[Pnews] New Report Reveals Systemic Medical Neglect and Violence in CA Women’s Prisons

[Prisoner News]

truthout.org
<https://truthout.org/articles/new-report-reveals-systemic-medical-neglect-and-violence-in-ca-womens-prisons/>
New Report Reveals Systemic Medical Neglect and Violence in CA Women’s
Prisons
Amber Akemi Piatt - April 15 ,2023
------------------------------

New public health research on women’s prisons exposes medical neglect,
sexual violence and inhumane living conditions.
[image: Woman walks into California prison]An incarcerated woman walks back
into the main facility after undergoing a laser tattoo removal procedure at
the Folsom state prison in Folsom, California, on September 13, 2019. Gabrielle
Lurie / The San Francisco Chronicle / Getty Images

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the public health crises
unfolding in carceral settings across the United States. In California, the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has
documented <https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/covid19/population-status-tracking/>
more than 90,000 cases in state prisons, with more than 3,500 of those
cases in women’s prisons.

People incarcerated in women’s prisons have reported alarming neglect in
CDCR’s handling of the pandemic, including months spent in quarantine units
and the denial of toilet paper, phone calls, cleaning supplies and showers.
But the health harms of incarceration existed long before COVID-19 and
continue to exist now.

My work as a public health researcher and advocate explores the sometimes
hidden public health crises of gender-based harm and incarceration. My team
recently released new research, *From Crisis to Care: Ending the Health
Harm of Women’s Prisons*
<http://humanimpact.org/HealthNotWomensPrisons>*, *detailing
the severe individual-, family-, and community-level health impacts of
incarceration on cisgender women and transgender, gender nonconforming and
intersex (TGI) people in California. Our research affirmed the urgent need
to close women’s prisons in California.

Our research included interviewing and surveying people who are currently
incarcerated in California’s two remaining women’s prisons, Central
California Women’s Facility (CCWF) and California Institution for Women
(CIW). Our findings paint a dire picture of people facing medical neglect,
sexual violence, transphobic discrimination and inhumane living conditions
while incarcerated.

In some ways, California’s incarcerated population mirrors national social
patterns. Due to the racism of the criminal legal system, 929 people in
California’s women’s prisons were Black in 2022. This is 25 percent of the
prison population, while Black people make up only 6.5 percent of
California’s total population. Transphobia creates the conditions for TGI
people to be disproportionately criminalized as well, and 67 percent of our
TGI survey respondents reported experiencing discrimination or violence for
their gender identity while imprisoned in California women’s prisons.

Furthermore, 83 percent of our survey respondents reported having an
illness, injury or disability, and 55 percent reported having three or more
health conditions needing care. Ableism shapes how disabled people are
policed, socioeconomically marginalized, and discriminated against in both
the medical and legal sectors, leading disabled people to be
disproportionately incarcerated.

Indeed, studies show an estimated 66 percent of the incarcerated population
in the U.S. is disabled: an estimated 40.4 percent with a psychiatric
disability and an estimated 56.0 percent with a non-psychiatric disability.
Specifically, estimations show that a higher percentage of people
incarcerated in women’s prisons reported disability (79.5 percent) compared
with people incarcerated in men’s prisons (64.6 percent). This is
particularly troubling considering medical neglect is characteristic of
incarceration. We found 66 percent of our survey respondents reported that
medical staff did not properly treat them; 60 percent reported that medical
staff did not investigate the cause of their medical condition; and 51
percent reported that medical staff did not order diagnostic tests.

Additionally, an alarming 40 percent of our survey respondents reported
experiencing reproductive abuse, such as coerced sterilization or an
untreated reproductive health issue while imprisoned. Several respondents
shared that they woke up from unrelated surgeries to find that their
ovaries or uterus had been removed. One woman said that she was waiting for
paperwork from a surgery two years prior to find out if she was sterilized.

This is part of a long and sordid history of marginalized Californians
facing reproductive abuse. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated funds
<https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/12/31/california-launches-program-to-compensate-survivors-of-state-sponsored-sterilization/>
for a new program to compensate survivors of state-sponsored sterilization,
acknowledging the state’s shameful past. Our research found that such
injustices still occur today, and the governor has the opportunity and
obligation to address them further.

CDCR’s censorship
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/california-prison-officials-are-deleting-records-inmate-social-media-censorship>
of information about what’s going on inside the state’s prisons adds
another layer to the problem. Early in our data collection, we noticed we
had received dozens of survey responses from people in CCWF and none from
people in CIW. Upon investigation, we learned that prison staff had not
delivered the mail due to an unspecified CDCR mail protocol violation.
Given this, volunteers then hand delivered surveys to people inside CIW.
They received and completed our surveys, but the prison staff refused to
mail them back to us. Why? Apparently, CDCR staff were concerned the data
was being gathered for a possible class-action lawsuit.

Despite this, there are reasons for hope. Though “women’s incarceration
<https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023women.html> has grown at twice
the pace of men’s incarceration in recent decades,” California is actually
one of the few places in the U.S. where the number of people incarcerated
in women’s prisons is significantly decreasing. The number of people
incarcerated in California women’s prisons dropped from 12,668 in 2010 to
3,699 in 2022 — a 70.8 percent reduction. This shift is thanks to
commonsense policy changes demanded by community organizations and enacted
by our state legislators in recent years that have shrunk the footprint of
incarceration in our state. Yet, much work remains to be done.

California has the chance to redirect the $405 million
<https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/174/2020/02/CDCR-_Fiscal_Year_2018-2019_Annual_Performance_Measures_Report.pdf>
spent yearly on women’s prisons toward community-based support systems,
such as safe housing, job opportunities and affordable health care. Such
investments would advance public health and gender justice and set an
example for other states to follow. We urge policymakers, advocates, and
the public to engage with our research findings on the health impacts of
women’s prisons and to join us in calling for an end to this unjust system
of punishment.
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