The Prison Flow Project

Image from Flickr, some rights reserved by wuestenigel

Please feel free to use any and all of the information on this site. My only request is that, if using this resource in any public work, please cite or mention the name and URL of this website so people know it exists. If you have any questions for me or notice any errors, please let me know!

Example citation: Vishniac, M. (2022) The Prison Flow Project. Available at: https://theprisonflowproject.com/ (Accessed: date).

FAST FACTS SHEET – PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE!

A graphic of the U.S. For each state and the federal government, it shows the mention of access to menstrual products in laws, internal policies, and facility handbooks, female incarceration rate, political lean, and proportion women in the legislature. There is no correlation between political lean, female incarceration rate, and proportion women in leg. and mentions of access to menstrual products.
From my upcoming dissertation. I will share the link on this site as soon as it is available, as well as links to any other publications.

Information by Category

Full List of Women’s Prisons

A complete list of all federal and state women’s prisons in the U.S. with links to their websites.

State Laws Around Access

A table of state laws around access to menstrual hygiene products like sanitary napkins, tampons, and panty liners and links to relevant resources.

Federal Prison Information

A table of federal prisons that house women, as well as a link to their websites, the price of pads and tampons in their commissary, and whether the inmate handbooks mention these items specifically.

State Prison Information

A table of state prisons and whether their inmate handbooks mention menstrual products, as well as links to relevant resources.

A table of guidelines, policies, directives, etc around access to menstrual products in state prisons.

Media Coverage by State

Since 2015, there have been a number of articles on this issue in specific locations. This is a collection of those articles

Donation FAQs

The Big Picture

Putting it all together for a full picture of access to menstrual products for incarcerated women.

Women’s Prison Locations

A map showing the location of every women’s prison in the U.S.

All information and images for federal prisons taken from the Federal Bureau of Prisons site on female offenders
Information and images for state prisons taken from state Department of Corrections sites.

A doctoral research project, a database, and a resource for women, families, friends, and advocates for change. This website is a collection of all the information I have gathered on women’s federal and state prisons in the U.S. and access to menstrual hygiene products like sanitary napkins, tampons, panty liners, etc. All of the information is publicly accessible, linked to the source wherever possible, and dated. **A quick note that this issue exists in other facilities such as jails and immigration detention centers. Also, not every woman menstruates and not everyone who menstruates is a woman. As I am just a sole student with limited resources, there is only so much I can do, but it is my hope that this work will be used as a springboard for further study and I encourage other researchers to build on what I have started.** Please note that nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice and referenced materials may not reflect new policies.

Page last updated 7 Mar, 2023