Tuesday Oct 20th, 2009 9:56 PM
Torturing Women Prisoners
--An interview with Victoria Law
By Angola 3 News
Victoria Law is a longtime prison activist and the author of the new
book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM
Press), which was recently reviewed at Alternet. "This book is the
result of seven and a half years of reading, writing, listening, and
supporting women in prison," Law says about Resistance Behind Bars,
noting that each chapter in her book "focuses on an issue that women
themselves have identified as important." The chapters include topics
as diverse as health care, the relationship between mothers and
daughters, sexual abuse, education, and resistance among women in
immigration detention. Resistance Behind Bars paints a picture of
women prisoners resisting a deeply flawed prison system, which Law
hopes will help to empower both the women held in cages and those on
the outside working to support them.
In this interview, Law talks specifically about how women are
affected by solitary confinement and other forms of torture in US
prisons, and what women are doing to fight back. Exposing solitary
confinement as torture has been the focus of recent campaigns in
Maine, Pennsylvania, and around the US. This is also a central issue
in the campaign to free the Angola 3, who are a trio of Black Panther
political prisoners: Robert King, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace.
King was released in 2001 after 29 years in continuous solitary
confinement. Woodfox and Wallace remain imprisoned and have spent
over 36 years in solitary confinement, where they remain today.
Angola 3 News: What do you think of the case of the Angola 3?
Victoria Law: The case of the Angola 3 is one of the most visible
(and damning) indictments of the U.S. prison system.
As broadcasted by NBC Nightly News, the widow of slain prison guard
Brent Miller has even stated that she wants justice and that, if
Woodfox and Wallace did not kill her husband (and there is so much
evidence that they did not), they should be freed. It's interesting
to note how the voices of victims and their family are used to whip
up pro-imprisonment hysteria, but when they speak out against
railroading people, they are ignored. For example, the widow of
Daniel Faulkner publicly condemns Mumia and urges people not to let
out her husband's alleged killer. The media loves this and uses her
to play on public opinion against freeing Mumia. However, when Brent
Miller's widow Leontine Verrett says, "If these two men did not do
this, I think they need to be out," her words are ignored.
Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace should be released. The fact that
they have not been released clearly demonstrates the racism that is
rife in the prison system and how "justice" isn't really a factor in
who goes to prison and why.
A3N: Do you consider the use of solitary confinement in US prisons to
be torture?
VL: I most definitely consider solitary confinement a form of
torture. Solitary confinement is used not only to break the woman (or
person) who is resisting, but also to scare others around them into
not only complying but ostracizing the person who is challenging
prison rules or conditions. And, unfortunately, it often does.
A3N: What other practices in US prisons would you consider to be
torture?
VL: I consider the whole prison system to be torture. But to narrow
it down to actual practices: I would consider the use of strip
status, in which all of a person's clothes and belongings are removed
from the cell, as a form of torture. You have to remember that over
half of incarcerated women have suffered past abuse and trauma. To
strip them of all of their clothing and place them in a bare cell
with guards watching them retraumatizes them. I recently reread an
account from Lisa Savage, a woman who was placed on strip status for
talking to the other women on her unit about the psychological
reprogramming of the Close Management unit (a unit where women are
held in their separate cells 23 ½ hours a day). Being on strip status
meant that everything was taken from her—clothes, toothbrush,
bedding, and sanitary napkins. She wrote, "As bad luck would have it,
I just started my monthly. Now, I must beg for a pad for hours before
receiving it."
Other practices that I would consider to be torture are:
• The use of male guards in female prisons
• The shackling of pregnant women while they are in labor
• Loss of access and custody to their children simply because they
are incarcerated
• The denial of health care and the life-threatening slow health care
in prisons
A3N: How is solitary confinement used against women prisoners? How
does it effect women in ways that are different from male prisoners?
VL: Solitary confinement makes women more vulnerable to staff sexual
assault since no one can see what is happening. In my book, I write
about the experience of Christina Madrazo, a transsexual immigrant
who was placed in INS detention. Originally, the INS (now called ICE)
did not know what to do with her since her assigned gender at birth
was male, but she identified (and was seeking asylum status) as a
transgendered female. Madrazo was placed in solitary confinement
where she was raped twice by a prison guard.
Even when they are not being physically assaulted, the women have no
privacy—toilets are in full view of the cell door windows, guards can
look through those windows at any time and, in many prisons, male
guards can watch the women in the showers, on the toilet or when they
are trying to dress or undress.
In addition, solitary confinement is used to punish women who have
either reported being sexually assaulted by staff, or who have been
discovered to have "consensual relationships" with staff members. I
put "consensual" in quotation marks because, given the power dynamics
in prison, especially the ability of guards and staff members to
withhold services and/or provide small amenities, the relationship
can never truly be consensual. I recently received a letter from a
woman incarcerated in Colorado whose cellmate was accused of having a
"consensual" relationship with a staff member. While the accunited snakestion
was being investigated, the staff member was allowed to continue
working in the prison. The woman was placed in solitary confinement
for the duration of the investigation and only released once the
charge was found to be unwarranted.
Also, with women, there's the prevailing notion that women need to be
"good girls" and "to behave." Thus, women are punished for behaviors
that violate gender norms, behaviors such as spitting or cursing or
not following orders, behaviors that men are not punished for. This
is also why women are sent to segregation when they report sexual
misconduct or engage in sexual activity; they're violating what we,
as a society, see as "good girl behavior."
A3N: Do you believe activist prisoners are disproportionately
targeted with solitary confinement?
VL: Yes! This is obvious in the case of the Angola 3. This has also
been true among women who have been challenging prison conditions.
Most female facilities have some form of solitary confinement. At
California's Valley State Prison for Women, the Special Housing Unit
consists of eight-foot by six-foot cells with blacked-out windows
where women are confined for 23 hours a day. Even in their cells, the
women have no privacy — toilets are in full view of the cell door
windows, guards can look through those windows at any time and male
guards often watch the women in the showers. If the women complain,
the guards turn off the water.
In 1986, the Bureau of Prisons opened a control unit specifically for
women political prisoners in the federal prison at Lexington,
Kentucky. It was built underground and entirely white. Women were
prohibited from hanging anything on the white walls, cauisng them to
begin hallucinating black spots and strings on the walls and floors.
Their sole contact with prison staff came in the form of voices
addressing them over loudspeakers. The unit was shut down in 1988
following an outside campaign and a court decision that determined
their placement unconstitutional, but the solitary confinement is
still used to punish and silence jailhouse lawyers and other
incarcerated activists (of all genders, I should add).
A3N: How have women prisoners resisted the use of solitary confinement?
VL: In 1974, a woman incarcerated in Bedford Hills (the maximum-
security prison for women in New York) filed a lawsuit challenging
the practice of placing women in solitary confinement without 24
hours notice and a hearing (basically any sort of due process). She
won a court injunction prohibiting this practice. In response, she
was beaten by male guards and placed in solitary confinement (again
with no due process). Other women in the prison protested by rioting.
More recent ways in which women have resisted solitary confinement
aren't as visible. While she was in the Close Management unit in
Florida, Lisa Savage joined the StopMax campaign and became part of
the Steering Committee. Her participation added gender to the way
that people were viewing (and organizing around) the use of solitary
confinement. She also wrote a long (16 pages!) piece about the Close
Management unit for Tenacious, the zine that I publish of women
prisoners' art and writings. Writing about that reality is, in and of
itself, a form of resistance, but she also included ways in which
she, as an individual woman being held in the Close Management unit,
was resisting:
(quote begins)
I've finally gained a firm sense of self by holding fast to my
beliefs in equality, liberty and life without threats or coercion.
Each accomplishment, may it be emotional, psychological, or mental
"growth," is a form of resistance.
Every time I teach someone geometry or basic reading or tell them of
their own intrinsic ability to be autonomous and secure with
themselves, I resist the mentacide, and hopefully arm the women with
ways to combat their own mental slow death sentence here in CM SHU...
Every time I get mail from you or Anthony of the South Chicago ABC
Zine Distro or Abigail of Burning River or the meeting notes from
StopMax (I am on the Steering Committee for the National Campaign to
End Solitary Confinement and Torture in U.S. prisons), it confirms
that I am part of this resistance movement.
As I conclude this piece, I have been informed of an increase in my
custody to CM Level I. I know this is only a label, not who I truly
am. DOC may have condemned me for my actions, but I know in my heart
that for the past 7 months, I have taken the measures necessary to
ensure my beliefs and integrity remain intact within a corrupt
system. I have done my best to stand up for my CM sisters and myself.
Yes, I have been DR'ed and "gave up"
my privileges to take up for women who would spit on me if given a
chance. I've asked nothing from them, I've only tried to show them
that they must fight for their beliefs and happiness. I've wanted to
show them that they do not have to be the label placed upon them—dumb
ho, loser, etc—that they can achieve positive healthy goals even
while locked in a cell 24/7. I wanted them to have a piece of my
courage until they could find their own. Yes, I shouted about the
unjustifiable psychological abuse they suffer—I shouted so that they
could at least whisper of their own hurts in their own hearts...For
this I have no regrets, and I will not apologize.
These aren't ways that are clearly visible to those on the outside
looking for instances of prisoner resistance. Still, her actions are
forms of resistance to solitary confinement.
--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to
Free the Angola 3. Our website is http://www.angola3news.com (http://www.angola3news.com/) where we
provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our
own media projects, like this interview with Victoria Law, which
spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like
racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as
torture, and more. Our online video series has now released
interviews with author J. Patrick O'Connor titled "Kevin Cooper: Will
California Execute An Innocent Man," author Dan Berger titled
"Political Prisoners in the United States," and Colonel Nyati Bolt
titled "The Assassination of George Jackson."
http://www.angola3news.com (http://www.angola3news.com/)
Torturing Women Prisoners --An interview with Victoria Law : Indybay (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/20/18626189.php)