What Is a Prisoner, Really: How our Criminal Justice System is Failing Everyone – Especially Women

Written by Courtney J. Parker, PhD, MNPO

You might not think of prisoners as being prioritized atop any human rights action-oriented list. And, hopefully you’ll never have to find out —personally – why they do near top the list.

Prisoners, by definition, are persons being held in involuntary detainment by a branch of government – and, they are one of our most vulnerable populations across the board.

In academia, there are all sorts of hoops to jump through to do research on or with prisoners, because their ‘consent’ is not considered valid – or, at the very least, it is heavily questioned – when being kept involuntarily in detainment by the state.

It’s a horrible feeling to be so helpless in an environment where multitudes have maintained their dignity, sanity, or, personal safety by adopting attitudes of cold indifference (if not outright aggression).

At first blush, it might seem a bothersome idea – that such an issue could be a barrier to proper and much-needed studies on prison related and other criminal justice issues.

Yet looking down the proverbial chess board of possible outcomes and choices a person might face when under such constraints, it’s definitely a slippery slope. Who is to say that someone might not volunteer for a risky or downright harmful medical experiment just to shave off some time and keep their family intact?

And, what if that person is harmed?

What if that person is innocent?

What if they aren’t?

The key here is that anyone claiming power over our citizenry…to determine and detain persons at their discretion (especially in terms of pretrial detention which is already inherently problematic)…must legitimize themselves as trustworthy entities through consistent transparency and responsibility in their practices.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy issue. We can’t just point at the prison system and wag a finger about what all is wrong. The people working in the system are stressed as well… because in many, many ways it is indeed broken at a systemic level. This is old news.

And, this means there are many broken people on each side of the ‘invisible line’.

In Honduras, where gangs have taken over the inside of many prisons, the line is painted yellow and known as ‘linea de la muerte’ – the line of death…If a guard steps in…death…If an inmate steps out…death.

This should be enough to horrify anyone just in general, but let’s talk about how this worst case and precarious situation may have evolved.

The more a state is unable (or refuses) to take care of basic needs for those it has unilaterally claimed responsibility for – notice we’re not speaking of anyone who is seeking to be paid benefits from the state, if only for the sake of this one point – the less stable the balance of power is. And, the more precarious it is for everyone involved.

By not providing basic health and hygiene access for detained persons, the whole system is thrown out of balance. Being in prison is punishment, but inhumanely tortured persons present a vast spectrum of problems beyond themselves, both in the community on the inside and on the outside of the prison walls.

The more someone is denied proper healthcare – physical or psychological – or, the more they are denied basic personal needs…and, for menstruating women…this includes easy and consistent access to tampons and pads…the more likely detainees are: to bond together in rebellion against the system; to develop their own shadow ‘prison economies’; and, basically be pushed further out into the marginalized state which brought many down the path to becoming justice involved to begin with.

To conclude, let’s tie this up regarding the aforementioned example because it is (somehow) being debated in our national rhetoric right now…

That’s right. It’s 2019 – and, women are done pretending we don’t have periods. Our government should be, too.

Women who are incarcerated and don’t have access to basic hygiene are not only being abused – again, perhaps especially, through one lens, when their status of innocence or guilt has not yet even been tried in court – but the health of those around them is also being endangered by the potential spread of one of our most potent and potentially infectious body fluids, blood.

When you think about it like that it seems absurd that we’re even discussing whether this should be a thing. It’s already ‘a thing’; and, the only natural thing to do about it is exercise basic human decency that allows others to practice basic hygiene to the benefit of everyone.

It is ridiculously unclear why there is any opposition to this.