Stories of the Broken

women are poor.  In short, there are a whole lot of women in jail that find themselves there by their own circumstances.  

 

Now, for a bit of history.  In 1873,  America's first maximum-security women's prison opened (and firmly shut) its doors.  The Indiana Women's Prison was the first of its kind. Before IWP, women had been housed in separate buildings on the same grounds as the men, and before that, women just stayed in a different wing of the same building. When men and women stayed under same roof, a lot of the custodial duties over the women were delegated to the men. They brought the women their meals, and in that time, the prisoners were generally unmonitored. When the men would bring the food to the women, they would extend their stays, often taking advantage of the female prisoners.

 

By 1940, 23 states had adopted institutions to house women exclusively. There were two types: custodial institutions (what the average person thinks of when they hear prison) and reformatories. These reformatories were designed to rehabilitate women who found themselves on the fringe of society. They were placed in these facilities for crimes such as “lewd and lascivious conduct, fornication, serial premarital pregnancies, adultery [and] venereal disease”.  Unladylike behavior.

 

But that was then. We’ve evolved. What about the conditions in these facilities today? That's another story altogether. The conditions of a prison include how much daylight and fresh air the women see, how much exercise are they getting, how much interaction with other inmates do they get? What is the quality of those interactions? In 2008 an observational study was conducted, and found that female inmates, as a whole, tend to be much more affected by their surroundings than their male counterparts. This results in a not-so-surprising trend: the better the prison (according to the aforementioned standards) the better the prisoner.

 

Aside from not having any privacy from the other inmates, the guards are constantly watching these women In women's correctional facilities, 70% of the guards are male.  Female inmates have historically been subjected to groping, rape, and sexual extortion/humiliation. This treatment  has gone on the way it has because there is a lack of preventative legislation in place. These guards see targets-- degenerates, society's refuse in these female prisoners. They have no voice, no power, no agency with which to arm themselves. In prison, they are no longer people, but cattle held in the custody of the state. No one, it would seem, has any place telling these men how to treat their herd. These people in positions of authority have free rein to treat the women however they want because no one is looking out for them.

 

That is not right.

 

The prison system is changing, though, in one area in particular. The Eighth and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution endow pregnant prisoners with the right to proper medical care during pregnancy. However, these same institutions limit inmates’ access to pregnancy-related health care, including abortions.  Conversely, prisons nurseries have been steadily gaining popularity. The idea of a prison nursery offers an alternative for incarcerated women. Instead of carrying their child, giving birth to it and then having it promptly ripped from their arms, it allows the woman and child to stay together. The concept has received some criticism, though. Many wonder about the fitness of a woman who has demonstrated such judgement to raise a child. They worry about the welfare of the child who is  spending their formative months/years in a prison, and the woman, who does eventually have to part with her child.

 

The idea also raises another key concern, ‘who is paying for all of this? Are my tax dollars going into programs like this? Give me my money back,’ screech the masses.

 

There is much work to be done and so many more steps to take to improve the complicated lives of all people, women especially, who are behind bars. To do right by them isn’t an act of kindness or mercy, but an imperative that for too long has gone ignored.