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Vol. 13 Issue4
Fall1999

10n

The Criminalizationof Youth
Suzanne Pharr

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Amy Edgington - Little Rock
Sarah Facen - Little Rock

Sandra Mitchell - Little Rock
Freddie Nixon - Little Rock
Tammy Roberson - Little Rock

Annette Shead - Little Rock
Celia Wildroot - Hot Springs
Precious Williams - Ogden
Yvonne Croston - Little Rock
Judy Davis - Hope

Katrina Paxton - Conway
Quiana Porter - Little Rock

INSIDE
Women in Prison:
The Concrete
Realities
-page4

Women and HIV/
AIDS Project
-pageB

Booknotes
-page 10

Join Us!
-page 13

• U.S. children are five times more likely
to be killed than those in the rest of
the industrialized world.
• Youth in the U.S. are twice as likely to
commit suicide as their counter-parts
in industrialized countries; suicide
rates have quadrupled
among
children under 15.
• U.S. youth are 12 times more likely to
die by gunfire than those in other
industrialized countries; guns are the
primary cause of homicides among
children. (1997 Centersfor Disease
Controlreport)
• Twenty-three percent of all crime
victims, almost one in four, are
juveniles.
• Of the nearly 150,000rape victims in
1992, one out of five was under 18.
• Homicide is the second leading cause
of death among 15-24year olds.
• Between 1984 and 1991, the juvenile
homicide rate almost tripled.
• One out of five young Americans will
have committed a serious violent
offense by age 18.
• African-American and Hispanic males
have the highest rates of violent crime
victimization, with African-Americans between the ages of 16-19
having a higher rate than any other
age or ethnic group. (1992 Department of Justicereport)
• 95,000 youths were incarcerated in
the U.S. in 1994, an increase of 20%
since 1980. (Centerfor the Future of
Children)

• For every two youth (ages 0-19)
murdered in 1994, one youth
committed suicide.
• From 1992 through 1995, 41 states
passed laws making it easier for
juveniles to be tried as adults.
• In 1996, the one-day count of youth
under age 18 held in adult jails was
8,100. (National Center for Juvenile
Justice,1998)
• In Arkansas it costs between $40,000
and $60,000 a year to house a youth
in the Youth Services Division. (ArkansasDemocrat-Gazette,
12/4/98)
• The U.S. is now building more prisons
(Justice Policy
than universities.
Institute, 1997)

W

hatever are we to make of
this distressing list of facts
and figures? At the very
least, I believe we can agree that
something has gone very wrong in a
country where, for the first time in
history, children in non-war environments are killing children, children
are increasingly committing suicide,
and children are primary targets of a
consumer culture. In response to the
crisis in the lives of young people, this
country has made an all-out effort to
create more laws to restrain youth from
congregating with their peers in public
spaces and from being able to move
about freely (curfews), to move youth
through the criminal justice system as
(continuedon page2)

The Criminilization
of Youth
adults, and to regard their actions as
criminally suspect if they are youth
of color. Through massive antitaxation efforts, which have often
pitted older people against the
young, funding for services to
support families, schools, childcare,
healthcare, recreation, and basic
human needs such as food, clothing
and housing have been cut
drastically.
I believe our young are suffering
because there is little infrastructure
to support them and their families,
because large numbers of them are
no longer essential to the economy,
beca115ethis society hascontradictory
attitudes toward youth, and because
they, as a group, do not have power
to defend themselves from the
onslaughts against them-that is, they
are unable to amass large sums of
money, to be independent of adults,
and to vote to make political change.
First, let's take a look at society's
contradictory attitudes toward
youth. Over the past 20 years, youth
and adults have become increasingly
alienated from one another. As a
symptom of this alienation, adults
today tend to have unrealistic, unfair
and contradictory images of youth.
Here are some examples of the
contradictions:
• Americans romanticize the
young. Youth is considered the time
of innocence, of simplicity, of good
bodies and good times. As baby
boomers grow older, many long to
be associated with youth, to be young
themselves.
• Romanticizing
youth and
longing to be young supports a
commodified youth culture. The idea
of innocence, good bodies, and
rebelliousness is used to sell goods,
targeted both to youth and to older

people. Though characterized as
innocent, youth are constantly
eroticized and sexualized by
advertising and the media. Youth
culture is essential to today's
consumerism.
• While extolling the innocence of
youth that needs protection, our
society has taken away the services
and entitlements that support
families. The majority of people on

For the first time in
history, children in
non-war environments
are killing children,
children are increasingly
considering suicide, and
children are primary
targets of a consumer
culture.

welfare are children; over 20% of all
children live in poverty. Physical and
sexual violence against children
within families of all classes is
rampant. An observer could easily
assume that our culture hates
children.
• Youth are also seen as predators,
members of gangs, mass murderers,
thieves, out of control-as enemies of

Page 2 • Transformation•Fall 1999

society who should be restrained,
controlled, tried as adults in criminal
courts, and locked up.
Though there has always been
adult control of the lives of youth
and along with it, oppression, there
is now a dramatic change in the
attitudes of adults toward young
people. This change centers around
the idea of young people as
sexualized marketing targets and
simultaneously-for
poor youth
especially-as
violent predators.
Youth are now faced with prejudice
against themselves.
If one defines oppression (such as
racism or sexism) as institutional
power plus prejudice, one would
have to argue that, today, youth are
oppressed. They have no institutional
power, and prejudice against them
as a group permeates the culture. If
one looks at the common elements
of oppression, they all apply to the
treatment of youth: they lack social
and economic equality; they are
stereotyped,
demonized,
and
dehumanized;
they experience
isolation and tokenization, selfblame, societal blame, and internalized oppression; their sense of
powerlessness leads to horizontal
hostility, as evidenced in youth
killing other youth. Overall, they are
controlled by violence (often from
birth onward) and by lack of
economic access and independence.
In a power analysis, we usually
examine the idea of power over,
looking at how one group of people
has power over another and attempts
to control them. Adults maintain
consistent power over youth, limiting
their access to money, mobility,
association, information, medication,
reproductive choice and the uses of
their bodies for sexual pleasure.
Information in the classroom, on the

The Criminilization
of Youth
internet, or in libraries is restricted,
for example, and youth are left to
gain from hearsay some of the most
important information they need.
And, as we all know, people without
power seek power and survival
where they can.
One place where youth can seek
personal power is through sexual
expression, whether or not condoned
by adults, with or without condoms
or the pill, in positive or destructive
relationships. It is not surprising that
youth sometimes find themselves in
sexual trouble-unwanted
pregnancies, STDs, etc.-since they are
not allowed access to the complete
information they need. Another place
of power is through personal and
gang violence. A gun, which can be
easily obtained by youth, gives a
great sense of personal power, as
does the collective energy of gangs.
Gangs also provide what families
often do not: dynamic relationships,
discipline, purpose, a sense of
belonging.
Because they cannot vote, youth
have no voice in preventing the
creation of the public policies that
harm them; they, for example, have
been unable to vote on the anti-tax
initiatives that have cut and restricted
public funding of schools, libraries,
social services, etc. Nor were they
able to depose the politicians who
worked to eliminate welfare and to
leave them impoverished, or those
who have systematically eliminated
civil rights and liberties. They cannot
mobilize very easily to oppose the
lobby of the National Rifle Associati.onand to bring an end to the easy
access to the guns which are killing
them daily. They cannot vote to
throw out of office all those
politicians who work daily to cut
back or eliminate every program that

supports the well-being of families
and children.
Beyond the fact that over one-fifth
of our children are living in poverty,
they are also affected economically
by a so-called "boom" economy that
does not need most of them for any
jobs other than unskilled and lowpaid labor. For the hundreds of
thousands who cannot afford the
escalating cost of higher education,
the future is in the fast-food, tourist,
or service industries, performing
whatever jobs cannot be done by
robots. US jobs have been exported,
downsized, and set back. In the first
11 months of 1998,there were 575,000
layoffs, and by year's end they broke
the old record of 615,00layoffs set in
1993.(d,allenger, Gray & Christmas)
There are fewer and fewer jobs-with
benefits and a living wage-for
young people entering the job
market. Few can hope to do as well
as their parents did economically
both in income and also in such ways
as owning their own homes or having
retirement pensions.
The future is bleak for youth, and
the number of teenagers is likely to
increase by 20% over the next 15
years. What is to be done with all of
these youth? Sadly, the current
answer seems to be that if they cannot
get the education and the jobs to
make them consumers, then we must
make more laws to control them and
build more prisons to warehouse
them. If there are no jobs in the free
world economy, we put them in
private prisons which provide cheap,
enslaved labor to corporations.
However, we could take a different approach here. At the heart of it
is fair and just taxation that is used
to provide for human needs-and this
means making corporations, as well
as individuals, pay their fair share.

Page 3 • Transformation• Fall 1999

To save our children, we have to
establish a human rights agenda that
provides education, liveable-wage
jobs, safety, healthcare, food, clothing
and shelter in a fair and equitable
way that demands an end to racism,
sexism, and all the oppressions that
stand in the way of justice. This
agenda will cost money, but no more
money than is currently in circulation
paying for military hardware, giveaways to corporations, possessions
and play-toys and stocks and bonds
for the wealthy-and of course, for
building and maintaining
the
criminal justice system and prisons.
It will call for a shift in our values
and in our sense of our responsibility
for one another in community. It
will require, for instance, that we
believe enough in our children to
provide prenatal care, pre-school
and
after-school
programs,
abundant funding for education,
free or affordable healthcare, access
to information, recreation, job
training and opportunities to earn a
living wage. It will require more
than preaching
morality and
threatening punishment to create the
families who nurture and sustain
children; it will take a society that
genuinely believes in families and
children-and puts its money where
its mouth is.
For years Jesse Jackson has said
that it is far, far less costly to educate
a child than to imprison one. We have
yet to take this to heart. In our
treatment of our young, we face the
measurement of ourselves as a
humane and moral society. As of
today, we are failing to measure up;
tomorrow, we have the opportunity
to bring about the changes that allow
young people to live full and healthy
lives with a future they can look
forward to with hope. ■

Woinen in Prison: the Concrete Realities
Amy Edgington

W

hat do we know about
prisons in this country
today? We know that one
in four African American males
stands a chance of going to prison in
his lifetime, due to the unequal enforcement of justice. We know that it
costs far more to incarcerate people
than it does to give them decent education, housing, healthcare and jobs.
We know that America is building
more prisons and incarcerating a
larger segment of its population than
any other industrialized nation. We
know that more and more prisons are
being run by private corporations and
that prison labor is often being used
to produce goods and services for
sale by other corporations. But when
we picture prisons we don't usually
think of the fastest growing segment
of the prison population-women.
TheEndofWelfareasWeKnewIt
No one liked welfare as it existed,
but thanks to cruel, short-sighted reform, women now usually face the
end of welfare benefits after two years,
often with inadequate job training,
childcare and transportation. In addition, the demand for entry-level
jobs will far out-strip the supply.
Existing jobs frequently provide no
benefits, and the wages are too low
for a woman to pay out-of-pocket for
adequate healthcare, childcare, food,
shelter, utilities and clothing. As bad
as welfare was, a woman trying to
support children with a minimum
wage job is often worse off.
On TV we hear rosy stories about
the extraordinary (and lucky) individuals who "make it." But many
more women-and their children-will
be forced to turn to illegal activities to

make ends meet. Hot checks, forgeries, prostitution, shoplifting, burglary,
and drug-dealing are fairly certain
routes to eventual incarceration.
Women who cannot find jobs that
adequately support their families will

The inequalities
that exist outside of
prison continue behind
locked doors ...
Poor women serve the
hardest time.

more and more often find themselves
separated from their children and involuntarily employed in the corporate workforce behind bars.
The trend toward economically
driven incarceration for women has
been in place for more than a decade.
Up into the early 1980sthe most typical sentence for an incarcerated
woman in Arkansas was for seconddegree murder. Most had killed their
batterers, often after years or even
decades of abuse. In the wake of
Reaganomics, convictions for property crimes became the most common. In this decade, the war on drugs
has made illegal-substance convicPage 4 • Transformation
• Fall 1999

tions almost as frequent. We may see
a new rise in convictions for violent
crimes as women become more involved in the drug trade, and more
women may wind up killing their
batterers as the economic barriers to
leaving abusive relationships continue to grow.
TellingIt LikeIt Is
These are the cold facts, but do
we have a concrete picture of what
doing time means for a woman in
Arkansas? I know that I didn't before
I went into the Women's Unit in Pine
Bluff in the late 1980s to speak to the
Domestic ViolenceAwareness group.
As I talked with the prisoners and
with Women's Project staff who have
worked there for years, my eyes were
opened.
I felt completely at ease with the
women I met inside and thoroughly
enjoyed my conversations with them.
Asa formerly battered woman, I could
readily see how I might have wound
up beside them, if I had had only
slightly fewer resources or lucky
breaks. Yet their lives as prisoners are
very different from mine. In many
ways it is an experience, like battering, that only those who go through it
can understand completely. Those of
us on the outside can only begin to
comprehend if we ask questions and
listen to the answers.
For this article, Felicia Davidson,
who does HIV/ AIDS education and
Domestic Violence education in the
prisons, asked the women currently
incarcerated in Newport in the new
prison run for profit by Wackenhut
Corporation to share some of their
day-to-day reality with Transformation readers.

Women
in Prison
Intake
When a woman goes through intake, she is issued the standard uniform she must wear, and if her hair is
long, it is cut to shoulder length. Only
sneakers are allowed; women who
need orthopedic-type shoes find it
very difficult to obtain permission
for them, even if they must work long
hours on their feet. Women receive
three pairs of socks, three bras, and
three pairs of underpants from the
State. This underwear is not necessarilynew. Even though these shoddy
garments quickly become ragged
from frequent washing, it may be
months before a woman will be issued replacements. Each woman receives one roll of toilet paper once a
week. Once a month she gets a small
tube of toothpaste and twenty-four
sanitary pads. Twice a month she
receives a small bar of hand soap. The
women have learned not to send anything but their uniforms to the laundry; other items disappear. If a
woman wants to stay clean, she will
have to stretch each bar of soap to
wash herself and her underwear.
Additional toiletries and underwear
are available at a high price from the
commissary. Toiletries are collected
by United Methodist Women to be
distributed to women who cannot
otherwise afford to purchase things
that most of us would consider essential, such as deodorant and shampoo.
Women who apply for these "indigent supplies" are often humiliated
by the staff.
The inequalities that exist outside of prison continue behind locked
doors; women who have access to
money from the outside do not have
the same experience as women who
have nothing. Poor women serve the
hardest time in prison and, since economics is tied to race in our country,
women of color usually serve harder
time than most white women do.
Many also complain of racist treat-

ment from guards and of favoritism
towards white prisoners.
TheDaysPass
However, no one is having fun.
Consider the typical day at Newport.
The women must get up, dress, make
their beds by 5:15 am and be lined up
for the head count in the hallway by
5:25. No talking is allowed in the
hallway. After count, the women col-

Lock down means
more prisoners can
be controlled by
fewer guards with
less training.

lect their breakfast trays, which have
been sitting out for as much as an
hour, long enough to become thoroughly cold and unappetizing.
Women who have jobs then report to them. Most work in the kitchens that serve the men's and women's
units or mop the unit's floors or they
mow the grounds or hoe down the
weeds in the ditches. A few (almost
always white women) have clerical
jobs.Somewomen who have sentences
that are long enough (but not too long)
are allowed to attend classes for a
GEDor Vo-techtraining. Women serving life have no educational privileges.
Some women may do hard labor
Page 5 •Transformation• Fall 1999

for 12 or more hours a day, especially
when an inspection is coming up and
the staff want the place to be spotless
inside and out. But more complain of
havingabsolutelynothingtodo;there
are about 625 women in the unit and
only about 75jobs. Women who have
no jobs or classes pass their time by
listening to the radio, if they are fortunate enough to own one. They can
check out one book at a time from the
prison library, or they can buy books
directly from a publisher, if they can
afford to. If they are not locked down,
prisoners can watch TV-the great
American pacifier-from 10 a.m. till
lights out at 10:30 p.m. The women
might spend time gazing longingly at
the five pictures of loved ones they
are allowed to have. They may write
or read staff-censored letters.
Most of the women are idle and
bored most of the time. The women
say that they are often "locked down"
three, four or more days a week. All
the women ofonewingwill be locked
in their cells at the same time. They
are only allowed out of their cells to
collect meals and for one hour of exercise. Often the excuse for the lock
down is an infraction of rules by one
individual. But the real reason it happens so frequently is that high employee turnover leaves the prison
chronically understaffed. Lock down
means more prisoners can be controlled by fewer guards with less training. In a for-profit prison, maximizing
control while minimizing costs equals
higher profits. Newport does not yet
have any corporate contracts using
prison labor to produce goods or services, but profit still runs the show.
HumanRightsViolations
InonerespectthewomeninNewport are more fortunate than many
women in prison in the U.S. It appears that male guards are not conducting strip searches on women prisoners, although sometimes men have

Women
in Prison
been watching women when they
shower. In prisons, where male
guards have nearly total control over
female prisoners, sexual harassment,
exploitation and abuse are inevitable.
However, we dip. not ask the women
at Newport to tell us specifics about
this aspect of their lives, because
women who report such things in
prison are considered "snitches" and
suffer brutal retaliation. Prisons attempt to operate as closed societies,
above the scrutiny and judgement of
outsiders. Hopefully, that may
change: the United Nations, Amnesty
International, and other human rights
groups are currently investigating the
sexual mistreatment of female inmates in U.S. prisons.
Nearly all the women who helped
us with this article feel their human
rights are being violated. In addition
to the frequent lock downs, women
cite the inconsistent arbitrary rules,
which change from guard to guard
and from day to day. Besides the
threat of lock down, infractions of the
rules mean getting "written up" and
losing such privileges as a job, vocational training, visits with your children. It can also mean the loss of
"good time" which would mean earlier release. Many women feel that
they are written up based purely on a
guard's personal animosity or racist
prejudice. A woman who voices objection to unfair treatment or abuse
will instantly be written µp. Women
are written up for showing any strong
emotion whatsoever: loud laughter,
crying, hugging or touching. Although battering has been a part of
most female prisoners' lives, many
used to come to the Domestic Violence group simply to have an opportunity to joke and laugh or cry and
hug one another-to be themselves for
one hour a week. Many women
housed in the previous units in Pine
Bluff and Tucker looked forward to
attending chapel as a source of solace

and emotional release. There is no
chapel in Newport.
Inadequate medical and dental
care is a consistent complaint. The
women say that in some cases preventable deaths have been the result.
Inmates with
serious medical
conditions are
not receiving
• special diets
their doctors

u.~!:~~!:~~,:f
• prescribe.
Older
inmates and
those with disabilities have an especially hard time.
Many women also worry about unsanitary conditions in the kitchens.
When asked how they are treated
by the guards most women say: "like
a dog," "worse than an animal," "like
a piece of trash," "sub-human." Such
treatment makes them feel: "worthless," "like a child," "crazy," "as big
as an ant." Some say that the guards
may praise them one day and humiliate them the next. On the other hand
a very few say that the guards treat
them well and make them feel safe,
an indication that prison is indeed
not the same experience for all women
inside,and thatfavoritismisareality.
Unfair, unequal, and inconsistent
treatment are undoubtedly tolerated
by prison authorities as a further
means of achieving control. By pitting prisoners against one another
they deflect anger away from themselves. Through inconsistency they
keep women hoping and competing
for crumbs of approval. By exaggerating and exploiting racial and economic inequalities they keep prisoners divided and easier to control.

TheNameoftheGame
Clearly the name of the game is
control. Many aspects of prison life
bear an uncanny resemblance to a
battering relationship. One inmate,
when asked to describe a typical day
Page 6 • Transformation• Fall 1999

inside, replied: "Like being in a marriage with someone who's mad at
you all the time." Kerry Lobel, the
founder of our prison program, remarked to me years ago, that battered women frequently make the
best adjustment to prison. They are
already used to having every aspect
of their lives controlled, to the constant but unpredictable threat of punishment under rules that change on a
whim.
Every effort is made to isolate
incarcerated women from anyone on
theoutsidewhomaycareaboutthem.
Visitation is very limited and often
denied as punishment. Families and
friends of prisoners are treated like
suspected criminals themselves. Not
only is mail read and censored, prisoners' families may have the mail
they send returned if it contains disapproved items, such as a child's
drawing or a bookmark with a Bible
quotation. Prisoners' mail must be
destroyed or sent home after 90 days.
The inmate telephone system is inexplicably "down" for days at a time,
frequently on holidays. Women may
register only two new numbers for
calls pet year.

TheProducts
ofWackenhut
Most women in prison are not
hardened violent people. They are
people who made bad choices in circumstances that only offered them
poorchoicesornoneatall. Yet women
often receive harsher sentences and
have more difficulty getting parole
than men who face the same charges.
On some level, the "justice" system
seems to expect bad behavior from
men-boys will be boys-but "bad
girls" get the book thrown at them.
Nevertheless, most incarcerated
women will return to the community. Doing time in Wackenhut's
prison at Newport only seems likely
to send a woman back to us with
greatly reduced economic resources,

-

Women
in Prison
stigmatized in the eyes of her community and potential employers, estranged from her family, unused to
making any decisions for herself, and
well-trained to be a good battered
wife. Is a GED _orVo-tech training
enough to offset these handicaps?
Why should Wackenhut care? Why
should the staff be more humane or
offer true rehabilitation? Recidivism
means job security and happy stockholders.

WhyShouldWe Care?
Conditions in Newport are not as
bad as they are in many American
prisons, and certainly there are much
worse prisons elsewhere in the world.
However, the countries with worse
systems are not making any serious
attempt at democratic government.
And this is why we have to care: the
epidemic of incarceration and the
worsening treatment of all prisoners-men, women and juveniles-are
symptomatic of the growing failure
of democracy in America.
When we as a society decide that
increasing the wealth of the upper
10% is more important than lifting
families out of poverty, then democracy is in danger. When we can see
the drug use of Bill Clinton and Governor George Bush as youthful excess, but rush to lock up inner-city
kids of color who get
caught with the
same substances,
equality becomes
a cynical joke.
When we decide to
tolerate the incarceration of a large segment
of our population for the crime of
being poor, then liberty is in peril. No
one I know feels safer because more
jails have been built; most feel more
frightened than ever. We speak of
criminals as "hardened," but as a
people we are becoming morally
hardened· to the plight of those less

advantaged than ourselves. Empathy is an endangered emotion, while
fear, blame and self-righteousness
thrive. Democracy will continue to
decline as relations between generations, races and economic classes
grow ever more adversarial.
Thirty years ago, Arkansas was
disgraced by revelations of corruption, torture and even murder in its
prison system, which was one of only
afewrunata profit bythestateatthat
time. Now, for-profit prison systems
are common and respectable commercial ventures around the nation;
there is little outcry about the enormous potential for abuse or about the
moral contradictions of using involuntary prison labor-slave labor-to
enrich corporations in a so-called democracy. Our acceptance of corporate involvement in prisons goes
along with the growing involvement
of corporations in every aspect of our
civic lives-public schools, universities, mass media, campaign financing and legislative lobbying. "Government" has become a bad word in
the mouths of corporate-owned politicians and journalists, yet we are quietly turning the functions of governmentover to corporations, which have
no commitment to the common good
and little accountability to citizens.

WhatWeCanDo
Little attention is paid to complaints from prisoners and their families; other voices need to be raised.
However, facts and figures only motivate us to work for change if we can
connect them to our own lives. With
our low rates of savings and our high
rates of debt, most working Americans are only two or three missed
paychecks from homelessness. If we
can imagine the possibility of being
locked up for writing bad checks,
being locked down 23 hours a day,
trying to get by on one roll of toilet
paper a week and 24 Kotex a month,
Page 7 •Transformation• Fall 1999

wearing ragged underwear and having to beg for deodorant and shampoo, we might find the outrage we
need to make our opinions heard on
prison issues.
We can write to the UN and
Amnesty International and ask them
to continue their investigations. We
can write the Arkansas Department
of Corrections and Wackenhut and
tell them we want an end to unnecessary lock downs, better supplies and
better health care, humane treatment,
meaningful rehabilitation, drug treatment and education, including college courses available to all prisoners. Will thatbeexpensive?Youbetit
will. Prison should not be cheap, let
alone profitable. If we want to save
money, we should find ways to drastically reduce the number of people
we lock up.
Governor Huckabee, in an uncharacteristic, giddy moment of humanity, said recently that we should
consider making drug treatment available to non-violent drug offenders instead of locking them up. Please write
and praise him for this idea, encourage him to follow through, then write
our legislators and tell them you want
them to fund drug treatment.
We can also take every opportunity to oppose the construction of
new prisons and the use of prison
labor for profit-making ventures. We
can let our government know that
only the kind of security that would
result from racial and economic justice will make us feel safe. We can
object to the high price of prosperity
for a few and the costs of government
bail-outs and other welfare for corporations. We can begin to question the
role corporations play in our civic
lives and the resulting decline in
democratic government. We have a
lot of protesting and persuading to
do, but as the African American poetwarrior Audre Lorde said, our si■
lence will not protect us.

Wotnen and HIV/AIDS Project:
Past, Present and Future
n the late1980s, when
HIV/ AIDS began to
reach epidemic proportions in Arkansas, it became
clear that certain populations were
being ignored by the Health
Department and even by local
organizations whose purpose was
mv / AIDS outreach. Among these
neglected groups were women of
color, rural women, teenagers,
prisoners and prostitutes. The
Women's Project has been heavily
involved in reaching out to these
groups with training, information
and materials to contain the spread
of HIV/ AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases.

History
oftheWomen
andHIV/AIDS
Project
• The Women's Project
CDC
organized
a 19-hour
certified HIV counselors training
course for female inmates at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. From 19901997, 168 participants have been
trained to be peer counselors.
• Since November 1991, the
Women's Project has organized
prison-led workshops in which
femaleinm.ateswhocompleted the
CDC course have led two sessions
per month on HIV/ AIDS, sexuality, female reproduction, and forms
of high risk behaviors. Over 550
women incarcerated at the Department of Correction Women's Unit
have completed the training.
• In 1991-1992, Women's

Project staff and prison residents
developed a project manual entitled HIV/ AIDS and Reproductive Health: A Peer Trainers Guide.
This guide has been distributed to
over 600 organizations interested
in starting prison-based programs.
• Since 1992, the staff of the

Very

little information is

presented to women by
prison systems regarding
HIV/AIDS and other STDs,
and health departments
have been slow with
funds for prevention
education.

Women's Project has presented
yearly preventative education programs on HIV/ AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases to students
at Philander Smith College, an historically black college, and the
University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. Over 350 students have attended these sessions.
• In 1993and 1994,Women's
Project staff provided preventative
educationonHIV / AIDSandother
Page 8 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Felicia Davidson

STD's and information on reproductive health to students at
Pulaski Heights Jr. High School
and Horace Mann Magnet School.
• In 1993, the Women's
Project sponsored a 19-hour training for African-American women
to be certified HIV counselors
through the Centers for Disease
Control. Eleven women completed
the training and they have provided HIV/ AIDS preventive education to 250 people, including
African American lesbians and gay
men, young people and prostitutes.
• In 1995, Women's Project
staff established seven HIV/ AIDS
information centers in rural communities in the Arkansas delta region. Five are still in operation.
• The Women's Project was
one of the first organizers of Dining Out for Life, a yearly special
event to raise money to support
local organizations who provide
services or information on HIV/
AIDS. We have participated in the
annual planning and program of
the Arkansas commemoration of
World AIDS Day to raise public
awareness of HIV and AIDS.
• Since 1998, Women's
Project staff has presented weekly
sessions on HIV/ AIDS, safer sex,
and sexuality to over 300 women
at the Pulaski County Detention
Center Women's Unit, and
monthly HIV/ AIDS prevention
sessions to the recovery community (Second Genesis & Wolfe
House) and to the men at the Ar-

Property of the Center

kansas Department of Correction
in Tucker and Wrightsville.
• In 1999, Women's Project
staff presented HIV/ AIDS training to foster parents and children
in the Department of Human Services program. By late April, 25
children and 30 parents had received the training.
• In August 1999, The
Women's project co-operated with
Brothas and Sistas to present 20
hours of peer counselor and leadership training to rural and urban
youth. Nine young people completed the training and went back
to their communities to teach other
teens what they learned about
HIV/ AIDS and other STD's.

and African American and Hispanic inmates are at greatest risk
for HIV infection. Injection drug
use, other illicit drug use, unprotected sex, and tattooing are all
risk behaviors for HIV. As longer
drug sentences increase the likelihood of jailhouse transmission,
there are severe cutbacks in education programs generally,combined
with longstanding
bans on
condoms and bleach to clean
needles. These conditions cripple
attempts to confront the central
-------1

-

--

-

We

--

---

-

will continue to

provide information,

OurHIV/AIDS
Outreach
to Womenin Prison
According to the Special Report on HIV in Prisons and Jails
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997)
prison and jail inmates are at
greater risk of being HIV positive
and contracting AIDS because of
their comparatively high rates of
drug abuse. The incidence of AIDS
is six times higher for prisoners
than the general population. The
rate of death because of AIDS is
about three times higher in the
prison population than in the total
U.S. population. MostwomenHIV
positive women in prison will
eventually return to their communities, potentially infecting others.
From 1991 to 1995 the number
of male inmates infected with HIV
in state prisons increased 28 percent while the number of female
inmates infected increased at a
much faster rate, 88 percent. Recent studies show that female inmates, inmates age 25 or younger,

support and resources to
women incarcerated in the
Pulaski County Detentioin
Center and the Arkansas
Department of Correction's
Women's Unit.

crisis of prison AIDS epidemic:
discrimination, lack of prevention
and inconsistent, often negligent,
care (HIV InSite, May 17, 1997).
Very little information is presented to women by prison systems regarding HIV/ AIDS and
other STDs, and health departments have been slow with funds
for prevention education. Prior to
entering prison, the majority have
not had access to information about
Page 9 •Transformation• Fall 1999

HIV and AIDS, basic reproduction
and sexuality, opportunities to talk
about their bodies and sex, let alone
coping with being HIV positive.
The lack of knowledge about HIV
and AIDS is reflected in the myths
and misconceptions that are expressed through inmates' fears
about sharing close living quarters
with other women upon entering
prison. This contributes to the discrimination against and isolation
of women who are HIV positive.
The training the Women's
Project has been providing at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit helps dispel
the myths and fears surrounding
HIV, AIDS and other STDs. In
developing the training sessions
we felt that it was necessary to
devise a program which would
cultivate the leadership of the female inmates. Research has shown
that peer education programs are
an effective and promising way to
address problems of HIV/ AIDS.
According to an August 1998 report, inmate infection rates
dropped from 13.9 percent in 1995
to 10.7percent in 1997in New York
State's prison population, which
has extensive peer-education programs. But only 13 percent of state
and federal institutions have such
peer-led HIV programs (Esther
Kaplan, "Organizing Inside," POZ,
November 1998).
The Women's Project initiated
a peer-led training program, which
focuses on HIV, AIDS, STDs, sexuality, and reproductive health.
Since 1990, 168 women incarcerated at the Arkansas Department
of Correction Women's Unit have
been certified to become peer counselors. They hold semi-monthly

workshops at the Women's Unit
for 15-25incarcerated women participants.
We are uncertain about the HIV
status of women who participate
in the classes we provide at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. Although
some women talk with Women's
Project staff or peer counselors in
confidence about their HIV positive status, most inmates are unwilling to be open about being HIV
positive. They must be very careful about sharing this information
because of the very real fear of
being ostracized, humiliated or
physically attacked. For this reason we hold regularly scheduled
classes to provide an easy opportunity for all women to attend without the threat of stigma.
We plan to look for ways to
increase participation of women
who are HIV positive in order to
give them a more active voice in
identifying their concerns and priorities.

OurGoalsforFuture
HIV/AIDS
Outreach
In the future we will continue
to provide information, support
and resources to women incarcerated in the Pulaski County Detention Center and the Arkansas Department of Correction Women's
Unit. Meanwhile, we will work in
coalition locally and nationally to
affect policies regarding women in
prison and to raise community
awareness about prison issues
Because we want to give HIV
positive women a more active voice
in identifying their concerns and
priorities, we will attempt to increase their participation and leadership of in this program. We will

give information and examples of
how the voices of HIV positive
incarcerated women have made a
difference in other successful programs. We will ask HIV positive
women for their help in finding
ways to make it less threatening

Empowerment

is

especially important to
the people participating
in our HIV/AIDS Project,
since they have often
experienced little control
over their lives.

for them to be heard in a prison
context of fear, homophobia, discriminationandisolation. Through
confidential interviews with formerly incarcerated HIV positive
women regarding their experiences we hope to gather suggestions for programming and potential contacts within the prison
population. This should enable us
to offer increased opportunities for
participation and leadership. We
will continue to strengthen our ties
with previously incarcerated
women through contacts with
"chem-free houses" and other recovery community organizations;
their insights will help us develop
new strategies for HIV/ AIDS prevention education for incarcerated
women.
Page 10 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Beyond our prison work, we
will continue to emphasize outreach to the HIV/ AIDS community as part of the Women's
Project's community organizing
through the Neighbor to Neighbor
Project. We want to provide leadership training for HIV positive
women and increase their participation and leadership in the work
of the Women's Project. Because
we recognize the special devastation caused by HIV/ AIDS in the
Black community we want to provide additional training for African American women who then
spread that information to other
African American women in urban and rural areas. We hope to
speak to more students and youth
groups, to distribute our HIV/
AIDS peer-training manual and
safer-sex kits. We would like to
bring more teens and young adults
on board as peer counselors.

HowtheHIV/AIDS
ProjectFitsWithin
MissionoftheWomen's
Project
The Mission Statement of the
Women's Project states that our
goal is the empowerment of individuals and communities oppressed by social and economic
injustice to act on their own behalf.
This is our goal with the Women
and HIV/ AIDS Project. We begin
this task by addressing the needs
of women with HIV/ AIDS and
those who are at risk through our
prevention education and peer
counseling training programs. We
will make additional efforts to increase the participation of women
with HIV/ AIDS, although their
HIV status may be known only to
us, since they hesitate to identify
themselves or draw attention to
themselves. We will offer leader-

ship training for HIV positive
women and women with AIDS,
so that they may better articulate
their needs and shape the direction of our work.
In order to do our work with
a small staff, ahd to help others
see the linkages among the oppressions
women face, the
Women's Project relies on coalition building. We work in coalition locally and nationally to affect policies regarding women
with HIV/ AIDS, in prison and
out, and to raise community
awareness about HIV/ AIDS issues. We work in coalition with
the Arkansas Progressive Network, the Arkansas Equality Network, the Southern Progressive
Agenda, Economic Organizing
Project, and the Prison Project, and
we participate in the National
AIDS Conference.

Our goal, in The Women and
HWIAIDSProject,as in all ourwork,
is to empower the peoplewe serve.
They are the ones who can best
identify and meet their own needs.
Empowermentis especiallyimportant
to thepeopleparticipatingin ourHWI
AIDS Project,since they have often
experiencedlittle control over their
lives. We believe that control over
one'slifebeginswith controloverone's
body.Healthinfonnationandthetools
to protectone's health are the first
place to seize that control.Perhaps
this is why womenwho receiveHWI
AIDS trainingoftentell us that it has
had such a strong impact on their
self-esteemand their outlookon life.
Thisis especiallytruefor incarcerated
women who experiencealmost total
dis-empowennent.We are proud to
make HIV/AIDS outreach a
continuingpart of our work.
■

: , •

Lynn Frost

New Books in the Women's Project Library
Prison Madness:
The Mental
Health Crisis
Behind Bars and
What We Must
Do About It by Terry Kupers,
M.D. Oossey-Bass) " ... reveals
the disturbing realities of prisons
and jails as places of coerced
refuge for poor and mentally
disordered people ... and shows
us how to contest the racism and
criminalization of poverty that
have helped to produce these
dangerous dilemmas." ... Angela
Davis
Mother Troubles: Rethinking
Contemporary Maternal
Dilemmas, edited by Julia
Hanigsberg & Sara Ruddick
(Beacon Press). Why are mothers who collect welfare stigmatized for not working, while
other mothers are vilified for
working? What obligations do
divorcing parents have to their
children? What rights should a
lesbian co-mother have if she and
her partner separate? These and
other important questions are
explored by legal theorists,
ethicists and religious thinkers in
this timely reading.
Bruised Fruit, a novel by Anna
Livia (Firebrand Books) is an
astringently humorous, noholds-barred story of a lesbian
escapee from an abusive relation-

Page 11 • Transformation• Fall 1999

ship, a dainty hermaphrodite with a
Southern drawl, and a bisexual
with a trust fund who inexorably, it
seems, kills every man she sleeps
with. These three, along with a
tantalizing array of minor characters, are thrown together in San
Francisco... and fate gathers them at
the home of a feminist therapist.
The Intuitionist by Colson
Whitehead (Anchor Books) It is a
time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Dept. of Elevator
Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson,
the first black female elevator
inspector is at the center of it. A
dead-serious and seriously funny
feat of the imagination, this novel is
a brilliant debut by an exceptional
young talent. In the tradition of
Ralph Ellison, Colson Whitehead
artfully crosses back and forth over
racial, political, and aesthetic
borders to create a work of stunning depth, soulfulness, and originality, starring one of the most
lovable heroines of all time.
Flying Cups & Saucers: Gender
Explorations in Science Fiction
and Fantasy, edited by Debbie
Notkin & the Secret Feminist
Cabal. In this book of stories
you'll find explorations of gender
that far outstrip the ones in the
everyday news and the talk
shows. And more new ways of
looking at gender than you would
think could fit into one book.

i

n
nnua1
Holiday Open House

&
Silent Auction

Renew old Ea~qualf'.ltan,ce~
and mee~new
frlengs

QVEii
~pllgay refreshments tit the

Women's Project from 5:00 to 7:90pm.

••
••
••
•••
•
•••
••
••
••
'?ii•
••
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•
•··
•••
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•
••·
••
•

Transformation

Published four times a year
by the Women's Project,
2224 Main Street,
Editor
Llttle Rock, Arkansas, 72206.
Phone: 501-372-5113
Production
email: wproject@aol.com
Art Director
WEB: http:/ /members.aol.com/wproject

Amy Edgington
Felicia Davidson

WISH LIST
ForHIVPrevention
Work
• 1" Binders
• 3x5 Index Cards
• Flipchart pads
• Markers, all colors

ForMeetings
• Paper towels
• Toilet paper
• Liquid soap
• Coffee cups
• Bottled water

ForGeneralOffice
• Packing tape
• Lined 8"xl 1" note pads
• File folders, letter size
• Photocopy paper,
all colors
• Diskettes, high density

Transformation is also
available as an ASCII file
and on audiotape.
,. Printed on recycled paper. ,.

Melissa Britton

Page 12 • Transfonnation • Fall 1999

©1999 The Women's Project



Property of the Center

■

orm
Vol. 13 Issue4
Fall1999

10n

The Criminalizationof Youth
Suzanne Pharr

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Amy Edgington - Little Rock
Sarah Facen - Little Rock

Sandra Mitchell - Little Rock
Freddie Nixon - Little Rock
Tammy Roberson - Little Rock

Annette Shead - Little Rock
Celia Wildroot - Hot Springs
Precious Williams - Ogden
Yvonne Croston - Little Rock
Judy Davis - Hope

Katrina Paxton - Conway
Quiana Porter - Little Rock

INSIDE
Women in Prison:
The Concrete
Realities
-page4

Women and HIV/
AIDS Project
-pageB

Booknotes
-page 10

Join Us!
-page 13

• U.S. children are five times more likely
to be killed than those in the rest of
the industrialized world.
• Youth in the U.S. are twice as likely to
commit suicide as their counter-parts
in industrialized countries; suicide
rates have quadrupled
among
children under 15.
• U.S. youth are 12 times more likely to
die by gunfire than those in other
industrialized countries; guns are the
primary cause of homicides among
children. (1997 Centersfor Disease
Controlreport)
• Twenty-three percent of all crime
victims, almost one in four, are
juveniles.
• Of the nearly 150,000rape victims in
1992, one out of five was under 18.
• Homicide is the second leading cause
of death among 15-24year olds.
• Between 1984 and 1991, the juvenile
homicide rate almost tripled.
• One out of five young Americans will
have committed a serious violent
offense by age 18.
• African-American and Hispanic males
have the highest rates of violent crime
victimization, with African-Americans between the ages of 16-19
having a higher rate than any other
age or ethnic group. (1992 Department of Justicereport)
• 95,000 youths were incarcerated in
the U.S. in 1994, an increase of 20%
since 1980. (Centerfor the Future of
Children)

• For every two youth (ages 0-19)
murdered in 1994, one youth
committed suicide.
• From 1992 through 1995, 41 states
passed laws making it easier for
juveniles to be tried as adults.
• In 1996, the one-day count of youth
under age 18 held in adult jails was
8,100. (National Center for Juvenile
Justice,1998)
• In Arkansas it costs between $40,000
and $60,000 a year to house a youth
in the Youth Services Division. (ArkansasDemocrat-Gazette,
12/4/98)
• The U.S. is now building more prisons
(Justice Policy
than universities.
Institute, 1997)

W

hatever are we to make of
this distressing list of facts
and figures? At the very
least, I believe we can agree that
something has gone very wrong in a
country where, for the first time in
history, children in non-war environments are killing children, children
are increasingly committing suicide,
and children are primary targets of a
consumer culture. In response to the
crisis in the lives of young people, this
country has made an all-out effort to
create more laws to restrain youth from
congregating with their peers in public
spaces and from being able to move
about freely (curfews), to move youth
through the criminal justice system as
(continuedon page2)

The Criminilization
of Youth
adults, and to regard their actions as
criminally suspect if they are youth
of color. Through massive antitaxation efforts, which have often
pitted older people against the
young, funding for services to
support families, schools, childcare,
healthcare, recreation, and basic
human needs such as food, clothing
and housing have been cut
drastically.
I believe our young are suffering
because there is little infrastructure
to support them and their families,
because large numbers of them are
no longer essential to the economy,
beca115ethis society hascontradictory
attitudes toward youth, and because
they, as a group, do not have power
to defend themselves from the
onslaughts against them-that is, they
are unable to amass large sums of
money, to be independent of adults,
and to vote to make political change.
First, let's take a look at society's
contradictory attitudes toward
youth. Over the past 20 years, youth
and adults have become increasingly
alienated from one another. As a
symptom of this alienation, adults
today tend to have unrealistic, unfair
and contradictory images of youth.
Here are some examples of the
contradictions:
• Americans romanticize the
young. Youth is considered the time
of innocence, of simplicity, of good
bodies and good times. As baby
boomers grow older, many long to
be associated with youth, to be young
themselves.
• Romanticizing
youth and
longing to be young supports a
commodified youth culture. The idea
of innocence, good bodies, and
rebelliousness is used to sell goods,
targeted both to youth and to older

people. Though characterized as
innocent, youth are constantly
eroticized and sexualized by
advertising and the media. Youth
culture is essential to today's
consumerism.
• While extolling the innocence of
youth that needs protection, our
society has taken away the services
and entitlements that support
families. The majority of people on

For the first time in
history, children in
non-war environments
are killing children,
children are increasingly
considering suicide, and
children are primary
targets of a consumer
culture.

welfare are children; over 20% of all
children live in poverty. Physical and
sexual violence against children
within families of all classes is
rampant. An observer could easily
assume that our culture hates
children.
• Youth are also seen as predators,
members of gangs, mass murderers,
thieves, out of control-as enemies of

Page 2 • Transformation•Fall 1999

society who should be restrained,
controlled, tried as adults in criminal
courts, and locked up.
Though there has always been
adult control of the lives of youth
and along with it, oppression, there
is now a dramatic change in the
attitudes of adults toward young
people. This change centers around
the idea of young people as
sexualized marketing targets and
simultaneously-for
poor youth
especially-as
violent predators.
Youth are now faced with prejudice
against themselves.
If one defines oppression (such as
racism or sexism) as institutional
power plus prejudice, one would
have to argue that, today, youth are
oppressed. They have no institutional
power, and prejudice against them
as a group permeates the culture. If
one looks at the common elements
of oppression, they all apply to the
treatment of youth: they lack social
and economic equality; they are
stereotyped,
demonized,
and
dehumanized;
they experience
isolation and tokenization, selfblame, societal blame, and internalized oppression; their sense of
powerlessness leads to horizontal
hostility, as evidenced in youth
killing other youth. Overall, they are
controlled by violence (often from
birth onward) and by lack of
economic access and independence.
In a power analysis, we usually
examine the idea of power over,
looking at how one group of people
has power over another and attempts
to control them. Adults maintain
consistent power over youth, limiting
their access to money, mobility,
association, information, medication,
reproductive choice and the uses of
their bodies for sexual pleasure.
Information in the classroom, on the

The Criminilization
of Youth
internet, or in libraries is restricted,
for example, and youth are left to
gain from hearsay some of the most
important information they need.
And, as we all know, people without
power seek power and survival
where they can.
One place where youth can seek
personal power is through sexual
expression, whether or not condoned
by adults, with or without condoms
or the pill, in positive or destructive
relationships. It is not surprising that
youth sometimes find themselves in
sexual trouble-unwanted
pregnancies, STDs, etc.-since they are
not allowed access to the complete
information they need. Another place
of power is through personal and
gang violence. A gun, which can be
easily obtained by youth, gives a
great sense of personal power, as
does the collective energy of gangs.
Gangs also provide what families
often do not: dynamic relationships,
discipline, purpose, a sense of
belonging.
Because they cannot vote, youth
have no voice in preventing the
creation of the public policies that
harm them; they, for example, have
been unable to vote on the anti-tax
initiatives that have cut and restricted
public funding of schools, libraries,
social services, etc. Nor were they
able to depose the politicians who
worked to eliminate welfare and to
leave them impoverished, or those
who have systematically eliminated
civil rights and liberties. They cannot
mobilize very easily to oppose the
lobby of the National Rifle Associati.onand to bring an end to the easy
access to the guns which are killing
them daily. They cannot vote to
throw out of office all those
politicians who work daily to cut
back or eliminate every program that

supports the well-being of families
and children.
Beyond the fact that over one-fifth
of our children are living in poverty,
they are also affected economically
by a so-called "boom" economy that
does not need most of them for any
jobs other than unskilled and lowpaid labor. For the hundreds of
thousands who cannot afford the
escalating cost of higher education,
the future is in the fast-food, tourist,
or service industries, performing
whatever jobs cannot be done by
robots. US jobs have been exported,
downsized, and set back. In the first
11 months of 1998,there were 575,000
layoffs, and by year's end they broke
the old record of 615,00layoffs set in
1993.(d,allenger, Gray & Christmas)
There are fewer and fewer jobs-with
benefits and a living wage-for
young people entering the job
market. Few can hope to do as well
as their parents did economically
both in income and also in such ways
as owning their own homes or having
retirement pensions.
The future is bleak for youth, and
the number of teenagers is likely to
increase by 20% over the next 15
years. What is to be done with all of
these youth? Sadly, the current
answer seems to be that if they cannot
get the education and the jobs to
make them consumers, then we must
make more laws to control them and
build more prisons to warehouse
them. If there are no jobs in the free
world economy, we put them in
private prisons which provide cheap,
enslaved labor to corporations.
However, we could take a different approach here. At the heart of it
is fair and just taxation that is used
to provide for human needs-and this
means making corporations, as well
as individuals, pay their fair share.

Page 3 • Transformation• Fall 1999

To save our children, we have to
establish a human rights agenda that
provides education, liveable-wage
jobs, safety, healthcare, food, clothing
and shelter in a fair and equitable
way that demands an end to racism,
sexism, and all the oppressions that
stand in the way of justice. This
agenda will cost money, but no more
money than is currently in circulation
paying for military hardware, giveaways to corporations, possessions
and play-toys and stocks and bonds
for the wealthy-and of course, for
building and maintaining
the
criminal justice system and prisons.
It will call for a shift in our values
and in our sense of our responsibility
for one another in community. It
will require, for instance, that we
believe enough in our children to
provide prenatal care, pre-school
and
after-school
programs,
abundant funding for education,
free or affordable healthcare, access
to information, recreation, job
training and opportunities to earn a
living wage. It will require more
than preaching
morality and
threatening punishment to create the
families who nurture and sustain
children; it will take a society that
genuinely believes in families and
children-and puts its money where
its mouth is.
For years Jesse Jackson has said
that it is far, far less costly to educate
a child than to imprison one. We have
yet to take this to heart. In our
treatment of our young, we face the
measurement of ourselves as a
humane and moral society. As of
today, we are failing to measure up;
tomorrow, we have the opportunity
to bring about the changes that allow
young people to live full and healthy
lives with a future they can look
forward to with hope. ■

Woinen in Prison: the Concrete Realities
Amy Edgington

W

hat do we know about
prisons in this country
today? We know that one
in four African American males
stands a chance of going to prison in
his lifetime, due to the unequal enforcement of justice. We know that it
costs far more to incarcerate people
than it does to give them decent education, housing, healthcare and jobs.
We know that America is building
more prisons and incarcerating a
larger segment of its population than
any other industrialized nation. We
know that more and more prisons are
being run by private corporations and
that prison labor is often being used
to produce goods and services for
sale by other corporations. But when
we picture prisons we don't usually
think of the fastest growing segment
of the prison population-women.
TheEndofWelfareasWeKnewIt
No one liked welfare as it existed,
but thanks to cruel, short-sighted reform, women now usually face the
end of welfare benefits after two years,
often with inadequate job training,
childcare and transportation. In addition, the demand for entry-level
jobs will far out-strip the supply.
Existing jobs frequently provide no
benefits, and the wages are too low
for a woman to pay out-of-pocket for
adequate healthcare, childcare, food,
shelter, utilities and clothing. As bad
as welfare was, a woman trying to
support children with a minimum
wage job is often worse off.
On TV we hear rosy stories about
the extraordinary (and lucky) individuals who "make it." But many
more women-and their children-will
be forced to turn to illegal activities to

make ends meet. Hot checks, forgeries, prostitution, shoplifting, burglary,
and drug-dealing are fairly certain
routes to eventual incarceration.
Women who cannot find jobs that
adequately support their families will

The inequalities
that exist outside of
prison continue behind
locked doors ...
Poor women serve the
hardest time.

more and more often find themselves
separated from their children and involuntarily employed in the corporate workforce behind bars.
The trend toward economically
driven incarceration for women has
been in place for more than a decade.
Up into the early 1980sthe most typical sentence for an incarcerated
woman in Arkansas was for seconddegree murder. Most had killed their
batterers, often after years or even
decades of abuse. In the wake of
Reaganomics, convictions for property crimes became the most common. In this decade, the war on drugs
has made illegal-substance convicPage 4 • Transformation
• Fall 1999

tions almost as frequent. We may see
a new rise in convictions for violent
crimes as women become more involved in the drug trade, and more
women may wind up killing their
batterers as the economic barriers to
leaving abusive relationships continue to grow.
TellingIt LikeIt Is
These are the cold facts, but do
we have a concrete picture of what
doing time means for a woman in
Arkansas? I know that I didn't before
I went into the Women's Unit in Pine
Bluff in the late 1980s to speak to the
Domestic ViolenceAwareness group.
As I talked with the prisoners and
with Women's Project staff who have
worked there for years, my eyes were
opened.
I felt completely at ease with the
women I met inside and thoroughly
enjoyed my conversations with them.
Asa formerly battered woman, I could
readily see how I might have wound
up beside them, if I had had only
slightly fewer resources or lucky
breaks. Yet their lives as prisoners are
very different from mine. In many
ways it is an experience, like battering, that only those who go through it
can understand completely. Those of
us on the outside can only begin to
comprehend if we ask questions and
listen to the answers.
For this article, Felicia Davidson,
who does HIV/ AIDS education and
Domestic Violence education in the
prisons, asked the women currently
incarcerated in Newport in the new
prison run for profit by Wackenhut
Corporation to share some of their
day-to-day reality with Transformation readers.

Women
in Prison
Intake
When a woman goes through intake, she is issued the standard uniform she must wear, and if her hair is
long, it is cut to shoulder length. Only
sneakers are allowed; women who
need orthopedic-type shoes find it
very difficult to obtain permission
for them, even if they must work long
hours on their feet. Women receive
three pairs of socks, three bras, and
three pairs of underpants from the
State. This underwear is not necessarilynew. Even though these shoddy
garments quickly become ragged
from frequent washing, it may be
months before a woman will be issued replacements. Each woman receives one roll of toilet paper once a
week. Once a month she gets a small
tube of toothpaste and twenty-four
sanitary pads. Twice a month she
receives a small bar of hand soap. The
women have learned not to send anything but their uniforms to the laundry; other items disappear. If a
woman wants to stay clean, she will
have to stretch each bar of soap to
wash herself and her underwear.
Additional toiletries and underwear
are available at a high price from the
commissary. Toiletries are collected
by United Methodist Women to be
distributed to women who cannot
otherwise afford to purchase things
that most of us would consider essential, such as deodorant and shampoo.
Women who apply for these "indigent supplies" are often humiliated
by the staff.
The inequalities that exist outside of prison continue behind locked
doors; women who have access to
money from the outside do not have
the same experience as women who
have nothing. Poor women serve the
hardest time in prison and, since economics is tied to race in our country,
women of color usually serve harder
time than most white women do.
Many also complain of racist treat-

ment from guards and of favoritism
towards white prisoners.
TheDaysPass
However, no one is having fun.
Consider the typical day at Newport.
The women must get up, dress, make
their beds by 5:15 am and be lined up
for the head count in the hallway by
5:25. No talking is allowed in the
hallway. After count, the women col-

Lock down means
more prisoners can
be controlled by
fewer guards with
less training.

lect their breakfast trays, which have
been sitting out for as much as an
hour, long enough to become thoroughly cold and unappetizing.
Women who have jobs then report to them. Most work in the kitchens that serve the men's and women's
units or mop the unit's floors or they
mow the grounds or hoe down the
weeds in the ditches. A few (almost
always white women) have clerical
jobs.Somewomen who have sentences
that are long enough (but not too long)
are allowed to attend classes for a
GEDor Vo-techtraining. Women serving life have no educational privileges.
Some women may do hard labor
Page 5 •Transformation• Fall 1999

for 12 or more hours a day, especially
when an inspection is coming up and
the staff want the place to be spotless
inside and out. But more complain of
havingabsolutelynothingtodo;there
are about 625 women in the unit and
only about 75jobs. Women who have
no jobs or classes pass their time by
listening to the radio, if they are fortunate enough to own one. They can
check out one book at a time from the
prison library, or they can buy books
directly from a publisher, if they can
afford to. If they are not locked down,
prisoners can watch TV-the great
American pacifier-from 10 a.m. till
lights out at 10:30 p.m. The women
might spend time gazing longingly at
the five pictures of loved ones they
are allowed to have. They may write
or read staff-censored letters.
Most of the women are idle and
bored most of the time. The women
say that they are often "locked down"
three, four or more days a week. All
the women ofonewingwill be locked
in their cells at the same time. They
are only allowed out of their cells to
collect meals and for one hour of exercise. Often the excuse for the lock
down is an infraction of rules by one
individual. But the real reason it happens so frequently is that high employee turnover leaves the prison
chronically understaffed. Lock down
means more prisoners can be controlled by fewer guards with less training. In a for-profit prison, maximizing
control while minimizing costs equals
higher profits. Newport does not yet
have any corporate contracts using
prison labor to produce goods or services, but profit still runs the show.
HumanRightsViolations
InonerespectthewomeninNewport are more fortunate than many
women in prison in the U.S. It appears that male guards are not conducting strip searches on women prisoners, although sometimes men have

Women
in Prison
been watching women when they
shower. In prisons, where male
guards have nearly total control over
female prisoners, sexual harassment,
exploitation and abuse are inevitable.
However, we dip. not ask the women
at Newport to tell us specifics about
this aspect of their lives, because
women who report such things in
prison are considered "snitches" and
suffer brutal retaliation. Prisons attempt to operate as closed societies,
above the scrutiny and judgement of
outsiders. Hopefully, that may
change: the United Nations, Amnesty
International, and other human rights
groups are currently investigating the
sexual mistreatment of female inmates in U.S. prisons.
Nearly all the women who helped
us with this article feel their human
rights are being violated. In addition
to the frequent lock downs, women
cite the inconsistent arbitrary rules,
which change from guard to guard
and from day to day. Besides the
threat of lock down, infractions of the
rules mean getting "written up" and
losing such privileges as a job, vocational training, visits with your children. It can also mean the loss of
"good time" which would mean earlier release. Many women feel that
they are written up based purely on a
guard's personal animosity or racist
prejudice. A woman who voices objection to unfair treatment or abuse
will instantly be written µp. Women
are written up for showing any strong
emotion whatsoever: loud laughter,
crying, hugging or touching. Although battering has been a part of
most female prisoners' lives, many
used to come to the Domestic Violence group simply to have an opportunity to joke and laugh or cry and
hug one another-to be themselves for
one hour a week. Many women
housed in the previous units in Pine
Bluff and Tucker looked forward to
attending chapel as a source of solace

and emotional release. There is no
chapel in Newport.
Inadequate medical and dental
care is a consistent complaint. The
women say that in some cases preventable deaths have been the result.
Inmates with
serious medical
conditions are
not receiving
• special diets
their doctors

u.~!:~~!:~~,:f
• prescribe.
Older
inmates and
those with disabilities have an especially hard time.
Many women also worry about unsanitary conditions in the kitchens.
When asked how they are treated
by the guards most women say: "like
a dog," "worse than an animal," "like
a piece of trash," "sub-human." Such
treatment makes them feel: "worthless," "like a child," "crazy," "as big
as an ant." Some say that the guards
may praise them one day and humiliate them the next. On the other hand
a very few say that the guards treat
them well and make them feel safe,
an indication that prison is indeed
not the same experience for all women
inside,and thatfavoritismisareality.
Unfair, unequal, and inconsistent
treatment are undoubtedly tolerated
by prison authorities as a further
means of achieving control. By pitting prisoners against one another
they deflect anger away from themselves. Through inconsistency they
keep women hoping and competing
for crumbs of approval. By exaggerating and exploiting racial and economic inequalities they keep prisoners divided and easier to control.

TheNameoftheGame
Clearly the name of the game is
control. Many aspects of prison life
bear an uncanny resemblance to a
battering relationship. One inmate,
when asked to describe a typical day
Page 6 • Transformation• Fall 1999

inside, replied: "Like being in a marriage with someone who's mad at
you all the time." Kerry Lobel, the
founder of our prison program, remarked to me years ago, that battered women frequently make the
best adjustment to prison. They are
already used to having every aspect
of their lives controlled, to the constant but unpredictable threat of punishment under rules that change on a
whim.
Every effort is made to isolate
incarcerated women from anyone on
theoutsidewhomaycareaboutthem.
Visitation is very limited and often
denied as punishment. Families and
friends of prisoners are treated like
suspected criminals themselves. Not
only is mail read and censored, prisoners' families may have the mail
they send returned if it contains disapproved items, such as a child's
drawing or a bookmark with a Bible
quotation. Prisoners' mail must be
destroyed or sent home after 90 days.
The inmate telephone system is inexplicably "down" for days at a time,
frequently on holidays. Women may
register only two new numbers for
calls pet year.

TheProducts
ofWackenhut
Most women in prison are not
hardened violent people. They are
people who made bad choices in circumstances that only offered them
poorchoicesornoneatall. Yet women
often receive harsher sentences and
have more difficulty getting parole
than men who face the same charges.
On some level, the "justice" system
seems to expect bad behavior from
men-boys will be boys-but "bad
girls" get the book thrown at them.
Nevertheless, most incarcerated
women will return to the community. Doing time in Wackenhut's
prison at Newport only seems likely
to send a woman back to us with
greatly reduced economic resources,

-

Women
in Prison
stigmatized in the eyes of her community and potential employers, estranged from her family, unused to
making any decisions for herself, and
well-trained to be a good battered
wife. Is a GED _orVo-tech training
enough to offset these handicaps?
Why should Wackenhut care? Why
should the staff be more humane or
offer true rehabilitation? Recidivism
means job security and happy stockholders.

WhyShouldWe Care?
Conditions in Newport are not as
bad as they are in many American
prisons, and certainly there are much
worse prisons elsewhere in the world.
However, the countries with worse
systems are not making any serious
attempt at democratic government.
And this is why we have to care: the
epidemic of incarceration and the
worsening treatment of all prisoners-men, women and juveniles-are
symptomatic of the growing failure
of democracy in America.
When we as a society decide that
increasing the wealth of the upper
10% is more important than lifting
families out of poverty, then democracy is in danger. When we can see
the drug use of Bill Clinton and Governor George Bush as youthful excess, but rush to lock up inner-city
kids of color who get
caught with the
same substances,
equality becomes
a cynical joke.
When we decide to
tolerate the incarceration of a large segment
of our population for the crime of
being poor, then liberty is in peril. No
one I know feels safer because more
jails have been built; most feel more
frightened than ever. We speak of
criminals as "hardened," but as a
people we are becoming morally
hardened· to the plight of those less

advantaged than ourselves. Empathy is an endangered emotion, while
fear, blame and self-righteousness
thrive. Democracy will continue to
decline as relations between generations, races and economic classes
grow ever more adversarial.
Thirty years ago, Arkansas was
disgraced by revelations of corruption, torture and even murder in its
prison system, which was one of only
afewrunata profit bythestateatthat
time. Now, for-profit prison systems
are common and respectable commercial ventures around the nation;
there is little outcry about the enormous potential for abuse or about the
moral contradictions of using involuntary prison labor-slave labor-to
enrich corporations in a so-called democracy. Our acceptance of corporate involvement in prisons goes
along with the growing involvement
of corporations in every aspect of our
civic lives-public schools, universities, mass media, campaign financing and legislative lobbying. "Government" has become a bad word in
the mouths of corporate-owned politicians and journalists, yet we are quietly turning the functions of governmentover to corporations, which have
no commitment to the common good
and little accountability to citizens.

WhatWeCanDo
Little attention is paid to complaints from prisoners and their families; other voices need to be raised.
However, facts and figures only motivate us to work for change if we can
connect them to our own lives. With
our low rates of savings and our high
rates of debt, most working Americans are only two or three missed
paychecks from homelessness. If we
can imagine the possibility of being
locked up for writing bad checks,
being locked down 23 hours a day,
trying to get by on one roll of toilet
paper a week and 24 Kotex a month,
Page 7 •Transformation• Fall 1999

wearing ragged underwear and having to beg for deodorant and shampoo, we might find the outrage we
need to make our opinions heard on
prison issues.
We can write to the UN and
Amnesty International and ask them
to continue their investigations. We
can write the Arkansas Department
of Corrections and Wackenhut and
tell them we want an end to unnecessary lock downs, better supplies and
better health care, humane treatment,
meaningful rehabilitation, drug treatment and education, including college courses available to all prisoners. Will thatbeexpensive?Youbetit
will. Prison should not be cheap, let
alone profitable. If we want to save
money, we should find ways to drastically reduce the number of people
we lock up.
Governor Huckabee, in an uncharacteristic, giddy moment of humanity, said recently that we should
consider making drug treatment available to non-violent drug offenders instead of locking them up. Please write
and praise him for this idea, encourage him to follow through, then write
our legislators and tell them you want
them to fund drug treatment.
We can also take every opportunity to oppose the construction of
new prisons and the use of prison
labor for profit-making ventures. We
can let our government know that
only the kind of security that would
result from racial and economic justice will make us feel safe. We can
object to the high price of prosperity
for a few and the costs of government
bail-outs and other welfare for corporations. We can begin to question the
role corporations play in our civic
lives and the resulting decline in
democratic government. We have a
lot of protesting and persuading to
do, but as the African American poetwarrior Audre Lorde said, our si■
lence will not protect us.

Wotnen and HIV/AIDS Project:
Past, Present and Future
n the late1980s, when
HIV/ AIDS began to
reach epidemic proportions in Arkansas, it became
clear that certain populations were
being ignored by the Health
Department and even by local
organizations whose purpose was
mv / AIDS outreach. Among these
neglected groups were women of
color, rural women, teenagers,
prisoners and prostitutes. The
Women's Project has been heavily
involved in reaching out to these
groups with training, information
and materials to contain the spread
of HIV/ AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases.

History
oftheWomen
andHIV/AIDS
Project
• The Women's Project
CDC
organized
a 19-hour
certified HIV counselors training
course for female inmates at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. From 19901997, 168 participants have been
trained to be peer counselors.
• Since November 1991, the
Women's Project has organized
prison-led workshops in which
femaleinm.ateswhocompleted the
CDC course have led two sessions
per month on HIV/ AIDS, sexuality, female reproduction, and forms
of high risk behaviors. Over 550
women incarcerated at the Department of Correction Women's Unit
have completed the training.
• In 1991-1992, Women's

Project staff and prison residents
developed a project manual entitled HIV/ AIDS and Reproductive Health: A Peer Trainers Guide.
This guide has been distributed to
over 600 organizations interested
in starting prison-based programs.
• Since 1992, the staff of the

Very

little information is

presented to women by
prison systems regarding
HIV/AIDS and other STDs,
and health departments
have been slow with
funds for prevention
education.

Women's Project has presented
yearly preventative education programs on HIV/ AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases to students
at Philander Smith College, an historically black college, and the
University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. Over 350 students have attended these sessions.
• In 1993and 1994,Women's
Project staff provided preventative
educationonHIV / AIDSandother
Page 8 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Felicia Davidson

STD's and information on reproductive health to students at
Pulaski Heights Jr. High School
and Horace Mann Magnet School.
• In 1993, the Women's
Project sponsored a 19-hour training for African-American women
to be certified HIV counselors
through the Centers for Disease
Control. Eleven women completed
the training and they have provided HIV/ AIDS preventive education to 250 people, including
African American lesbians and gay
men, young people and prostitutes.
• In 1995, Women's Project
staff established seven HIV/ AIDS
information centers in rural communities in the Arkansas delta region. Five are still in operation.
• The Women's Project was
one of the first organizers of Dining Out for Life, a yearly special
event to raise money to support
local organizations who provide
services or information on HIV/
AIDS. We have participated in the
annual planning and program of
the Arkansas commemoration of
World AIDS Day to raise public
awareness of HIV and AIDS.
• Since 1998, Women's
Project staff has presented weekly
sessions on HIV/ AIDS, safer sex,
and sexuality to over 300 women
at the Pulaski County Detention
Center Women's Unit, and
monthly HIV/ AIDS prevention
sessions to the recovery community (Second Genesis & Wolfe
House) and to the men at the Ar-

Property of the Center

kansas Department of Correction
in Tucker and Wrightsville.
• In 1999, Women's Project
staff presented HIV/ AIDS training to foster parents and children
in the Department of Human Services program. By late April, 25
children and 30 parents had received the training.
• In August 1999, The
Women's project co-operated with
Brothas and Sistas to present 20
hours of peer counselor and leadership training to rural and urban
youth. Nine young people completed the training and went back
to their communities to teach other
teens what they learned about
HIV/ AIDS and other STD's.

and African American and Hispanic inmates are at greatest risk
for HIV infection. Injection drug
use, other illicit drug use, unprotected sex, and tattooing are all
risk behaviors for HIV. As longer
drug sentences increase the likelihood of jailhouse transmission,
there are severe cutbacks in education programs generally,combined
with longstanding
bans on
condoms and bleach to clean
needles. These conditions cripple
attempts to confront the central
-------1

-

--

-

We

--

---

-

will continue to

provide information,

OurHIV/AIDS
Outreach
to Womenin Prison
According to the Special Report on HIV in Prisons and Jails
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997)
prison and jail inmates are at
greater risk of being HIV positive
and contracting AIDS because of
their comparatively high rates of
drug abuse. The incidence of AIDS
is six times higher for prisoners
than the general population. The
rate of death because of AIDS is
about three times higher in the
prison population than in the total
U.S. population. MostwomenHIV
positive women in prison will
eventually return to their communities, potentially infecting others.
From 1991 to 1995 the number
of male inmates infected with HIV
in state prisons increased 28 percent while the number of female
inmates infected increased at a
much faster rate, 88 percent. Recent studies show that female inmates, inmates age 25 or younger,

support and resources to
women incarcerated in the
Pulaski County Detentioin
Center and the Arkansas
Department of Correction's
Women's Unit.

crisis of prison AIDS epidemic:
discrimination, lack of prevention
and inconsistent, often negligent,
care (HIV InSite, May 17, 1997).
Very little information is presented to women by prison systems regarding HIV/ AIDS and
other STDs, and health departments have been slow with funds
for prevention education. Prior to
entering prison, the majority have
not had access to information about
Page 9 •Transformation• Fall 1999

HIV and AIDS, basic reproduction
and sexuality, opportunities to talk
about their bodies and sex, let alone
coping with being HIV positive.
The lack of knowledge about HIV
and AIDS is reflected in the myths
and misconceptions that are expressed through inmates' fears
about sharing close living quarters
with other women upon entering
prison. This contributes to the discrimination against and isolation
of women who are HIV positive.
The training the Women's
Project has been providing at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit helps dispel
the myths and fears surrounding
HIV, AIDS and other STDs. In
developing the training sessions
we felt that it was necessary to
devise a program which would
cultivate the leadership of the female inmates. Research has shown
that peer education programs are
an effective and promising way to
address problems of HIV/ AIDS.
According to an August 1998 report, inmate infection rates
dropped from 13.9 percent in 1995
to 10.7percent in 1997in New York
State's prison population, which
has extensive peer-education programs. But only 13 percent of state
and federal institutions have such
peer-led HIV programs (Esther
Kaplan, "Organizing Inside," POZ,
November 1998).
The Women's Project initiated
a peer-led training program, which
focuses on HIV, AIDS, STDs, sexuality, and reproductive health.
Since 1990, 168 women incarcerated at the Arkansas Department
of Correction Women's Unit have
been certified to become peer counselors. They hold semi-monthly

workshops at the Women's Unit
for 15-25incarcerated women participants.
We are uncertain about the HIV
status of women who participate
in the classes we provide at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. Although
some women talk with Women's
Project staff or peer counselors in
confidence about their HIV positive status, most inmates are unwilling to be open about being HIV
positive. They must be very careful about sharing this information
because of the very real fear of
being ostracized, humiliated or
physically attacked. For this reason we hold regularly scheduled
classes to provide an easy opportunity for all women to attend without the threat of stigma.
We plan to look for ways to
increase participation of women
who are HIV positive in order to
give them a more active voice in
identifying their concerns and priorities.

OurGoalsforFuture
HIV/AIDS
Outreach
In the future we will continue
to provide information, support
and resources to women incarcerated in the Pulaski County Detention Center and the Arkansas Department of Correction Women's
Unit. Meanwhile, we will work in
coalition locally and nationally to
affect policies regarding women in
prison and to raise community
awareness about prison issues
Because we want to give HIV
positive women a more active voice
in identifying their concerns and
priorities, we will attempt to increase their participation and leadership of in this program. We will

give information and examples of
how the voices of HIV positive
incarcerated women have made a
difference in other successful programs. We will ask HIV positive
women for their help in finding
ways to make it less threatening

Empowerment

is

especially important to
the people participating
in our HIV/AIDS Project,
since they have often
experienced little control
over their lives.

for them to be heard in a prison
context of fear, homophobia, discriminationandisolation. Through
confidential interviews with formerly incarcerated HIV positive
women regarding their experiences we hope to gather suggestions for programming and potential contacts within the prison
population. This should enable us
to offer increased opportunities for
participation and leadership. We
will continue to strengthen our ties
with previously incarcerated
women through contacts with
"chem-free houses" and other recovery community organizations;
their insights will help us develop
new strategies for HIV/ AIDS prevention education for incarcerated
women.
Page 10 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Beyond our prison work, we
will continue to emphasize outreach to the HIV/ AIDS community as part of the Women's
Project's community organizing
through the Neighbor to Neighbor
Project. We want to provide leadership training for HIV positive
women and increase their participation and leadership in the work
of the Women's Project. Because
we recognize the special devastation caused by HIV/ AIDS in the
Black community we want to provide additional training for African American women who then
spread that information to other
African American women in urban and rural areas. We hope to
speak to more students and youth
groups, to distribute our HIV/
AIDS peer-training manual and
safer-sex kits. We would like to
bring more teens and young adults
on board as peer counselors.

HowtheHIV/AIDS
ProjectFitsWithin
MissionoftheWomen's
Project
The Mission Statement of the
Women's Project states that our
goal is the empowerment of individuals and communities oppressed by social and economic
injustice to act on their own behalf.
This is our goal with the Women
and HIV/ AIDS Project. We begin
this task by addressing the needs
of women with HIV/ AIDS and
those who are at risk through our
prevention education and peer
counseling training programs. We
will make additional efforts to increase the participation of women
with HIV/ AIDS, although their
HIV status may be known only to
us, since they hesitate to identify
themselves or draw attention to
themselves. We will offer leader-

ship training for HIV positive
women and women with AIDS,
so that they may better articulate
their needs and shape the direction of our work.
In order to do our work with
a small staff, ahd to help others
see the linkages among the oppressions
women face, the
Women's Project relies on coalition building. We work in coalition locally and nationally to affect policies regarding women
with HIV/ AIDS, in prison and
out, and to raise community
awareness about HIV/ AIDS issues. We work in coalition with
the Arkansas Progressive Network, the Arkansas Equality Network, the Southern Progressive
Agenda, Economic Organizing
Project, and the Prison Project, and
we participate in the National
AIDS Conference.

Our goal, in The Women and
HWIAIDSProject,as in all ourwork,
is to empower the peoplewe serve.
They are the ones who can best
identify and meet their own needs.
Empowermentis especiallyimportant
to thepeopleparticipatingin ourHWI
AIDS Project,since they have often
experiencedlittle control over their
lives. We believe that control over
one'slifebeginswith controloverone's
body.Healthinfonnationandthetools
to protectone's health are the first
place to seize that control.Perhaps
this is why womenwho receiveHWI
AIDS trainingoftentell us that it has
had such a strong impact on their
self-esteemand their outlookon life.
Thisis especiallytruefor incarcerated
women who experiencealmost total
dis-empowennent.We are proud to
make HIV/AIDS outreach a
continuingpart of our work.
■

: , •

Lynn Frost

New Books in the Women's Project Library
Prison Madness:
The Mental
Health Crisis
Behind Bars and
What We Must
Do About It by Terry Kupers,
M.D. Oossey-Bass) " ... reveals
the disturbing realities of prisons
and jails as places of coerced
refuge for poor and mentally
disordered people ... and shows
us how to contest the racism and
criminalization of poverty that
have helped to produce these
dangerous dilemmas." ... Angela
Davis
Mother Troubles: Rethinking
Contemporary Maternal
Dilemmas, edited by Julia
Hanigsberg & Sara Ruddick
(Beacon Press). Why are mothers who collect welfare stigmatized for not working, while
other mothers are vilified for
working? What obligations do
divorcing parents have to their
children? What rights should a
lesbian co-mother have if she and
her partner separate? These and
other important questions are
explored by legal theorists,
ethicists and religious thinkers in
this timely reading.
Bruised Fruit, a novel by Anna
Livia (Firebrand Books) is an
astringently humorous, noholds-barred story of a lesbian
escapee from an abusive relation-

Page 11 • Transformation• Fall 1999

ship, a dainty hermaphrodite with a
Southern drawl, and a bisexual
with a trust fund who inexorably, it
seems, kills every man she sleeps
with. These three, along with a
tantalizing array of minor characters, are thrown together in San
Francisco... and fate gathers them at
the home of a feminist therapist.
The Intuitionist by Colson
Whitehead (Anchor Books) It is a
time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Dept. of Elevator
Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson,
the first black female elevator
inspector is at the center of it. A
dead-serious and seriously funny
feat of the imagination, this novel is
a brilliant debut by an exceptional
young talent. In the tradition of
Ralph Ellison, Colson Whitehead
artfully crosses back and forth over
racial, political, and aesthetic
borders to create a work of stunning depth, soulfulness, and originality, starring one of the most
lovable heroines of all time.
Flying Cups & Saucers: Gender
Explorations in Science Fiction
and Fantasy, edited by Debbie
Notkin & the Secret Feminist
Cabal. In this book of stories
you'll find explorations of gender
that far outstrip the ones in the
everyday news and the talk
shows. And more new ways of
looking at gender than you would
think could fit into one book.

i

n
nnua1
Holiday Open House

&
Silent Auction

Renew old Ea~qualf'.ltan,ce~
and mee~new
frlengs

QVEii
~pllgay refreshments tit the

Women's Project from 5:00 to 7:90pm.

••
••
••
•••
•
•••
••
••
••
'?ii•
••
••
••
••
••
•••
•
•··
•••
••
••
•••
•••
••
•••
••
••
••
•
••·
••
•

Transformation

Published four times a year
by the Women's Project,
2224 Main Street,
Editor
Llttle Rock, Arkansas, 72206.
Phone: 501-372-5113
Production
email: wproject@aol.com
Art Director
WEB: http:/ /members.aol.com/wproject

Amy Edgington
Felicia Davidson

WISH LIST
ForHIVPrevention
Work
• 1" Binders
• 3x5 Index Cards
• Flipchart pads
• Markers, all colors

ForMeetings
• Paper towels
• Toilet paper
• Liquid soap
• Coffee cups
• Bottled water

ForGeneralOffice
• Packing tape
• Lined 8"xl 1" note pads
• File folders, letter size
• Photocopy paper,
all colors
• Diskettes, high density

Transformation is also
available as an ASCII file
and on audiotape.
,. Printed on recycled paper. ,.

Melissa Britton

Page 12 • Transfonnation • Fall 1999

©1999 The Women's Project



Property of the Center

■

orm
Vol. 13 Issue4
Fall1999

10n

The Criminalizationof Youth
Suzanne Pharr

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Amy Edgington - Little Rock
Sarah Facen - Little Rock

Sandra Mitchell - Little Rock
Freddie Nixon - Little Rock
Tammy Roberson - Little Rock

Annette Shead - Little Rock
Celia Wildroot - Hot Springs
Precious Williams - Ogden
Yvonne Croston - Little Rock
Judy Davis - Hope

Katrina Paxton - Conway
Quiana Porter - Little Rock

INSIDE
Women in Prison:
The Concrete
Realities
-page4

Women and HIV/
AIDS Project
-pageB

Booknotes
-page 10

Join Us!
-page 13

• U.S. children are five times more likely
to be killed than those in the rest of
the industrialized world.
• Youth in the U.S. are twice as likely to
commit suicide as their counter-parts
in industrialized countries; suicide
rates have quadrupled
among
children under 15.
• U.S. youth are 12 times more likely to
die by gunfire than those in other
industrialized countries; guns are the
primary cause of homicides among
children. (1997 Centersfor Disease
Controlreport)
• Twenty-three percent of all crime
victims, almost one in four, are
juveniles.
• Of the nearly 150,000rape victims in
1992, one out of five was under 18.
• Homicide is the second leading cause
of death among 15-24year olds.
• Between 1984 and 1991, the juvenile
homicide rate almost tripled.
• One out of five young Americans will
have committed a serious violent
offense by age 18.
• African-American and Hispanic males
have the highest rates of violent crime
victimization, with African-Americans between the ages of 16-19
having a higher rate than any other
age or ethnic group. (1992 Department of Justicereport)
• 95,000 youths were incarcerated in
the U.S. in 1994, an increase of 20%
since 1980. (Centerfor the Future of
Children)

• For every two youth (ages 0-19)
murdered in 1994, one youth
committed suicide.
• From 1992 through 1995, 41 states
passed laws making it easier for
juveniles to be tried as adults.
• In 1996, the one-day count of youth
under age 18 held in adult jails was
8,100. (National Center for Juvenile
Justice,1998)
• In Arkansas it costs between $40,000
and $60,000 a year to house a youth
in the Youth Services Division. (ArkansasDemocrat-Gazette,
12/4/98)
• The U.S. is now building more prisons
(Justice Policy
than universities.
Institute, 1997)

W

hatever are we to make of
this distressing list of facts
and figures? At the very
least, I believe we can agree that
something has gone very wrong in a
country where, for the first time in
history, children in non-war environments are killing children, children
are increasingly committing suicide,
and children are primary targets of a
consumer culture. In response to the
crisis in the lives of young people, this
country has made an all-out effort to
create more laws to restrain youth from
congregating with their peers in public
spaces and from being able to move
about freely (curfews), to move youth
through the criminal justice system as
(continuedon page2)

The Criminilization
of Youth
adults, and to regard their actions as
criminally suspect if they are youth
of color. Through massive antitaxation efforts, which have often
pitted older people against the
young, funding for services to
support families, schools, childcare,
healthcare, recreation, and basic
human needs such as food, clothing
and housing have been cut
drastically.
I believe our young are suffering
because there is little infrastructure
to support them and their families,
because large numbers of them are
no longer essential to the economy,
beca115ethis society hascontradictory
attitudes toward youth, and because
they, as a group, do not have power
to defend themselves from the
onslaughts against them-that is, they
are unable to amass large sums of
money, to be independent of adults,
and to vote to make political change.
First, let's take a look at society's
contradictory attitudes toward
youth. Over the past 20 years, youth
and adults have become increasingly
alienated from one another. As a
symptom of this alienation, adults
today tend to have unrealistic, unfair
and contradictory images of youth.
Here are some examples of the
contradictions:
• Americans romanticize the
young. Youth is considered the time
of innocence, of simplicity, of good
bodies and good times. As baby
boomers grow older, many long to
be associated with youth, to be young
themselves.
• Romanticizing
youth and
longing to be young supports a
commodified youth culture. The idea
of innocence, good bodies, and
rebelliousness is used to sell goods,
targeted both to youth and to older

people. Though characterized as
innocent, youth are constantly
eroticized and sexualized by
advertising and the media. Youth
culture is essential to today's
consumerism.
• While extolling the innocence of
youth that needs protection, our
society has taken away the services
and entitlements that support
families. The majority of people on

For the first time in
history, children in
non-war environments
are killing children,
children are increasingly
considering suicide, and
children are primary
targets of a consumer
culture.

welfare are children; over 20% of all
children live in poverty. Physical and
sexual violence against children
within families of all classes is
rampant. An observer could easily
assume that our culture hates
children.
• Youth are also seen as predators,
members of gangs, mass murderers,
thieves, out of control-as enemies of

Page 2 • Transformation•Fall 1999

society who should be restrained,
controlled, tried as adults in criminal
courts, and locked up.
Though there has always been
adult control of the lives of youth
and along with it, oppression, there
is now a dramatic change in the
attitudes of adults toward young
people. This change centers around
the idea of young people as
sexualized marketing targets and
simultaneously-for
poor youth
especially-as
violent predators.
Youth are now faced with prejudice
against themselves.
If one defines oppression (such as
racism or sexism) as institutional
power plus prejudice, one would
have to argue that, today, youth are
oppressed. They have no institutional
power, and prejudice against them
as a group permeates the culture. If
one looks at the common elements
of oppression, they all apply to the
treatment of youth: they lack social
and economic equality; they are
stereotyped,
demonized,
and
dehumanized;
they experience
isolation and tokenization, selfblame, societal blame, and internalized oppression; their sense of
powerlessness leads to horizontal
hostility, as evidenced in youth
killing other youth. Overall, they are
controlled by violence (often from
birth onward) and by lack of
economic access and independence.
In a power analysis, we usually
examine the idea of power over,
looking at how one group of people
has power over another and attempts
to control them. Adults maintain
consistent power over youth, limiting
their access to money, mobility,
association, information, medication,
reproductive choice and the uses of
their bodies for sexual pleasure.
Information in the classroom, on the

The Criminilization
of Youth
internet, or in libraries is restricted,
for example, and youth are left to
gain from hearsay some of the most
important information they need.
And, as we all know, people without
power seek power and survival
where they can.
One place where youth can seek
personal power is through sexual
expression, whether or not condoned
by adults, with or without condoms
or the pill, in positive or destructive
relationships. It is not surprising that
youth sometimes find themselves in
sexual trouble-unwanted
pregnancies, STDs, etc.-since they are
not allowed access to the complete
information they need. Another place
of power is through personal and
gang violence. A gun, which can be
easily obtained by youth, gives a
great sense of personal power, as
does the collective energy of gangs.
Gangs also provide what families
often do not: dynamic relationships,
discipline, purpose, a sense of
belonging.
Because they cannot vote, youth
have no voice in preventing the
creation of the public policies that
harm them; they, for example, have
been unable to vote on the anti-tax
initiatives that have cut and restricted
public funding of schools, libraries,
social services, etc. Nor were they
able to depose the politicians who
worked to eliminate welfare and to
leave them impoverished, or those
who have systematically eliminated
civil rights and liberties. They cannot
mobilize very easily to oppose the
lobby of the National Rifle Associati.onand to bring an end to the easy
access to the guns which are killing
them daily. They cannot vote to
throw out of office all those
politicians who work daily to cut
back or eliminate every program that

supports the well-being of families
and children.
Beyond the fact that over one-fifth
of our children are living in poverty,
they are also affected economically
by a so-called "boom" economy that
does not need most of them for any
jobs other than unskilled and lowpaid labor. For the hundreds of
thousands who cannot afford the
escalating cost of higher education,
the future is in the fast-food, tourist,
or service industries, performing
whatever jobs cannot be done by
robots. US jobs have been exported,
downsized, and set back. In the first
11 months of 1998,there were 575,000
layoffs, and by year's end they broke
the old record of 615,00layoffs set in
1993.(d,allenger, Gray & Christmas)
There are fewer and fewer jobs-with
benefits and a living wage-for
young people entering the job
market. Few can hope to do as well
as their parents did economically
both in income and also in such ways
as owning their own homes or having
retirement pensions.
The future is bleak for youth, and
the number of teenagers is likely to
increase by 20% over the next 15
years. What is to be done with all of
these youth? Sadly, the current
answer seems to be that if they cannot
get the education and the jobs to
make them consumers, then we must
make more laws to control them and
build more prisons to warehouse
them. If there are no jobs in the free
world economy, we put them in
private prisons which provide cheap,
enslaved labor to corporations.
However, we could take a different approach here. At the heart of it
is fair and just taxation that is used
to provide for human needs-and this
means making corporations, as well
as individuals, pay their fair share.

Page 3 • Transformation• Fall 1999

To save our children, we have to
establish a human rights agenda that
provides education, liveable-wage
jobs, safety, healthcare, food, clothing
and shelter in a fair and equitable
way that demands an end to racism,
sexism, and all the oppressions that
stand in the way of justice. This
agenda will cost money, but no more
money than is currently in circulation
paying for military hardware, giveaways to corporations, possessions
and play-toys and stocks and bonds
for the wealthy-and of course, for
building and maintaining
the
criminal justice system and prisons.
It will call for a shift in our values
and in our sense of our responsibility
for one another in community. It
will require, for instance, that we
believe enough in our children to
provide prenatal care, pre-school
and
after-school
programs,
abundant funding for education,
free or affordable healthcare, access
to information, recreation, job
training and opportunities to earn a
living wage. It will require more
than preaching
morality and
threatening punishment to create the
families who nurture and sustain
children; it will take a society that
genuinely believes in families and
children-and puts its money where
its mouth is.
For years Jesse Jackson has said
that it is far, far less costly to educate
a child than to imprison one. We have
yet to take this to heart. In our
treatment of our young, we face the
measurement of ourselves as a
humane and moral society. As of
today, we are failing to measure up;
tomorrow, we have the opportunity
to bring about the changes that allow
young people to live full and healthy
lives with a future they can look
forward to with hope. ■

Woinen in Prison: the Concrete Realities
Amy Edgington

W

hat do we know about
prisons in this country
today? We know that one
in four African American males
stands a chance of going to prison in
his lifetime, due to the unequal enforcement of justice. We know that it
costs far more to incarcerate people
than it does to give them decent education, housing, healthcare and jobs.
We know that America is building
more prisons and incarcerating a
larger segment of its population than
any other industrialized nation. We
know that more and more prisons are
being run by private corporations and
that prison labor is often being used
to produce goods and services for
sale by other corporations. But when
we picture prisons we don't usually
think of the fastest growing segment
of the prison population-women.
TheEndofWelfareasWeKnewIt
No one liked welfare as it existed,
but thanks to cruel, short-sighted reform, women now usually face the
end of welfare benefits after two years,
often with inadequate job training,
childcare and transportation. In addition, the demand for entry-level
jobs will far out-strip the supply.
Existing jobs frequently provide no
benefits, and the wages are too low
for a woman to pay out-of-pocket for
adequate healthcare, childcare, food,
shelter, utilities and clothing. As bad
as welfare was, a woman trying to
support children with a minimum
wage job is often worse off.
On TV we hear rosy stories about
the extraordinary (and lucky) individuals who "make it." But many
more women-and their children-will
be forced to turn to illegal activities to

make ends meet. Hot checks, forgeries, prostitution, shoplifting, burglary,
and drug-dealing are fairly certain
routes to eventual incarceration.
Women who cannot find jobs that
adequately support their families will

The inequalities
that exist outside of
prison continue behind
locked doors ...
Poor women serve the
hardest time.

more and more often find themselves
separated from their children and involuntarily employed in the corporate workforce behind bars.
The trend toward economically
driven incarceration for women has
been in place for more than a decade.
Up into the early 1980sthe most typical sentence for an incarcerated
woman in Arkansas was for seconddegree murder. Most had killed their
batterers, often after years or even
decades of abuse. In the wake of
Reaganomics, convictions for property crimes became the most common. In this decade, the war on drugs
has made illegal-substance convicPage 4 • Transformation
• Fall 1999

tions almost as frequent. We may see
a new rise in convictions for violent
crimes as women become more involved in the drug trade, and more
women may wind up killing their
batterers as the economic barriers to
leaving abusive relationships continue to grow.
TellingIt LikeIt Is
These are the cold facts, but do
we have a concrete picture of what
doing time means for a woman in
Arkansas? I know that I didn't before
I went into the Women's Unit in Pine
Bluff in the late 1980s to speak to the
Domestic ViolenceAwareness group.
As I talked with the prisoners and
with Women's Project staff who have
worked there for years, my eyes were
opened.
I felt completely at ease with the
women I met inside and thoroughly
enjoyed my conversations with them.
Asa formerly battered woman, I could
readily see how I might have wound
up beside them, if I had had only
slightly fewer resources or lucky
breaks. Yet their lives as prisoners are
very different from mine. In many
ways it is an experience, like battering, that only those who go through it
can understand completely. Those of
us on the outside can only begin to
comprehend if we ask questions and
listen to the answers.
For this article, Felicia Davidson,
who does HIV/ AIDS education and
Domestic Violence education in the
prisons, asked the women currently
incarcerated in Newport in the new
prison run for profit by Wackenhut
Corporation to share some of their
day-to-day reality with Transformation readers.

Women
in Prison
Intake
When a woman goes through intake, she is issued the standard uniform she must wear, and if her hair is
long, it is cut to shoulder length. Only
sneakers are allowed; women who
need orthopedic-type shoes find it
very difficult to obtain permission
for them, even if they must work long
hours on their feet. Women receive
three pairs of socks, three bras, and
three pairs of underpants from the
State. This underwear is not necessarilynew. Even though these shoddy
garments quickly become ragged
from frequent washing, it may be
months before a woman will be issued replacements. Each woman receives one roll of toilet paper once a
week. Once a month she gets a small
tube of toothpaste and twenty-four
sanitary pads. Twice a month she
receives a small bar of hand soap. The
women have learned not to send anything but their uniforms to the laundry; other items disappear. If a
woman wants to stay clean, she will
have to stretch each bar of soap to
wash herself and her underwear.
Additional toiletries and underwear
are available at a high price from the
commissary. Toiletries are collected
by United Methodist Women to be
distributed to women who cannot
otherwise afford to purchase things
that most of us would consider essential, such as deodorant and shampoo.
Women who apply for these "indigent supplies" are often humiliated
by the staff.
The inequalities that exist outside of prison continue behind locked
doors; women who have access to
money from the outside do not have
the same experience as women who
have nothing. Poor women serve the
hardest time in prison and, since economics is tied to race in our country,
women of color usually serve harder
time than most white women do.
Many also complain of racist treat-

ment from guards and of favoritism
towards white prisoners.
TheDaysPass
However, no one is having fun.
Consider the typical day at Newport.
The women must get up, dress, make
their beds by 5:15 am and be lined up
for the head count in the hallway by
5:25. No talking is allowed in the
hallway. After count, the women col-

Lock down means
more prisoners can
be controlled by
fewer guards with
less training.

lect their breakfast trays, which have
been sitting out for as much as an
hour, long enough to become thoroughly cold and unappetizing.
Women who have jobs then report to them. Most work in the kitchens that serve the men's and women's
units or mop the unit's floors or they
mow the grounds or hoe down the
weeds in the ditches. A few (almost
always white women) have clerical
jobs.Somewomen who have sentences
that are long enough (but not too long)
are allowed to attend classes for a
GEDor Vo-techtraining. Women serving life have no educational privileges.
Some women may do hard labor
Page 5 •Transformation• Fall 1999

for 12 or more hours a day, especially
when an inspection is coming up and
the staff want the place to be spotless
inside and out. But more complain of
havingabsolutelynothingtodo;there
are about 625 women in the unit and
only about 75jobs. Women who have
no jobs or classes pass their time by
listening to the radio, if they are fortunate enough to own one. They can
check out one book at a time from the
prison library, or they can buy books
directly from a publisher, if they can
afford to. If they are not locked down,
prisoners can watch TV-the great
American pacifier-from 10 a.m. till
lights out at 10:30 p.m. The women
might spend time gazing longingly at
the five pictures of loved ones they
are allowed to have. They may write
or read staff-censored letters.
Most of the women are idle and
bored most of the time. The women
say that they are often "locked down"
three, four or more days a week. All
the women ofonewingwill be locked
in their cells at the same time. They
are only allowed out of their cells to
collect meals and for one hour of exercise. Often the excuse for the lock
down is an infraction of rules by one
individual. But the real reason it happens so frequently is that high employee turnover leaves the prison
chronically understaffed. Lock down
means more prisoners can be controlled by fewer guards with less training. In a for-profit prison, maximizing
control while minimizing costs equals
higher profits. Newport does not yet
have any corporate contracts using
prison labor to produce goods or services, but profit still runs the show.
HumanRightsViolations
InonerespectthewomeninNewport are more fortunate than many
women in prison in the U.S. It appears that male guards are not conducting strip searches on women prisoners, although sometimes men have

Women
in Prison
been watching women when they
shower. In prisons, where male
guards have nearly total control over
female prisoners, sexual harassment,
exploitation and abuse are inevitable.
However, we dip. not ask the women
at Newport to tell us specifics about
this aspect of their lives, because
women who report such things in
prison are considered "snitches" and
suffer brutal retaliation. Prisons attempt to operate as closed societies,
above the scrutiny and judgement of
outsiders. Hopefully, that may
change: the United Nations, Amnesty
International, and other human rights
groups are currently investigating the
sexual mistreatment of female inmates in U.S. prisons.
Nearly all the women who helped
us with this article feel their human
rights are being violated. In addition
to the frequent lock downs, women
cite the inconsistent arbitrary rules,
which change from guard to guard
and from day to day. Besides the
threat of lock down, infractions of the
rules mean getting "written up" and
losing such privileges as a job, vocational training, visits with your children. It can also mean the loss of
"good time" which would mean earlier release. Many women feel that
they are written up based purely on a
guard's personal animosity or racist
prejudice. A woman who voices objection to unfair treatment or abuse
will instantly be written µp. Women
are written up for showing any strong
emotion whatsoever: loud laughter,
crying, hugging or touching. Although battering has been a part of
most female prisoners' lives, many
used to come to the Domestic Violence group simply to have an opportunity to joke and laugh or cry and
hug one another-to be themselves for
one hour a week. Many women
housed in the previous units in Pine
Bluff and Tucker looked forward to
attending chapel as a source of solace

and emotional release. There is no
chapel in Newport.
Inadequate medical and dental
care is a consistent complaint. The
women say that in some cases preventable deaths have been the result.
Inmates with
serious medical
conditions are
not receiving
• special diets
their doctors

u.~!:~~!:~~,:f
• prescribe.
Older
inmates and
those with disabilities have an especially hard time.
Many women also worry about unsanitary conditions in the kitchens.
When asked how they are treated
by the guards most women say: "like
a dog," "worse than an animal," "like
a piece of trash," "sub-human." Such
treatment makes them feel: "worthless," "like a child," "crazy," "as big
as an ant." Some say that the guards
may praise them one day and humiliate them the next. On the other hand
a very few say that the guards treat
them well and make them feel safe,
an indication that prison is indeed
not the same experience for all women
inside,and thatfavoritismisareality.
Unfair, unequal, and inconsistent
treatment are undoubtedly tolerated
by prison authorities as a further
means of achieving control. By pitting prisoners against one another
they deflect anger away from themselves. Through inconsistency they
keep women hoping and competing
for crumbs of approval. By exaggerating and exploiting racial and economic inequalities they keep prisoners divided and easier to control.

TheNameoftheGame
Clearly the name of the game is
control. Many aspects of prison life
bear an uncanny resemblance to a
battering relationship. One inmate,
when asked to describe a typical day
Page 6 • Transformation• Fall 1999

inside, replied: "Like being in a marriage with someone who's mad at
you all the time." Kerry Lobel, the
founder of our prison program, remarked to me years ago, that battered women frequently make the
best adjustment to prison. They are
already used to having every aspect
of their lives controlled, to the constant but unpredictable threat of punishment under rules that change on a
whim.
Every effort is made to isolate
incarcerated women from anyone on
theoutsidewhomaycareaboutthem.
Visitation is very limited and often
denied as punishment. Families and
friends of prisoners are treated like
suspected criminals themselves. Not
only is mail read and censored, prisoners' families may have the mail
they send returned if it contains disapproved items, such as a child's
drawing or a bookmark with a Bible
quotation. Prisoners' mail must be
destroyed or sent home after 90 days.
The inmate telephone system is inexplicably "down" for days at a time,
frequently on holidays. Women may
register only two new numbers for
calls pet year.

TheProducts
ofWackenhut
Most women in prison are not
hardened violent people. They are
people who made bad choices in circumstances that only offered them
poorchoicesornoneatall. Yet women
often receive harsher sentences and
have more difficulty getting parole
than men who face the same charges.
On some level, the "justice" system
seems to expect bad behavior from
men-boys will be boys-but "bad
girls" get the book thrown at them.
Nevertheless, most incarcerated
women will return to the community. Doing time in Wackenhut's
prison at Newport only seems likely
to send a woman back to us with
greatly reduced economic resources,

-

Women
in Prison
stigmatized in the eyes of her community and potential employers, estranged from her family, unused to
making any decisions for herself, and
well-trained to be a good battered
wife. Is a GED _orVo-tech training
enough to offset these handicaps?
Why should Wackenhut care? Why
should the staff be more humane or
offer true rehabilitation? Recidivism
means job security and happy stockholders.

WhyShouldWe Care?
Conditions in Newport are not as
bad as they are in many American
prisons, and certainly there are much
worse prisons elsewhere in the world.
However, the countries with worse
systems are not making any serious
attempt at democratic government.
And this is why we have to care: the
epidemic of incarceration and the
worsening treatment of all prisoners-men, women and juveniles-are
symptomatic of the growing failure
of democracy in America.
When we as a society decide that
increasing the wealth of the upper
10% is more important than lifting
families out of poverty, then democracy is in danger. When we can see
the drug use of Bill Clinton and Governor George Bush as youthful excess, but rush to lock up inner-city
kids of color who get
caught with the
same substances,
equality becomes
a cynical joke.
When we decide to
tolerate the incarceration of a large segment
of our population for the crime of
being poor, then liberty is in peril. No
one I know feels safer because more
jails have been built; most feel more
frightened than ever. We speak of
criminals as "hardened," but as a
people we are becoming morally
hardened· to the plight of those less

advantaged than ourselves. Empathy is an endangered emotion, while
fear, blame and self-righteousness
thrive. Democracy will continue to
decline as relations between generations, races and economic classes
grow ever more adversarial.
Thirty years ago, Arkansas was
disgraced by revelations of corruption, torture and even murder in its
prison system, which was one of only
afewrunata profit bythestateatthat
time. Now, for-profit prison systems
are common and respectable commercial ventures around the nation;
there is little outcry about the enormous potential for abuse or about the
moral contradictions of using involuntary prison labor-slave labor-to
enrich corporations in a so-called democracy. Our acceptance of corporate involvement in prisons goes
along with the growing involvement
of corporations in every aspect of our
civic lives-public schools, universities, mass media, campaign financing and legislative lobbying. "Government" has become a bad word in
the mouths of corporate-owned politicians and journalists, yet we are quietly turning the functions of governmentover to corporations, which have
no commitment to the common good
and little accountability to citizens.

WhatWeCanDo
Little attention is paid to complaints from prisoners and their families; other voices need to be raised.
However, facts and figures only motivate us to work for change if we can
connect them to our own lives. With
our low rates of savings and our high
rates of debt, most working Americans are only two or three missed
paychecks from homelessness. If we
can imagine the possibility of being
locked up for writing bad checks,
being locked down 23 hours a day,
trying to get by on one roll of toilet
paper a week and 24 Kotex a month,
Page 7 •Transformation• Fall 1999

wearing ragged underwear and having to beg for deodorant and shampoo, we might find the outrage we
need to make our opinions heard on
prison issues.
We can write to the UN and
Amnesty International and ask them
to continue their investigations. We
can write the Arkansas Department
of Corrections and Wackenhut and
tell them we want an end to unnecessary lock downs, better supplies and
better health care, humane treatment,
meaningful rehabilitation, drug treatment and education, including college courses available to all prisoners. Will thatbeexpensive?Youbetit
will. Prison should not be cheap, let
alone profitable. If we want to save
money, we should find ways to drastically reduce the number of people
we lock up.
Governor Huckabee, in an uncharacteristic, giddy moment of humanity, said recently that we should
consider making drug treatment available to non-violent drug offenders instead of locking them up. Please write
and praise him for this idea, encourage him to follow through, then write
our legislators and tell them you want
them to fund drug treatment.
We can also take every opportunity to oppose the construction of
new prisons and the use of prison
labor for profit-making ventures. We
can let our government know that
only the kind of security that would
result from racial and economic justice will make us feel safe. We can
object to the high price of prosperity
for a few and the costs of government
bail-outs and other welfare for corporations. We can begin to question the
role corporations play in our civic
lives and the resulting decline in
democratic government. We have a
lot of protesting and persuading to
do, but as the African American poetwarrior Audre Lorde said, our si■
lence will not protect us.

Wotnen and HIV/AIDS Project:
Past, Present and Future
n the late1980s, when
HIV/ AIDS began to
reach epidemic proportions in Arkansas, it became
clear that certain populations were
being ignored by the Health
Department and even by local
organizations whose purpose was
mv / AIDS outreach. Among these
neglected groups were women of
color, rural women, teenagers,
prisoners and prostitutes. The
Women's Project has been heavily
involved in reaching out to these
groups with training, information
and materials to contain the spread
of HIV/ AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases.

History
oftheWomen
andHIV/AIDS
Project
• The Women's Project
CDC
organized
a 19-hour
certified HIV counselors training
course for female inmates at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. From 19901997, 168 participants have been
trained to be peer counselors.
• Since November 1991, the
Women's Project has organized
prison-led workshops in which
femaleinm.ateswhocompleted the
CDC course have led two sessions
per month on HIV/ AIDS, sexuality, female reproduction, and forms
of high risk behaviors. Over 550
women incarcerated at the Department of Correction Women's Unit
have completed the training.
• In 1991-1992, Women's

Project staff and prison residents
developed a project manual entitled HIV/ AIDS and Reproductive Health: A Peer Trainers Guide.
This guide has been distributed to
over 600 organizations interested
in starting prison-based programs.
• Since 1992, the staff of the

Very

little information is

presented to women by
prison systems regarding
HIV/AIDS and other STDs,
and health departments
have been slow with
funds for prevention
education.

Women's Project has presented
yearly preventative education programs on HIV/ AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases to students
at Philander Smith College, an historically black college, and the
University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. Over 350 students have attended these sessions.
• In 1993and 1994,Women's
Project staff provided preventative
educationonHIV / AIDSandother
Page 8 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Felicia Davidson

STD's and information on reproductive health to students at
Pulaski Heights Jr. High School
and Horace Mann Magnet School.
• In 1993, the Women's
Project sponsored a 19-hour training for African-American women
to be certified HIV counselors
through the Centers for Disease
Control. Eleven women completed
the training and they have provided HIV/ AIDS preventive education to 250 people, including
African American lesbians and gay
men, young people and prostitutes.
• In 1995, Women's Project
staff established seven HIV/ AIDS
information centers in rural communities in the Arkansas delta region. Five are still in operation.
• The Women's Project was
one of the first organizers of Dining Out for Life, a yearly special
event to raise money to support
local organizations who provide
services or information on HIV/
AIDS. We have participated in the
annual planning and program of
the Arkansas commemoration of
World AIDS Day to raise public
awareness of HIV and AIDS.
• Since 1998, Women's
Project staff has presented weekly
sessions on HIV/ AIDS, safer sex,
and sexuality to over 300 women
at the Pulaski County Detention
Center Women's Unit, and
monthly HIV/ AIDS prevention
sessions to the recovery community (Second Genesis & Wolfe
House) and to the men at the Ar-

Property of the Center

kansas Department of Correction
in Tucker and Wrightsville.
• In 1999, Women's Project
staff presented HIV/ AIDS training to foster parents and children
in the Department of Human Services program. By late April, 25
children and 30 parents had received the training.
• In August 1999, The
Women's project co-operated with
Brothas and Sistas to present 20
hours of peer counselor and leadership training to rural and urban
youth. Nine young people completed the training and went back
to their communities to teach other
teens what they learned about
HIV/ AIDS and other STD's.

and African American and Hispanic inmates are at greatest risk
for HIV infection. Injection drug
use, other illicit drug use, unprotected sex, and tattooing are all
risk behaviors for HIV. As longer
drug sentences increase the likelihood of jailhouse transmission,
there are severe cutbacks in education programs generally,combined
with longstanding
bans on
condoms and bleach to clean
needles. These conditions cripple
attempts to confront the central
-------1

-

--

-

We

--

---

-

will continue to

provide information,

OurHIV/AIDS
Outreach
to Womenin Prison
According to the Special Report on HIV in Prisons and Jails
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997)
prison and jail inmates are at
greater risk of being HIV positive
and contracting AIDS because of
their comparatively high rates of
drug abuse. The incidence of AIDS
is six times higher for prisoners
than the general population. The
rate of death because of AIDS is
about three times higher in the
prison population than in the total
U.S. population. MostwomenHIV
positive women in prison will
eventually return to their communities, potentially infecting others.
From 1991 to 1995 the number
of male inmates infected with HIV
in state prisons increased 28 percent while the number of female
inmates infected increased at a
much faster rate, 88 percent. Recent studies show that female inmates, inmates age 25 or younger,

support and resources to
women incarcerated in the
Pulaski County Detentioin
Center and the Arkansas
Department of Correction's
Women's Unit.

crisis of prison AIDS epidemic:
discrimination, lack of prevention
and inconsistent, often negligent,
care (HIV InSite, May 17, 1997).
Very little information is presented to women by prison systems regarding HIV/ AIDS and
other STDs, and health departments have been slow with funds
for prevention education. Prior to
entering prison, the majority have
not had access to information about
Page 9 •Transformation• Fall 1999

HIV and AIDS, basic reproduction
and sexuality, opportunities to talk
about their bodies and sex, let alone
coping with being HIV positive.
The lack of knowledge about HIV
and AIDS is reflected in the myths
and misconceptions that are expressed through inmates' fears
about sharing close living quarters
with other women upon entering
prison. This contributes to the discrimination against and isolation
of women who are HIV positive.
The training the Women's
Project has been providing at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit helps dispel
the myths and fears surrounding
HIV, AIDS and other STDs. In
developing the training sessions
we felt that it was necessary to
devise a program which would
cultivate the leadership of the female inmates. Research has shown
that peer education programs are
an effective and promising way to
address problems of HIV/ AIDS.
According to an August 1998 report, inmate infection rates
dropped from 13.9 percent in 1995
to 10.7percent in 1997in New York
State's prison population, which
has extensive peer-education programs. But only 13 percent of state
and federal institutions have such
peer-led HIV programs (Esther
Kaplan, "Organizing Inside," POZ,
November 1998).
The Women's Project initiated
a peer-led training program, which
focuses on HIV, AIDS, STDs, sexuality, and reproductive health.
Since 1990, 168 women incarcerated at the Arkansas Department
of Correction Women's Unit have
been certified to become peer counselors. They hold semi-monthly

workshops at the Women's Unit
for 15-25incarcerated women participants.
We are uncertain about the HIV
status of women who participate
in the classes we provide at the
Arkansas Department of Correction Women's Unit. Although
some women talk with Women's
Project staff or peer counselors in
confidence about their HIV positive status, most inmates are unwilling to be open about being HIV
positive. They must be very careful about sharing this information
because of the very real fear of
being ostracized, humiliated or
physically attacked. For this reason we hold regularly scheduled
classes to provide an easy opportunity for all women to attend without the threat of stigma.
We plan to look for ways to
increase participation of women
who are HIV positive in order to
give them a more active voice in
identifying their concerns and priorities.

OurGoalsforFuture
HIV/AIDS
Outreach
In the future we will continue
to provide information, support
and resources to women incarcerated in the Pulaski County Detention Center and the Arkansas Department of Correction Women's
Unit. Meanwhile, we will work in
coalition locally and nationally to
affect policies regarding women in
prison and to raise community
awareness about prison issues
Because we want to give HIV
positive women a more active voice
in identifying their concerns and
priorities, we will attempt to increase their participation and leadership of in this program. We will

give information and examples of
how the voices of HIV positive
incarcerated women have made a
difference in other successful programs. We will ask HIV positive
women for their help in finding
ways to make it less threatening

Empowerment

is

especially important to
the people participating
in our HIV/AIDS Project,
since they have often
experienced little control
over their lives.

for them to be heard in a prison
context of fear, homophobia, discriminationandisolation. Through
confidential interviews with formerly incarcerated HIV positive
women regarding their experiences we hope to gather suggestions for programming and potential contacts within the prison
population. This should enable us
to offer increased opportunities for
participation and leadership. We
will continue to strengthen our ties
with previously incarcerated
women through contacts with
"chem-free houses" and other recovery community organizations;
their insights will help us develop
new strategies for HIV/ AIDS prevention education for incarcerated
women.
Page 10 • Transformation• Fall 1999

Beyond our prison work, we
will continue to emphasize outreach to the HIV/ AIDS community as part of the Women's
Project's community organizing
through the Neighbor to Neighbor
Project. We want to provide leadership training for HIV positive
women and increase their participation and leadership in the work
of the Women's Project. Because
we recognize the special devastation caused by HIV/ AIDS in the
Black community we want to provide additional training for African American women who then
spread that information to other
African American women in urban and rural areas. We hope to
speak to more students and youth
groups, to distribute our HIV/
AIDS peer-training manual and
safer-sex kits. We would like to
bring more teens and young adults
on board as peer counselors.

HowtheHIV/AIDS
ProjectFitsWithin
MissionoftheWomen's
Project
The Mission Statement of the
Women's Project states that our
goal is the empowerment of individuals and communities oppressed by social and economic
injustice to act on their own behalf.
This is our goal with the Women
and HIV/ AIDS Project. We begin
this task by addressing the needs
of women with HIV/ AIDS and
those who are at risk through our
prevention education and peer
counseling training programs. We
will make additional efforts to increase the participation of women
with HIV/ AIDS, although their
HIV status may be known only to
us, since they hesitate to identify
themselves or draw attention to
themselves. We will offer leader-

ship training for HIV positive
women and women with AIDS,
so that they may better articulate
their needs and shape the direction of our work.
In order to do our work with
a small staff, ahd to help others
see the linkages among the oppressions
women face, the
Women's Project relies on coalition building. We work in coalition locally and nationally to affect policies regarding women
with HIV/ AIDS, in prison and
out, and to raise community
awareness about HIV/ AIDS issues. We work in coalition with
the Arkansas Progressive Network, the Arkansas Equality Network, the Southern Progressive
Agenda, Economic Organizing
Project, and the Prison Project, and
we participate in the National
AIDS Conference.

Our goal, in The Women and
HWIAIDSProject,as in all ourwork,
is to empower the peoplewe serve.
They are the ones who can best
identify and meet their own needs.
Empowermentis especiallyimportant
to thepeopleparticipatingin ourHWI
AIDS Project,since they have often
experiencedlittle control over their
lives. We believe that control over
one'slifebeginswith controloverone's
body.Healthinfonnationandthetools
to protectone's health are the first
place to seize that control.Perhaps
this is why womenwho receiveHWI
AIDS trainingoftentell us that it has
had such a strong impact on their
self-esteemand their outlookon life.
Thisis especiallytruefor incarcerated
women who experiencealmost total
dis-empowennent.We are proud to
make HIV/AIDS outreach a
continuingpart of our work.
■

: , •

Lynn Frost

New Books in the Women's Project Library
Prison Madness:
The Mental
Health Crisis
Behind Bars and
What We Must
Do About It by Terry Kupers,
M.D. Oossey-Bass) " ... reveals
the disturbing realities of prisons
and jails as places of coerced
refuge for poor and mentally
disordered people ... and shows
us how to contest the racism and
criminalization of poverty that
have helped to produce these
dangerous dilemmas." ... Angela
Davis
Mother Troubles: Rethinking
Contemporary Maternal
Dilemmas, edited by Julia
Hanigsberg & Sara Ruddick
(Beacon Press). Why are mothers who collect welfare stigmatized for not working, while
other mothers are vilified for
working? What obligations do
divorcing parents have to their
children? What rights should a
lesbian co-mother have if she and
her partner separate? These and
other important questions are
explored by legal theorists,
ethicists and religious thinkers in
this timely reading.
Bruised Fruit, a novel by Anna
Livia (Firebrand Books) is an
astringently humorous, noholds-barred story of a lesbian
escapee from an abusive relation-

Page 11 • Transformation• Fall 1999

ship, a dainty hermaphrodite with a
Southern drawl, and a bisexual
with a trust fund who inexorably, it
seems, kills every man she sleeps
with. These three, along with a
tantalizing array of minor characters, are thrown together in San
Francisco... and fate gathers them at
the home of a feminist therapist.
The Intuitionist by Colson
Whitehead (Anchor Books) It is a
time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Dept. of Elevator
Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson,
the first black female elevator
inspector is at the center of it. A
dead-serious and seriously funny
feat of the imagination, this novel is
a brilliant debut by an exceptional
young talent. In the tradition of
Ralph Ellison, Colson Whitehead
artfully crosses back and forth over
racial, political, and aesthetic
borders to create a work of stunning depth, soulfulness, and originality, starring one of the most
lovable heroines of all time.
Flying Cups & Saucers: Gender
Explorations in Science Fiction
and Fantasy, edited by Debbie
Notkin & the Secret Feminist
Cabal. In this book of stories
you'll find explorations of gender
that far outstrip the ones in the
everyday news and the talk
shows. And more new ways of
looking at gender than you would
think could fit into one book.

i

n
nnua1
Holiday Open House

&
Silent Auction

Renew old Ea~qualf'.ltan,ce~
and mee~new
frlengs

QVEii
~pllgay refreshments tit the

Women's Project from 5:00 to 7:90pm.

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•

Transformation

Published four times a year
by the Women's Project,
2224 Main Street,
Editor
Llttle Rock, Arkansas, 72206.
Phone: 501-372-5113
Production
email: wproject@aol.com
Art Director
WEB: http:/ /members.aol.com/wproject

Amy Edgington
Felicia Davidson

WISH LIST
ForHIVPrevention
Work
• 1" Binders
• 3x5 Index Cards
• Flipchart pads
• Markers, all colors

ForMeetings
• Paper towels
• Toilet paper
• Liquid soap
• Coffee cups
• Bottled water

ForGeneralOffice
• Packing tape
• Lined 8"xl 1" note pads
• File folders, letter size
• Photocopy paper,
all colors
• Diskettes, high density

Transformation is also
available as an ASCII file
and on audiotape.
,. Printed on recycled paper. ,.

Melissa Britton

Page 12 • Transfonnation • Fall 1999

©1999 The Women's Project