Women Behind
Bars
No Dignity, No Hope
According to a recent report by
a study group of the Pew
Charitable Trusts, more than 1
in 100 Americans is currently
behind bars. When the figures
are broken down by age, sex and
race, the statistics are as
stunning as a slap in the face:
1 in 9 black males aged 20 to 34
is incarcerated. One in 72 of
all males is in jail or prison.
One in 96 of all Hispanics is
doing time. The Pew Center found
that 1 in 746 women is
incarcerated, but broken down by
age and race, 1 in 100 black
women aged 35-39 and 1 in 297
Hispanic women are doing time,
compared to 1 in 355 for white
women in the same age group.
But according to other recent
studies, the fastest growing
prison demographic is women.
Silja Talvi, in her new book,
“Women Behind Bars", notes that
the number of incarcerated adult
women has jumped 757 percent
since 1977, nearly twice the
growth rate for men. And most of
these women are mothers, Talvi
writes.
Almost two and one-half million
children have a parent in
prison. Many women are
incarcerated while pregnant, or
become pregnant (usually by a
male correctional officer) while
imprisoned, and deliver their
babies in shackles. Then their
babies are taken away from them.
Talvi neither exploits nor
minimizes the abuse of women
(and men and juveniles) behind
bars. She forcefully presents it
for what it is… a violation of
human rights pervasive
throughout the state and federal
prison systems. In the rest of
the Western world, which has far
fewer women behind bars in the
first place, women prisoners are
guarded by other women. That's
the way it used to be here too.
Male correctional officers in
women's prisons were generally
assigned to the perimeter and
the gate, or were senior
supervisors.
But as civil rights legislation,
such as the Equal Employment
Opportunity Act of 1972,
provided for equal rights
according to sex, a correctional
officer became a gender-neutral
job position, and men moved into
closer contact with women in
prison, with predictably
unintended consequences. Today,
one in four women reports being
sexually abused while in prison
or jail. Formal complaints
against officers or other
inmates, however, are frequently
rebuffed as fabrications or
consensual encounters,
discouraging reporting. Fear of
retribution also contributes to
a low official reporting rate.
Instead of discouraging abuse by
punishment abusers, correctional
facilities take a preventive
approach, practically
eliminating any psychological
sense of privacy with bright
lights, metal mirrors and
surveillance cameras, even in
showers and cells.
The guards need not actually
watch the inmates; rather, the
inmate is made to feel as if she
is under constant surveillance
and is supposed to behave
accordingly. She dose not,
however, feel safer as a
consequence of these constant
intrusions.
And while female-on-female
sexual assaults occur, Talvi
reports only about a half-dozen
of her interviewees confided
that they were forced into a
sexual situation with another
inmate or female guard. The vast
majority of sexual contact and
sexual violence in womens
prisons happens when male
correctional employees exploit
the gender and power
differentials inherent in a
female custodial setting, she
says.
The sexually intrusive or
abusive nature of these
experiences in prison has a
devastating impact on a women's
likelihood of achieving a
healthy and successful re-entry
into society, posits Talvi. That
is hard to dismiss. Prisons in
general are mentally and
physically unhealthy places.
Talvi recounts the story of one
women she met at Central
California Women's Facility who
was sentenced to life in prison
for a $200 unarmed robbery. When
Gina Muniz was first taken to
the L.A. County Jail, she began
to bleed, all over herself and
her cell. Deputies were so
disgusted they threw whole rolls
of toilet paper, a precious
commodity in the jail, into her
cell. It was eight months before
she got a proper examination and
was diagnosed with Stage II
cervical cancer.
Falling into depression after
the death of her father, she
began to use cocaine. Eventually
she became dependant on it. With
traffic misdemeanors as her only
criminal record, she pleaded
guilty to the robbery, expecting
s short sentence. Instead, she
got life, a sentence she said
she did not understand until she
was processed at CCWF.
In Muniz's case, life meant her
life. Medical decisions made at
some level in the process dined
her the necessary hysterectomy,
radiation, and chemotherapy that
could have.
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