoners, however, have been
excluded from this opportunity.

However, Barrilee Bannister observes that "most [of these] jobs are not
available to women prisoners."3 Bannister herself has not been assigned a job
because of her "attitude problem."4 The women who do have jobs do kitchen
work, cleaning and being orderlies.5 They are paid eight to eighty-four
dollars per month for their work, but the prices in commissary do not reflect
these wages. For instance, less than a months supply of toothpaste, soap,
shampoo and deodorant costs ten dollars.6 Thus, those making the minimum
salary often cannot afford to buy all of these items.

In the womens section of Canon City, Colorado, inmates fare little better.
All prisoners are required to either work or attend school. Until February
2002, the daily pay rates ranged from sixty-three cents to $2.53 for jobs such
as kitchen, laundry, housekeeping, maintenance, library, secretary and GED
teacher.7 Dawn Amos earned sixty-three cents for each of the four days she
worked scrubbing and buffing the floors. However, the prison administration
lowered inmate wages in March 2002. "I guess we were over budget or
something," Amos speculates. "Im sure thats a lie too cause the cops didnt
get a pay cut."8 As in Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, the prices in
Canon Citys canteen do not reflect the womens income and purchasing power.
One generic Tylenol costs forty cents; a stick of generic deodorant costs
ninety-six cents; the cheapest soap available can be the equivalent of a days
earningssixty-three cents. Specific feminine items, such as tampons, cost
$3.60 and must be saved for, even by those with the highest wage. There are no
free items: "[They] dont give indigent people things cause technically there
arent any indigent inmates thats why they pay us."9

Unlike women on the outside, the women at Canon City have virtually no job
mobility. Amos states that "if you want to leave a job for another one, it
doesnt mean you can, it all depends on if your boss wants to let you go or
not."10 Thus, efficiency on one job can work against the ability to transfer
to another.

Most women, unlike Amos, are unable to get a job. Kebby Warner in Michigan is
still on the waiting list. Although there are ninety-six women on her unit,
there are only fifteen jobs available to them. And, despite the lack of jobs
at Scott Correctional Facility, the parole board holds lack of employment
against applicants. Once an inmate is placed on a job, she must work at least
ninety days. If she is fired or quits before then, she is forced to stay in
her cell for thirty days and risks being ticketed for "Disobeying a Direct
Order" or "Out of Place."11 The hourly pay scale on her unit ranges from
seventy-four cents to $2.08. Those who work in food service earn even less:
seventeen and a half cents to thirty-two and a half cents per hours.12 Unlike
Amos and Bannister, Warner does not receive money from family on the outside.
Thus, to mail a letter, she irons other inmates clothes in exchange for
stamp(s).13 Other women who lack both jobs and outside support are given seven
dollars each month, which the prison takes out of any future funds they might
receive.14

Not only do women have fewer job opportunities and little pay, they also
risk injury. At Dwight Correctional Center in Illinois, the average monthly
pay is fifteen to twenty dollars for forty hours of work per week.15 Women
working as seamstresses are paid "literally pennies by the piecework." Because
they are paid by the piece and the supervising staff is paid in proportion to
their workers output, "women rushing to make the cut-off day have injured
themselves on sewing machinessewing their fingers."16 Similar to the plight
of undocumented (female) workers in sweatshops, the inhumane conditions of
women prisons "industry" have garnered no attention or outcry from outside
groups and organizations.

Women are seldom offered what they perceive as the better, corporation-run
jobs. The Central California Womens Facility (CCWF) is one of the few
exceptions. Inmates work assembly-line jobs for Joint Venture Electronics.
They are paid $5.75 an hour for putting together electronics. However, after
the CDCs deductions for taxes, room and board, victim restitution, savings for
release and family support, they are credited only $1.15 to $2.30 to their
inmate account. Still, compared to a daily sixty-three cents or a monthly
eight to eighty-four dollars, their paycheck is considered high. One worker
stated that her electronics job was "a very good work opportunity." The other
workers also praised the program.17 The women were interviewed, however, at
the assembly line, presumably within earshot of the prison guards. What they
would have said about the program without fear of write-ups, pay docks or being
fired may have been different.

Work programs for women such as Joint Venture Electronics are still
relatively few. Because it is the best paying job at CCWF, Joint Venture has
the ability to refuse to hire women with disabilities.18 These programs not
only garner profits for corporations who save money on overhead, taxes,
vacation, sick leave, workers compensation and unemployment, but they also
keep prisoners from other, less desirable activities, such as organizing
against and/or disrupting the day-to-day operations of the prison.

Why have those studying and organizing around prison labor neglected the
female prison population? Perhaps it is because women prisoners themselves do
not list work as a priority. According to Juanita Diaz-Cotto and Chino Hardin,
former prisoner turned activist, womens first priority is release from
prison.19 Sexual abuse, inadequate medical care, education and separation from
children are also far more pressing issues than the lack of job opportunities
or minimum wage. This is not to say that women have never protested prison
laborin 1975, inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women
staged a five-day demonstration, specifically citing "oppressive working
atmospheres" as one of their concerns.20 And, just as outside workers have
used sabotage to express their dissatisfaction with labor conditions, women
prisoners can sometimes use their jobs to defy their captors. When Barrilee
Bannister was a cook in the kitchen of Oregon Womens Correctional Center, she
not only spit in the officers food but also showed her contempt for those
incarcerated for crimes against children by placing bugs in their food.21

Just as traditional womens work has been devalued and ignored by labor
groups and activists on the outside, when these same jobs are hidden behind
prison walls, they are even more easily overlooked and dismissed.

CONTINUE

NOTES:

Prison Labor

1 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Postmarked 4 April 2002.

2 Prison Blues. http://www.prisonblues.com

3 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Undated.

4 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 2 March 2001.

5 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Undated.

6 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Dated 12 May 2001.

7 Letter from Dawn Amos. Dated 15 July 2001.

8 Letter from Dawn Amos. Dated 15 March 2002.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Letter from Kebby Warner. Dated 29 April 2002.

12 Attachment A to Policy Directive 05.02.110. Michigan Department of
Corrections. 16 July 2001.

13 Letter from Kebby Warner to Anthony Rayson. Dated 7 March 2002.

14 Letter from Kebby Warner. Dated 29 April 2002.

15 Letter from Dwight Correctional Center. Dated 2 January 2002.

16 Letter from Dwight Correctional Center. Dated 20 March 2002.

17 "Inside Jobs." http://www.newsport.sfsu.edu/s00/prisons/correctio ns1.html

18 Letter from CCWF. Dated 22 April 2002.

19 "Fighting Homophobia in the Prison-Industrial Complex." From Cell Blocks
to City Blocks: Building a Movement in Search of Freedom. Conference at SUNY
Binghamton. Workshop presented 17 March 2002. Juanita Diaz-Cotto and Chino
Hardin.

20 Kurshan, Nancy. "Women and Imprisonment in the United States: History and
Current Reality." Monkeywrench Press. 25.

21 Letter from Barrilee Bannister. Postmarked May 2002.

CONTINUE

Grievances, Lawsuits and the Power of the Media

Womens struggles to change their conditions often lie in filing grievances and
lawsuits rather than physically challenging or confronting prison officials.
In 1995, women at Central California Womens Facility at Chowchilla and at the
California Institution for Women at Frontera filed Shumate v. Wilson, a
class-action suit against the state demanding an immediate improvement to the
life-threatening medical care given to all women prisoners of the state.1 On
27 March 1996, seven women prisoners in Michigan filed a class-action lawsuit
on behalf of all women incarcerated in Michigan, charging the state's
Department of Corrections with sexual assault, sexual harassment, violations of
privacy, and physical threats and assaults.2 That both suits included women
prisoners throughout their respective states in their charges and demands
dismisses the assumption that there is no sense of solidarity among the
relatively few women prisoners.

Anarchist Black Crescent, Turkey writes

SOLIDARITY WITH USAK ANARCHISTS!

(Statement of Anarchist Black Crescent-Ankara)

On 1st of December 2001 in the meeting -- organized by (Usak) Labor Platform -- named "Meeting Against Economic Crisis" M. Ozgur Kucuktekin, S. Serkan Kazak and Onur Ayaz were taken by the police with the claim of distributing a leaflet titled as "No To War and Capitalism!" and signed as Usak Anarsist Otonomu (Usak Anarchist Autonomy). Later Rahmi Tiril and A. Serkan Tomar were also brought to Usak Security and after spending two days under psychological and physical torture 5 anarchists were forced to sign the testimonies written by the cops including the claim of 'illegal terror organization'.

Anonymous Comrade writes, "Here's an update from the New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition":

June 30, 2002

1. We are still waiting for a response in the US Court of Appeals to both
sides' appeals of federal Judge William Yohn's December 2001 ruling, in
which he set aside Mumia's death sentence -- though he gave the state of
Pennsylvania the option of conducting a new hearing at which Mumia could be
sentenced to death again. If that hearing is not held, and Yohn's decision
is upheld, then Mumia would serve life in prison without parole.

The latest trial of Usak anarchists was held in Izmir
SSC (State Security Court) today. According to the
initial information, the next trial will be held on
25th of July. As u may have known all of the five
anarchists were released in the previous trial. This
time the attorney has changed his report and claimed
the anarchists according to another "Article #". It
seems that the court is observing the "attitude" of
Turkish anarchists. In this case an international
campaign needs to be necessary. We'll inform u later
on...

DOWN WITH WALLS!

Anarsist Kara Ay - Ankara

Anarchist Black Crescent - Ankara

abcankara@yahoo.com

URGENT: LETTER DRIVE FOR PELTIER'S PAROLE

Dear Friends,

Leonard Peltier's next interim parole hearing has been scheduled for July
1st, 2002. Letters of support are urgently needed.