In December 2007, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) moved about 40 women prisoners from the state's sole women's prison to a unit within an enormous men's maximum security prison. In that prison-within-a-prison, the women suffered degrading and discriminatory conditions, including 22 hour lockdown, and denials of medical care, privacy, and basic sanitation. Even the little windows of the women's cells were painted over, making the cells into dim caves.
If you ran a small public health or workers' rights organization with a shoestring budget, what on earth could make you refuse to take a lot of money from the government?
For some, being asked to take the so-called "anti-prostitution pledge" was enough. The pledge is a few lines in a big law. The law — the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act — pours billions of dollars into the global fight against AIDS and other diseases. The pledge says that to get some of this money, groups doing HIV prevention work have to mouth the government's position "opposing prostitution," and avoid doing anything an official might construe as promoting prostitution. In practice, that has meant that health services providers and advocates for the rights of vulnerable workers have to close their doors to women and men who need help but who are involved in sex work.
Back in 2006, I interviewed many girls who had been confined in New York’s juvenile prisons. The girls described harsh, prisonlike environments where physical force was used to punish and control them, sexual and psychological abuse occurred, and schooling was haphazard and insufficient. One girl summed up by saying: "I just want to tell people before someone gets really hurt."
Yesterday, a task force appointed by New York governor David Paterson issued its report on the state's juvenile justice system. The report acknowledges the findings of the ACLU's 2006 report, Custody and Control — which documents the abuse and neglect of girls incarcerated in New York — and calls for radical changes in how New York responds to delinquency.
Go to a men's prison on any given visiting day and you'll see the same scene: a throng of women who've come to visit their loved ones, often with children in tow. Many will have traveled hours for a brief visit. Go to a women's prison and you're likely to find a much smaller group of visitors. It's ironic that women, who are usually the glue that hold families together, often find themselves very alone
On May 22, the ACLU Women's Rights Project concluded two weeks of intensive investigation into the conditions of confinement experienced by girls in the custody of the Texas Youth Commission. TYC has in recent months been rocked by a scandal involving severe sexual and physical abuse of incarcerated children and a cover-up by the agency.
If you ran a small public health or workers' rights organization with a shoestring budget, what on earth could make you refuse to take a lot of money from the government?
Back in 2006, I