February 2026

Why I Do This Work

My name is Miriam Vishniac, and I am a passionate advocate of menstrual equity and freedom in places of confinement.

Why Periods in Prisons?

In 2015, I was a Master’s student at the University of George Washington, and took a class on poverty and the U.S. welfare system. In this class, I learned that menstrual products are not considered basic necessities and are not covered by programs like WIC or SNAP. This not only puts more financial pressure on impoverished menstruators, but also increases their chance of adverse health effects from trying to make products last and using them for longer than intended, including toxic shock syndrome. 2015 was dubbed ‘the year of the period‘ because of how many people were suddenly willing to discuss the topic in public. Magazines and blogs were awash with pieces on menstrual stigma, the need for access to menstrual products in schools and public buildings, the harm of the tampon tax, etc.

The same year, the Correctional Association of New York (CANY) released a report making clear that menstruators incarcerated in NY state facilities were not receiving enough menstrual products to meet their needs and had to go through humiliating processes to get more, including “[requiring] women to bring in their used sanitary napkins to prove they needed more supplies” (p. 67). As the report went on to state, women were not allowed to receive menstrual products in the mail and had to spend an entire week’s worth of wages at $0.17 an hour to afford a single box of 20 tampons. Despite the fact that CANY had raised the issue multiple times with DOCCS, no improvement had been made and prison employees and officials continued to claim that it wasn’t a big deal. In addition, women were given the same amount of toilet paper as men, despite the obvious fact that people with vaginas use toilet paper when they defecate and when they urinate (unlike those with penises), and menstruators need more toilet paper during menstruation.

Horrifyingly, Chandra Bozelko’s 2015 piece in the Guardian made it clear that these issues were not confined to New York state facilities. She described pads so poor that they flew out of people’s pants and poor access to products for the many people who couldn’t afford commissary prices.

In 2016, a woman was sent to court in Kentucky without pants because she had not been given access to menstrual hygiene products for three days.

In 2019, Kimberly Haven said that she saw women turn down visits with family and attorneys due to their periods during her time in prison. This means people with periods have unequal access to legal counsel. 

In 2022, Keri Blakinger and Gabrielle Perry described their damaging experiences in New York and Louisiana while incarcerated. Their accounts echoed the same issue of menstruation being used to humiliate and dehumanize incarcerated people.

During roughly the past decade, guard control over menstrual products has led to abuse in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. The real number of incidents is likely higher and more widespread given the issues reporting abuse and lack of accountability for prison staff. Additionally, legal documentation for these complaints, including for most of the examples above, fails to call out menstrual products by name and instead makes the issue impossible to track by lumping them in with ‘contraband’ or ‘personal hygiene products.’ It is only possible to know menstrual products were involved through news reports and public testimony.

Despite these examples of dehumanizing conditions for incarcerated menstruators, their needs have been largely overlooked and left out of conversations on menstrual equity issues.

What Do I Mean?

My doctoral research had two main takeaways. The first takeaway is: while having an official rule is better than nothing, all existing rules are insufficient at ensuring proper access to menstrual products in prison because they lack vital details. There are six vital details I identified as the key factors for access to menstrual products in prison: terms, when, where, quantity, quality, and cost.

• The exact terms for menstrual products used in the rules dictate what is available, as menstruators are generally only given one size of sanitary napkin (mistakenly considered the bare minimum) when this is left vague.
• When and where these items are available matters, since periods are unpredictable. A member of the general public can run to the store at any hour, an incarcerated person can’t.
• The quantity of products provided matters, since facilities frequently choose arbitrary limits, which do not take into consideration of the extremely low-quality of the items provided. Prisons also place a limit on the number of these items incarcerated menstruators are allowed to have with them or in their storage space, again, without considering their poor quality, and will sanction those who go over this limit.
• The last detail is the cost of these items: whether incarcerated menstruators are forced to purchase them or whether they are provided at no cost, since the majority of incarcerated people have very little access to funds despite struggling to qualify as indigent.

There is no official rule I found which covers all these details, leaving them up to individual guards and facilities. It is also true that having a rule is better than not having one, and jurisdictions with the highest proportion of women in the legislature were more likely to have considered this issue. This is a clear example of how representation matters and has tangible consequences.

The second takeaway is: rules on access to menstrual products are not enough – menstrual discrimination in prison comes in a variety of forms and has a variety of consequences.

• For those who are trans or non-binary/non-gender conforming, being housed in a men’s facility may mean they have no access at all to basic necessities such as menstrual products. Trans-men and gender diverse menstruators should not have to choose between being housed based on their gender and having access to menstrual products, especially when it can leave a visible red target.
• Because prisons are mostly run by men for men, common prison rules such as keeping a minimum standard of personal hygiene and common prison punishments like a lack of access to the commissary (prison supply store) can cause serious issues for menstruators.
• The way we dehumanize and humiliate the people we incarcerate, for example with unnecessary strip searches and limited access to clean clothing and showers, has an added level of horror when coupled with menstruation, which makes it an effective tool of abuse.
• Menstruators in prison are routinely forced to make impossible choices between bleeding on themselves and things like programming that might shorten their time in prison.
• Lastly, people who menstruate in prison are exposed to a host of medical conditions through using jury-rigged products for long stretches, and have their menstruation-related needs ignored by poor healthcare that is focused on cisgender men’s needs.

Why Does This Matter?

Menstruation is frequently seen as a niche concern, but this is not supported by the evidence. Menstruation ties in with many other issues currently at hand and understanding this is key to building a strong coalition supporting change.

Punishment versus Rehabilitation

The stated goal of the Bureau of Prisons is to “protect public safety by ensuring that federal offenders serve their sentences of imprisonment in facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and provide reentry programming to ensure their successful return to the community.” Many facilities housing women also claim to be gender-responsive, meaning they take into account the gendered pathways to prison, the role of trauma, and provide programming that is meant to address their specific needs and lead to success after release. Yet many of these same facilities do not provide support for menstruation, an event which primarily impacts women. It is a contradiction to claim to be focused on rehabilitation or humane conditions while ignoring basic needs.

Despite these claims, menstruation makes it clear that prisons are primarily focused on punishment and dehumanization. At a time when people are increasingly concerned over America’s institutions, it is important to remember that the way we dehumanize and warehouse people with mass incarceration has significant consequences for the government due to things like prison gerrymandering and voting rights. Mass incarceration increases inequalities, which impacts everyone. Similarly, those in immigration detention have questionable access to these basic items and are also subject to an opaque system with little to no oversight that has a fundamental effect on our democracy.

Women’s Rights and Body Autonomy

At the core of the issue of periods in places of confinement is a menstruator’s right to manage their own body. Working for period equity and the right of all people over their own bodies benefits all women and menstruators. At a time when women’s rights have declined and their ability to make their own reproductive choices is under threat, it’s important to understand that the ability to menstruate in peace is part of this.

LGBTQ+ Rights

Anyone of any gender can experience a period. Not all women menstruate, and not all who menstruate are women. Supporting all those who menstruate in prison also means recognizing that this is also an issue for men and nonbinary/gender nonconforming individuals, who are already overly targeted and impacted by the prison system in the U.S. Supporting an end to mass incarceration and menstrual discrimination supports the LGBTQ+ community as well.

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Menstruation in places of confinement in the U.S. sits at the intersection of many issues, not only the ones listed above but also race, disability, age, class, and more. Focusing on this issue provides support for a broad coalition coming together and calling for change such as an end to mass incarceration and dehumanization. By sidelining the importance of periods, we are only limiting ourselves.