As part of Dr. Vishniac’s doctoral research, she conducted 14 interviews with 15 individuals. Nine of these individuals were previously incarcerated women who had experienced a period in jail and/or prison. These women had been incarcerated from days to decades in facilities across the United States and it had been varying lengths of time since their release. Below is a summary of one of these interviews, shared with the consent of the interviewee. This interview was conducted on January 31st, 2022. This interview transcript has been broken into two parts due to length and has been edited for flow. *Note, this interview includes strong language.*
Jennifer Toon is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance. Her involvement with the criminal legal system began at age 15, when she was adjudicated under Texas determinate sentencing laws, leading to 27 years of system involvement. As Executive Director, Jennifer draws on her lived experience to elevate the voices of system impacted individuals, with a focus on LGBTQIA+ people, youth, and people with disabilities. She lives in Austin, Texas with her cat Taylor, who embodies the mischievous energy of Taylor Swift.
PART 2 – IMPACT AND MOVING FORWARD
What do you think the best way to handle menstrual products would be?
Make it an important part of your budget. That’s what the issue boiled down to. In terms of not having access or enough, it’s because you don’t spend any money on them. I feel like if this was something that was intricate to the male experience there would be an over-abundance of it. I think just women being a minority in the system and predominantly men in leadership, at the administrative higher level over the prison system, they don’t understand. It was the same way when I wrote the guy in region over commissary about, ‘Why are you only selling super tampons? This is not helpful. Maybe for a day. Do you understand there’s a reason why there’s different sizes?’ And suddenly we got a bigger pack with multiple different sizes. I think the answer to that is just making the budget, being able to buy the products and being able to give them out freely.
Why do you think this issue exists?
You know, not this past legislative session but the one before, we had a bunch of bills that were passed called the Dignity Laws, concerning the criminal justice system, jails and prison, about the different ways that women suffer indignities, such as being shackled during pregnancy, feminine hygiene products. And TDCJ, during those bills, said, ‘Oh, well they can ask whenever they want. This is not a problem.’ You had formerly incarcerated people continuing one after the other saying, ‘No, it was a problem.’
There is such a disconnect between what is really happening and what is written on that stupid fucking policy paper. I don’t care what the policy says, I don’t care. That is not what is happening in practice. And I don’t understand how you’re not getting that. I think what it boils down to is that they just don’t believe it’s an issue because we have it on paper that that’s what we do.
The only thing that motivates systems to change is the fear of public relations and, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be looked at as hating women or not progressive or-,’ and I think that’s what motivates systems to change or to take notice or to actually move or actually do something. But I think culturally, maybe we’re finally seeing that the ways that we’ve handled the criminal justice system have just not worked and why. It’s not as simple as ‘People can’t find jobs.’ It’s that we treat people like they’re nothing, like they’re garbage, like they’re trash. And the type of psychological, and I wrote another article recently about the psychological abuse that women experience in prison, which is very different from men. There were times me and my friends joked, ‘God, I wish that they would’—not that they didn’t physically hit us or anything like that but I wished it was predominantly that and not this psychological terror. Walking around with bloody clothes on, laughing at us while they make us degrade ourselves. Maybe people with lived experience are finally saying, ‘I’m gonna start speaking up and showing what has happened and telling my story and not being ashamed,’ you know? I know some friends that that this is something that bothered them and ate them up while they were there, but there’s no way they’re gonna get on Zoom with a stranger, or the telephone, even if it is anonymous, and say, ‘Hey, I had to wear a sock, and bleed into a sock and wash it out and dry it and wear it over and over while I was on my period in prison. Cause it’s just such a-, it goes beyond just our normal embarrassment as women. It’s degrading. It’s degrading, what you have to do as a woman when you’re on the inside. This is just one of many ways that women suffer psychologically in custody.
Did you notice any changes over time?
This is a span of 20 years. So, late 90s, there wasn’t really a lot of pain relievers. There weren’t tampons. They certainly were not even nearly remotely accessible if you had to go to an officer and approach somebody. Interestingly, we had not had tampons for years, not because TDCJ wasn’t gonna order them. It’s just that the lady at our unit, she got a bonus every year when she saved money, so she cut tampons out of the budget. I found that out through my boss who worked commissary. He was like, ‘Oh, well, it’s on the order for the unit supply. She just doesn’t order them because she gets a bonus.’ Ugh I was so mad! Like, you know what lady? There’s a special place in Hell for you.
When we complained enough, and they had always sold them on commissary, like a six piece box, but that’s $5, $6 a box. That’s another problem too, why feminine hygiene products are so expensive everywhere, but they were certainly expensive on commissary. But it did get a little bit more manageable when we had tampons accessible and we had some pain relievers like ibuprofen that we could buy on commissary, but that’s it. That was the only major development. When I did finally start writing grievances about, you know, you only offer super tampons on commissary. Those are the only tampons I have access to. It’s not safe to wear those all the time like that. So they ended up selling the multi 24 different size pack but again they’re, like, $11 or something.
But that’s it, really. And when we passed the Dignity Laws? Nothing changed. Next session when TDCJ had to answer for how hard is it with the Dignity Laws and they were like, ‘Well, we already did that, so, I mean, we told you that so there wasn’t really anything to report.’ So nothing really happened.
They took TDCJ’s word for it, which is the probably number one biggest problem with Texas’ prison system, is that we have no independent oversight. So anything, any legislation that is passed, in regards especially to conditions, programming, or anything like that, there is no mechanism to independently verify that those things really happened.
So TDCJ can come to the legislators with their report and say, ‘Oh we did x, y, and z,’ and there you go. And there is no way to really refute that other than to have people that are in the system say, ‘That did not happen. That’s not happening.’ ‘Oh, yeah it is.’ Well, who do you believe, the ex-convict or TDCJ official? And I was proud that there were some legislators, and we testified this year about the other, were like, ‘So all the people came across the state of Texas to lie to us? I don’t believe that.’ But, like you said, how do you enforce something when there’s no enforcement arm? There’s no independent oversight.
What do you think the impact would be on incarcerated people if they had access to the menstrual products and support they needed?
Well, I think it takes away another abusive tool that certainly is used against women and their dignity. If this was accessible, you didn’t have to beg for it, you didn’t have to cancel your visits, you didn’t have to worry about, you know, it’s such a big deal when I need to take a shower cause I’ve bled all over myself. I mean, if all those things were taken care of, well then this is one less way for them to treat me like an animal, like I’m not human. It helps us maintain our dignity, right? That would be the outcome of having these things more accessible. And all the other things that go with that. Stopping the shaming and the guilting and the different ways that they use that to treat us badly.
The women that I see who have come out and have not been successful, usually it’s rooted in an abusive relationship. Most women’s downfall when they get out is, you know, there’s other things like housing, but those things typically people can push through if they have enough self-confidence and drive and support. But women leave the system feeling like they don’t matter, that they’re, like, why else would you treat me like this? You must treat me this way because I’m not worth anything. So then I gravitate towards relationships that treat me that way, to jobs, to a system around me that also reaffirms what you just taught me while I was in custody, which was that I was worthless. Society wants us to come back and be like, ‘I’m ready to be a contributing citizen!’ I don’t wanna give you anything. You treated me like a dog, like an animal. You said I deserved it for what I did. So why do I want to be a part of you? I don’t feel worthy, number one. Number two, I’m angry and rebellious, so I don’t wanna have anything to do with this. So, staying in community, in healthy community, and holding onto your humanity despite all that, I know that has played a huge part in my success.