Behind bars, access to feminine hygiene products is spotty

(InvestigateTV) – Kimberly Haven’s punishment for a crime committed in Maryland would only consist of serving time behind bars. She said it ended up costing her her uterus.

After being locked up and sent to a prison psychiatric unit, Stacy Burnett said she was forced to bleed herself during her menstrual cycle because she was not allowed to own underwear, toilet paper or feminine hygiene products.

In times of desperation, women behind bars often create feminine hygiene products from bedsheets, socks and even pages from the Bible.

“MacGyver is the patron saint of prisons. You have to take what you have and make do with it,” Burnett said. “It’s an ongoing battle.”

Incarcerated women have used unconventional – and highly unsanitary – supplies because their requests for sanitary pads or tampons were delayed or denied altogether.

In some of the most extreme situations, incarcerated women have been forced to trade sex for a tampon.

Many states lack laws or written policies to provide incarcerated women with this basic need – meaning that for many, the struggle to find or manufacture the necessary products is a monthly struggle.

“Every woman I talked to, no matter where they had been in prison or how many years it had been since they were released, all said, ‘I felt like they had to beg like a dog to get what I need.’” , says Miriam Vishniac, a postdoctoral researcher who studies access to feminine hygiene products behind bars.

Vishniac created The Prison Flow Project, which advocates for access to historical products and serves as a database of resources for incarcerated women and their loved ones.

She said she became interested in the subject about a decade ago.

“There was a news report out of Kentucky where a woman was sent to court without pants, and it turned out she had stained them with menstrual blood and was not given any other clothing,” Vishniac said. “At the same time, I started seeing more reporting about what was happening and I enjoyed doing more reporting about women who were having these issues in prison. And it didn’t seem like there was an academic look and an attempt to gather information and really summarize what exactly is happening here, because it seems like there is a problem.

As of January, only 31 states had a law or written policy on feminine hygiene products in prisons, according to an InvestigateTV analysis.

The analysis found that few of these laws or written policies guarantee access to all types of products that women behind bars may need, or that products will be made available at any time of the day or night.

It’s a daunting reality, even for some who run prisons.

“Denying a woman basic hygiene is ideally indecent and a violation of their rights,” said Geneva Holland, director of the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. “We believe (in) and want to preserve their dignity.”

Make shift chaos

Maryland passed a law in 2018 to ensure that incarcerated women have adequate feminine hygiene products at all times.

After she was released, Haven was part of the effort to pass that bill.

Without access to the necessary products, Haven said she often made tampons from the sanitary pads provided by the prison — and even sold them to other women.

However, homemade tampons are inherently dangerous: the type of material used, the environment, and the handling of them can all introduce bacteria.

Even sanitary towels pose risks if they are pulled apart, because the often synthetic fibers become airborne.

Haven was diagnosed with toxic shock syndrome – a rare but potentially life-threatening complication of certain bacterial infections.

She blames the use of makeshift tampons during her incarceration.

“They’re going in,” she said. “So as a result, I ended up coming home and having to have an emergency hysterectomy.”

Haven said it wasn’t just her own experience that led her to advocacy.

“I’ve seen women pick up toilet paper. I’ve seen them use washcloths,” she said.

As she pushed for passage of the 2018 law, she showed off her makeshift tampons to Maryland lawmakers and talked about the horrors of what can and will happen.

‘We are talking about (reproductive) infertility. We are talking about infections. We’re talking about everything we then have to pay for on the back end, when if we could just do the right thing on the front end, we would be much better served,” she said.

Maryland law requires every correctional facility in the state to establish a written policy on feminine hygiene and to provide free tampons and sanitary pads on a routine and as-needed basis.

But that’s not the case in every state.

InvestigateTV and the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University analyzed existing state laws and policies and found that only nine states have language allowing incarcerated women access to historical products at any time.

Fewer than 20 states detail what types of feminine hygiene products – such as sanitary pads, tampons, menstrual cups and panty liners – will be made available.

“The problem is that without specific details you leave a lot of it up to individual guards, individual security guards, and there is no understanding of how important the details are,” says Vishniac, the academic researcher.

Some states only offer sanitary pads. Some limit the number of supplies women receive each month.

All this implies that every woman has the same menstrual cycle, flow and duration, Vishniac said.

In addition, many state laws and policies require that products be made available “on request.”

Critics like Haven and Vishniac said this could be a weapon against women.

For example, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into prisons in Alabama, Florida and New Jersey found that women who requested supplies were expected to perform sex acts in exchange for a period product, court records show.

The failure of states, lawmakers, guards and prison guards to properly address a biological function that women have no control over only serves to dehumanize them, critics say, and the consequences could extend even beyond the walls extend from a facility.

After her release, Burnett also became an advocate. She said she wants those responsible to realize how difficult such treatment can make it to return home with her dignity intact.

“They need to look at that and not exclude people who are incarcerated in some way when they get to the prison gate, that they’ve given up all their civil rights or turned in their humanity card,” she said. “If anything, we need a little more understanding and support so that we can come home and function and contribute to society.”

Begging for supplies

InvestigateTV and the Arnolt Center sent dozens of public records requests to state prisons and local jurisdictions for feminine hygiene complaints.

At best, data shows examples of indifference to the women’s problems when they asked for supplies.

In Las Vegas, a woman asked an officer for a notebook, who replied, “Would (she) like her to pull one out of her a**?”

Also in Las Vegas, a correctional officer was disciplined after telling an incarcerated woman she could only request sanitary pads at lunch or dinner.

In the Cleveland area, a woman who couldn’t use sanitary pads because of skin irritation had to wait nine days for tampons. In New Orleans, a woman had to wait six days to access menstrual products.

In Tyler, Texas, a woman complained that she spent hours “begging” for toilet paper, tampons and sanitary pads. She said she used the last of her toilet paper as sanitary pads and had to use her socks.

Nevada and Ohio have no state law regarding feminine hygiene in jails and prisons, and the Texas law applies only to state facilities — not to local jails where the woman in Tyler was incarcerated.

For Holland, the Maryland director, such complaints illustrate the importance of clear laws and policies.

“We can’t predict when they’ll need them. We cannot predict their flow. Some women have medical problems. So it’s really important that we make sure they get what they need at all times, especially when it comes to feminine hygiene,” she said.

Holland said she believes other states and local jurisdictions should follow Maryland’s lead.

‘They are already in prison. They’re already serving their time. That is an additional punishment for not providing them with their basic needs – punishing them again,” she said. “And they have already been tried and convicted for whatever crime they committed.”

After successfully passing Maryland’s law, Haven is now executive director of Reproductive Justice Inside and pushing for laws in other states.

Some call her the “Tampon Queen” — others use an unflattering term — but she said she doesn’t care what she’s called as long as things change.

“If telling my story and the work I’ve done on this issue will bring about change, then I will wear that as a badge of honor,” she said.

Associate producer Mackenzie Bruns and the following students from the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University contributed research to this report: Olivia Bianco, Mina Denny, Wyatt Lambert, Haley Miller, Nadia Scharf, Emma Walls and Jasmine Wright.

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