Recently in Prisons Category

States may find themselves losing money if they continue to let sexual assault in prison be swept under the rug, reports AP.

New standards are being proposed by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to Attorney General Eric Holder on revising the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, an act that has been problematic for survivors for a number of reasons, one being that prisoners are required to prove "physical injury" in order to file claims against prisons. (This allows courts to say that sexual assault by itself doesn't count as an injury.)

Holder has a year to write national standards. If states don't adopt them, they can lose 5% of federal prison grant money.

While folks are confident that states will sign on, some are worried that certain county prisons won't be able to afford to implement some programs that require extra funding, like hiring additional staff specialized in mental health treatment for rape survivors. But other steps to prevent sexual assault, like closer screening of inmates and staff and zero tolerance policies, can and should be taken - particularly when sexual assault is so often committed by prison guards.

Check out Just Detention, a organization that advocates for the rights of prisoners to be free from sexual assault, for more information on rape in prison.

Marilu Morales has filed a federal lawsuit after being allegedly shackled while giving birth at Cook County Jail in Chicago.

...Morales was eight months' pregnant when she was incarcerated in April 2008, according to the lawsuit. It could not be immediately determined on what charges Morales was being held.

When she went into labor three days later, she was taken to Stroger. A sheriff's deputy shackled a hand and foot to the hospital bed, the lawsuit alleged.

Morales was in labor for four hours before a physician ordered the deputy to remove the shackles shortly before she gave birth, the lawsuit said. The shackles were allegedly put back on immediately after the baby was born.

This is the fourth lawsuit that Flaxman has filed against Sheriff Tom Dart's office regarding a pregnant prisoner had been shackled while giving birth. Unbelievable.

Related posts: Judge jails HIV positive woman to "protect" her fetus
New report: Mothering in Prison
Woman gives birth in jail cell, alone
Bureau of Prisons bans shackling pregnant inmates
Critical Resistance: Prisons as a Tool of Reproductive Oppression

Last week, I wrote about Quinta Layin Tuleh - a 28 year old woman from Cameroon sentenced to 238 days in federal prison because she is HIV positive and pregnant.

Today, Margo Kaplan from the Center for HIV Law and Policy has a piece on RH Reality Check analyzing just how terrible the judge's decision was.

Judge Woodcock's decision ignores the complex factors involved in a pregnant woman's medical treatment decisions - as through being HIV positive makes one incapable of reasonable decision-making - and glibly equates being HIV-positive and pregnant with committing a crime. When reading the sentence, he makes clear that his sole reason for keeping Tuleh in prison was that she was HIV-positive and pregnant, and that, had she been pregnant and not HIV-positive, he would release her with time served. He reasons that he could keep Tuleh in jail "to protect the public from [her] further crimes."

...While some states do, indeed, criminalize HIV exposure, Judge Woodcock does more than this - he imprisons a woman for the mere possibility that she might transmit HIV in the future. His reasoning essentially criminalizes being HIV-positive and allows the state to jail anyone with HIV simply because they have HIV and are capable of transmitting it to another. It classifies anyone with HIV as a threat to society who can be incarcerated at the whim of the state to protect public health.

Make sure to check out the whole piece, Kaplan does a great job linking the paternalism, discrimination and misogyny that are so rife in this case.

From the Bangor Daily News:

A woman from the African nation of Cameroon could give birth in a federal prison because she is HIV-positive.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock last month sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, 28, to 238 days in federal prison for having fake documents. Woodcock said the sentence would ensure that Tuleh's baby, due Aug. 29, has a good chance of being born free of the AIDS virus.

"Judges cannot lock a woman up simply because she is sick and pregnant," said Zachary Heiden, legal director for the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

"Judges have enormous discretion in imposing sentences, and that is appropriate. But jailing someone is punishment -- it is depriving them of liberty. That deprivation has to be justified, and illness or pregnancy is not justification for imprisonment."

Yet that's exactly what Woodcock did - using the paternalistic justification that he is looking out for the best interest of Tuleh's unborn child, who he apparently thinks will benefit from the stellar prenatal care given in prison.

"My obligation is to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant," he said at Tuleh's sentencing, "and that public, it seems to me at this point, should likely include that child she's carrying. I don't think that the transfer of HIV to an unborn child is a crime technically under the law, but it is as direct and as likely as an ongoing assault.

"If I had -- if I were to know conclusively that upon release from imprisonment a defendant was going to assault another person," Woodcock said, "I would act in a fashion to prevent that, and similar to an assault, causing grievous injury to a wholly innocent person. And so I think I have the obligation to do what I can to protect that person, when that person is born, from permanent and ongoing harm."

I agree with Jess: I fail to see how Tuleh's inability (if that really is the case) to procure affordable, decent healthcare is an "assault" against her fetus, rather than the system's assault of Tuleh. And of course, one wonders if Woodcock's decision would have been the same had Tuleh been from Denmark or Italy, not Cameroon...though you don't have to wonder long. (70% of cases involving prosecuting pregnant women are brought against women of color.)

For more information on the U.S.' long history of persecuting pregnant women (and what you can do about it) check out the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, the Women and Prison project, and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights.

Related posts: New report: Mothering in Prison
Woman gives birth in jail cell, alone
Bureau of Prisons bans shackling pregnant inmates
Critical Resistance: Prisons as a Tool of Reproductive Oppression

The Women's Prison Association released a new report on Mother's Day, about incarcerated parenting mothers called Mothers, Infants and Imprisonment A National Look at Prison Nurseries and Community-Based Alternatives.
Since there is no standard policy for what happens when a woman gives birth while incarcerated, it analyzes the two options that are available now, prison nurseries that allow moms to keep their children with them for limited periods of time, and community-based programs that allow parents to fulfill their sentences in the community under supervision while parenting.

This is an increasingly important issue as incarceration rates, particularly for women, have grown immensely in the past decades. According to the report:

Between 1977 and 2007, the number of women in prison in the United States increased by 832 percent. 2 According to data released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in 2004 four percent of women in state prisons and three percent of women in federal prisons were pregnant at the time of admittance.3 In 1999, BJS reported that six percent of women in local jails were pregnant at the time of admittance.4 As the number of women in prison has skyrocketed over the past 30 years, states have had to consider what it means to lock up women, many of whom are pregnant or parenting.

There are important impacts on these families, particularly since the majority of these women are non-violent offenders who will eventually be released and be the primary caregivers to their kids.

The overwhelming majority of children born to incarcerated mothers are separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed with relatives or into foster care. In a handful of states, women have other options: prison nurseries and community-based residential parenting programs.

Prison nursery programs allow a mother to parent her infant for a finite period of time within a special housing unit at the prison. Community-based residential parenting programs allow mothers to keep their infants with them while they fulfill their sentences in residential programs in the community.

Some of their research findings:

• The number of prison-based nursery programs is growing, but such programs are still rare. Only 9 states have these programs, and almost half were created in the last five years.


• Research shows that these programs benefit mothers and children. Women who participate show lower rates of recidivism (likelihood to commit a new crime), and their children show no adverse affects as a result of their participation. Improves maternal child bonding as well.


• Many women parenting their infants in prison nurseries could be doing so in the community instead. Women in both types of programs are serving relatively short sentences for non-violent offenses, and will continue primary caretaking responsibility for their child(ren) upon release. Most women in prison nursery programs present little risk to public safety. The issues that bring most women in contact with the criminal justice system - drug addiction, lack of education, poverty - are better addressed in a community setting than in prison.

You can read the full report here.

This story from my hometown is deeply disturbing:

Blood covered Terra Keil's hands, and her cries echoed against the jail cell walls.

But the Dubuque County Jail inmate said she took little notice of her own tears; she was focused on the howls coming from the infant squirming in her arms.

Early Tuesday morning, the 19-year-old Dubuque woman gave birth behind bars.

Keil claims guards ignored her pleas for help and left her to deliver her son alone. Jail officials say the mother never showed signs she was in labor.

"I guess it's a he said-she said situation," Keil said. "I know it's their word against mine, but how does somebody have a baby in jail without anybody noticing?"

Except it's not a "he-said, she-said" situation. Keil went into the jail cell pregnant, and came out with a baby.

"I was screaming I needed help, and I even pounded on the door a few times, but nobody came," she said. "Around 7 a.m., a guard came in and asked me if I wanted breakfast. I was crying and holding my stomach and said that I needed a nurse, but he only said, 'Do you want breakfast or not?'

"And that's when it hit me -- I'm going to have this baby on my own."

Police records confirm that she asked for a nurse when breakfast was delivered, and that she had screamed for help. What part of "women inmates are human beings" is so hard to understand?

Keil's son was placed in foster care, as she has another three months to serve. Seems like an opportune time to point to this new report from the Women's Prison Association about programs for inmates with newborns.

Related:
Voices of Justice Now: Safe motherhood

To clarify, I did not create this picture but was created to accompany this piece. When the creators put up a statement I will add it.

Update: The artist's statement here.

Last week, Lovelle Mixon allegedly shot 5 cops, killing 4 of them. This fact is tragic. It is not only tragic because 4 public servants who have families were killed, but also because the retaliation in the black community in Oakland by police will be severe. If you know what I know, angry cops are capable of anything.

I suppose you are thinking what many Americans are thinking. How could he do this? He deserves to die. Armed dangerous gunmen deserve to die. Why are black youth so violent? But I want to push your thinking on this situation.

As Kevin Weston points out in a really controversial piece at New American Media,

If there were a scoreboard that displayed the number of police killed by black people versus the number of black people killed by police - it would look like the scoreboard of the Lakers playing a junior high school team. So when an aberration like Mixon appears - a once in a generation kind of event -- the implications are cosmic.

When police officers are found to have murdered young black men, they are almost always let off the hook, they do not face life in prison and they are not then hunted and killed. This is not to suggest that the murder of cops is justified, but to ask that we look at it within the context of police brutality and the damage it has wreaked on the black community.

The power that resides in the laps of armed police officers is terrifying. Imagine living in these conditions, in the kind of world where you can be gunned down just for being young, black, male and walking down the street. This story is almost impossible to understand given dominant narratives around race, class, gender and black masculinity. It is considered OK to kill young black men, often violently. We may be outraged, but not nearly as outraged as when cops are killed.

I do not deny that Mixon was armed, dangerous, a career criminal and potentially linked to the rape of a young woman. Lovelle Mixon's actions are deplorable. But if we look at them within the context of police brutality, they sadly start make sense. Lovelle Mixon was trying to get out of going back to jail and this compounded with not finding work led him to desperate actions. Earl Ofari Hutchinson reports,

A general consensus is that it was a deadly mix of panic, rage, and frustration that caused Lovelle Mixon to snap. His shocking murderous rampage left four Oakland police officers dead and a city and police agencies searching its soul about what went so terribly wrong. Though Mixon's killing spree is a horrible aberration, his plight as anunemployed ex-felon isn't. There are tens of thousands like him on America's streets.

In 2007, the National Institute of Justice found that 60 percent of ex-felon offenders remain unemployed a year after their release. Other studies have shown that upwards of 30 percent of felon releases live in homeless shelters because of their inability to find housing. And those are the lucky ones. Many camp out on the streets.

A significant number of them suffer from drug, alcohol and mental health challenges, and lack education or any marketable skills. More than 70 percent of all U.S. prisoners are literate at only the two lowest grade levels. Nearly 60 percent of violent felons are repeat offenders. They are a menace to themselves and, as the nation saw with Mixon, to others. In some cases, they can be set off by any real or perceived slight, insult, or simply lash out from bitter rage. Mixon was one and he made four Oakland police officers victims and left a terrible trail of grieving and distraught families and a shell-shocked city and police department.

I don't support young people in Oakland suggesting that this is somehow fair revenge for Oscar Grant, but I think it is apparent that Oakland is fed up with watching our young men die at the hands of our public servants. While the conversation in mainstream media is really focused on Lovelle Mixon's history of crime, violence and imprisonment, let's try and change the dialog and have a honest conversation about police brutality, the production, harassment, imprisonment and murder of "angry black men" everywhere, and ways we can work collectively to bring peaceful solutions to our communities. And I ask the youth of Oakland to hang back, look at the bigger picture and think honestly about what will help your community the most in this volatile situation.

This is just sad. Remember the man that took modelizing to an even more deplorable level? Well, he was found guilty of 1 count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault.

A Beverly Hills fashion designer, once touted as a future star of the catwalks, was found guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting seven girls and young women, capping a two-month trial that offered a sordid portrait of the fashion world.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days before finding Anand Jon Alexander guilty of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and other charges.

In general I don't really support incarceration, but since it is usually the only tool we have access to when sentencing for rape, it is sadly one of our only options. Anand Jon shouldn't be allowed to use his influence to manipulate women and then rape them. It is disgusting. It is necessary and should be noted when the criminal justice system takes the testimony of women seriously in rape cases.

But I do want to take an opportunity to talk about two factors that I think are also at play here that are not being talked about. The first is the way women are treated in the modeling industry and how they are often taken advantage of in unfair or abusive ways and the second is Anand Jon's race and citizenship.

An industry that functions off the objectification of women's bodies will create sexist work conditions if they are unchecked or deeply functioning within the constraints of capitalist patriarchy. Furthermore, women are frequently competing to get to the top and make a career out of modeling which also results in compromising situations whether by choice, by demand or by necessity. Unfortunately, I don't think Jon is alone in his sexual abuse of women in the modeling industry.

But I also think the fact that he is South Asian makes him an easy person to find guilty and throw our (deserved) disgust at, since he is not American, but an "other" that engages in those deplorable things that "others" do. Pushing the blame outside of the context of any type of homegrown abuse that happens within the US (or Western)-centric modeling industry gives us the ability to not be self reflective. This doesn't in any way minimize or justify Jon's deplorable behavior, but more to situate it within the historical power relations at play in the narratives surrounding the sexual assault of white women by brown men. Despite his own behavior that should be punished, I think it is high time we take a hard look at modeling as an institution and think about the sexist stereotypes it promotes that frequently fetishize and make normal the sexual abuse of women.

There are many frightening propositions on the CA ballot that we have covered , specifically prop 8 and prop 4. We already know how you are voting on them. Instead of give a full voter guide, which Ann did already, I want to just shed some light on a proposition that will truly harm the young people of California and is a racist and seriously detrimental piece of legislation, CA Proposition 6.

Proposition 6 Facts

"Worst of the Worst"

1) Drops the age to 14 that a child can be tried as an adult

2) California already spends four times as much $ per prisoner as it does per public school student, prop 6 moves millions of $ away from schools and into prisons

3) Creates over 50 changes in law with redundant spending and duplicated bureaucracy

4) Explicitly removes community representatives from juvenile justice coordinating councils so affected communities have no ability to bring a voice to the table

5) Mandates yearly criminal background checks on everyone living in Section 8 public housing and removes the 30 day eviction notice requirement, destabilizing communities through forced evictions

Prisons are a feminist issue as we have written about before. Please vote no on prop 6! Go here for more info.

Some good news for your mid-week: The Bureau of Prisons recently announced it has changed its policy and now bans the shackling of pregnant women during transportation, labor and delivery.

Maria Jones, who was incarcerated for violating drug laws, tells the story of having labor induced two weeks prior to her due date, but being "kept in shackles, leaving 18 inches between her ankles, and told to pace the hallway for several hours. 'It was so humiliating. My ankles were raw,' she said. 'I had shackles on up until the baby was coming out and then they took them off for me to push...It was unbelievable. Like I was going to go anywhere.'"

[...]The new policy represents a huge victory for the thousands of women incarcerated in federal prisons throughout the country -- a victory hard won by groups like The Rebecca Project for Human Rights and other organizations that have advocated for this change.

But this is only the beginning. In 47 states there is no legislation to restrict the practice of shackling pregnant women; state and local prisons are not subject to the new federal policy. And the U.S. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which increasingly detains immigrant women who have never committed a crime, has refused to specifically end the use of restraints on pregnant women.

So basically, it's a good start, but we need to keep advocating that state and local prisons, as well as ICE, also ban the practice of shackling pregnant women. As the ACLU notes, women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. This issue is not going away anytime soon.

Amnesty International has info on the situation at the state-level.