What is a feminist jail and why shouldn’t we fall for it?

Think piece on CSSD event How to Abolish Prisons: Gender an Analytic.

By Nia Paz-Diaz

On November 13th, the Center for the Study of Social Difference hosted abolitionists, activists, and academics to dismantle the concept of "feminist" jails, scrutinize their deceptive framing, and critique the use of feminist rhetoric to build new jails. The event, How to Abolish Prisons: Gender as Analytic, featured three speakers with varied expertise in abolitionist work: Dr. Sarah Haley, a historian at Columbia University who specializes in carceral history; Rachel Herzing, the executive director of the Center for Political Education; and Romarilyn Ralston, the executive director of Project Rebound, which supports formerly incarcerated students across the Cal State system.

The scholars began with an in-depth discussion on the opening question: what is a “feminist” jail? Per definition, a feminist jail uses gender-responsive approaches to address the imprisoned realities of women and non-binary people, their unique pathways into the system, and their differences from cis-gender men (The Women’s Center for Justice, 2022). The mission of the mythical gender-responsive jail is to provide programming that increases employability, healing on trauma, family community, and independence. In its ideal form, a gender-responsive jail functions independently from men's prisons, features operational equipment suited to women and non-binary people,  prioritizes mental health care, and includes family visitation centers. Additionally, the facility would employ predominantly women guards and cultivate a calming, safe physical environment for women and non-binary inmates (p. 5). 

Students listening in to the discussion in Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Some institutions have begun using aspects of this approach: for instance, Los Angeles's largest women's jail recently initiated a gender-responsive staff training, implemented a pregnancy liaison program, and modified the physical environment to improve safety (Olson, 2019). However, no jail has successfully initiated a complete, comprehensive gender-responsive approach; instead, they beguilingly adopt a select few, simple elements to provide a picture of progress and a dedication to the supposed renewal of the women inmates to continue their management.  As shown in the evaluation of the Los Angeles jails – one of the leading jails in approaching the gender-responsive measures – ample weaknesses existed such as lack of permanent funding, lack of private spaces for women, and lack of information on women’s individual needs (p. 440). In addition, the jail was required to provide access to these programs under Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations (p. 441). 

The origin of this gender-responsive approach emerges from the critical, harsh reality that plagues our carceral system: although a violent environment for every inmate, prisons further punish women inmates through negligence and a profound failure of responding to women's needs. Thus, prison campaigners have utilized  gender-responsive campaigns to build jails rooted in feminism with a commitment to uplifting incarcerated women through renewal, job training, and the like. However, this begs the questions which arose during the discussion: How has feminism been weaponized inadvertently (or, intentionally) to expand the carceral state? How is this feminist rhetoric expanding jail construction campaigns in New York City? 

Although a theoretically feminist prison might appear progressive on the surface, this approach is inevitably intertwined with a reformist framework that upholds and accelerates the carceral system and its profit. As Dr. Haley remarked during the discussion, “the history of prison is entangled with the history of reform; the history of penitentiary as one of ‘betterment’ and ‘enlightenment’. However, we have seen the proof that prisons are violent – and no amount of mauve paint changes that.” Once incarcerated, women’s lives are fundamentally disrupted. They lose their jobs, are unable to take care of their children and family members, and suffer mental health crises due to the conditions of prisons. Incarceration itself is the root issue for unemployability and lack of parental care – rendering any prison job training and/or family care program ironic and wildly futile. By stripping women from their employment and families, prisons are diminishing any chance of economic growth and family care for renewal. This is coupled with the fact that a majority of incarcerated women have exceptionally short stays: the average stay in jail for women is around a month, as elaborated on below. 

Inarguably, prisons are not designed with women in mind and neglect women’s basic needs as a form of punishment, as exemplified by the lack free menstrual hygiene products, close proximity to male prisons, invasive bodily searches, plenitude of male guards, solitary confinement for women with a sexual abuse history, inadequate infrastructure for expecting or current mothers, sexual abuse by guards, etc. Ironically, these violent issues are forced upon non-violent women: the majority of incarcerated women have extremely short stays for non-violent crimes. In 2022, there were about 93,000 women in jail on a given day and the average stay for women was 19 days, compared to 36 days for men (Kenney, 2022). The average jail stay for women within L.A. county jails is just under 2 months (Hare, 2016). In New York City, the mean stay was 26 days in 2019, while the median length of stay is 4 days (Tomasack, 2021). Thus, women endure profoundly traumatic conditions for remarkably brief periods. As one can imagine, the damage of being incarcerated for less than a month is harmful regardless of the renewal programs offered, as the women who are incarcerated cannot care for their families or attend to their jobs. Additionally, according to the latest available national data, 32% of women in jail are there for property offenses, 29% for drug offenses, and nearly 21% for public order offenses (Swavola, 2016, p. 9). Most incarcerated women are on low-level, nonviolent charges. With these facts in mind, the construction of new gender-responsive jails serves to facilitate the existence and promise of jails more than the renewal of incarcerated women. If uplifting women and maintaining their employability was the goal, the city would implement proactive strategies that prevent large numbers of women from entering the carceral system in the first place.  

In the 1980s, New York City officials utilized this “feminist” jail approach to campaign for the Rose M. Singer Center at Riker’s Island. Campaigners touted a ‘pleasant jail’ where women could renew themselves through economic training and live in comfort (NYC Department of Correction). The approach advertised superficial modifications, without including critical gender-responsive measures such as pregnancy liaison programs or hiring women guards. During the discussion, Dr. Haley detailed how the Rose M. Singer Center campaign in 1988 was posed as a state-of-the-art facility with 800 beds, featuring a 25-bed ‘nursery’ and job training programs in horticulture, sewing and culinary arts, touting yellow, blue, mauve and rose colored walls (NYC Department of Correction). The plan proclaimed the Center to be a place of hope and renewal for the female inmates. However, these shallow modifications did not address the critical issues women face in jails. The plan, in Dr. Haley’s words, is a “radical shrinking of imagination and possibility.” “Feminist” jails severely limit the opportunity to improve women's lives; instead, their existence relaxes the minds of the public, granting them the illusion that incarcerated women are comfortable and changing their lives within their pink cells.

News about the Rose M. Singer Center Opening on Rikers (NYC Department of Correction.)

As time has passed, this “feminist” campaign for the Singer Center has confirmed its brutal inadequacy: multiple women at the Center were sexually and physically assaulted over the years by correctional officers (Hamilton, 2015), have reported unsanitary and unsafe conditions during a global pandemic (Singer, 2020), and hosts no betterment programming or drug abuse rehabilitation (White, 2020). Even Rose Singer’s family has stated that they wish for the removal of her name from the abusive center (Singer, 2020). Prisons are not environments where women can be uplifted and supported into betterment – even if they are built on the premise of that mission. Meanwhile, the building cost of the Singer Center was over $100 million tax dollars in 1988 (NYC Department of Correction) – money that should have been utilized towards community resources, low-income housing, accessible mental health services, and other preventive measures to help young women. As Rikers closes and plans for new facilities move forward, the replacement for the Singer Center will be located in Kew Gardens—attached to a men's prison—at an estimated cost of $261 million (The Women's Center for Justice).

The cycle of prison reform and its inevitable failure runs throughout New York City's carceral history: Rikers Island itself was built as a reform to replace the infamous Welfare Island. Over a century ago, prison reformers criticized and brought to light the violent, unsanitary facilities of Welfare Island which housed the city jail, mental health facilities, and what officials deemed “the city’s destitute” (Shanahan, 2017). In 1927, the State Commission of Correction released a report denouncing the penitentiary for its ‘deplorable’ conditions. The report stated “the cells are small, poorly ventilated, and without modern sanitary conveniences,” (Shanahan, 2017). The same issues persisted, millions of dollars later, after relocating to a new island. Rikers Island was plagued by the same conditions, critiques, and is now set to be replaced. 

Prison reform, by definition, can never be feminist. Feminist ideology is centered on the principle of self-determination: the fundamental right of individuals – especially women and gender minorities – to control their own bodies, identities, lives, and resources free from patriarchal control. This concept encompasses bodily autonomy, economic independence, and the freedom to make choices about their own existence; thus, the use of feminism to campaign for prisons fundamentally contradicts one of the core principles of feminist ideology. Prisons strip women of their right to control their own bodies and make choices about their lives. Upon incarceration, women become subject – in most cases, violently – to decisions made by men. 

Conversely, abolition is fundamentally aligned with self-determination. As Herzing articulated in our discussion, “you can’t be a feminist without believing in self determination and if you believe in self-determination you believe in the self-determination of all people.” There is no such thing as a ‘pleasant’ jail, and regardless of the opportunities for women inside. Ralston remarked, “A prison is a space of punishment, not care or rehabilitation.” 

Abolitionists have shown us that radical imagination and action for the future is possible. Haley, Herzing, and Ralston exemplify the myriad of creative pathways for an abolitionist future. Dr. Haley is currently fighting against a new proposed women's jail in Harlem, where community organizing has already shifted the terrain of what's possible. A coalition of Harlem residents, Barnard and Columbia students, and academics successfully campaigned to replace the jail with a plan for low-income housing. Their fight exists on the principles of building communities instead of cages. Yet, the fight continues. The city has shifted toward a cooperative housing model that would serve middle-income residents, not the low-income New Yorkers the community fought for. Organizations like Defend Harlem remain mobilized, pushing to ensure the city honors their commitment to affordable housing. This fight illustrates a crucial abolitionist lesson: dismantling the carceral state requires the fight of building prisons, and also vigilantly ensuring that what replaces prisons serves those most harmed by incarceration. 

Herzing's work with her coalition, Building Community, Not Prisons, exemplifies this approach as she fights to stop two prisons from being built with imaginative strategies. They are challenging the proposed Letcher prison in Kentucky on environmental grounds. The coalition raised funds to partner with the Appalachian Rekindling Project, a women-led Indigenous organization, to purchase land on the proposed prison site with the goal of re-matriating it to Indigenous stewardship. This is self-determination in practice: marginalized communities reclaiming land and resources from the carceral state to build their futures. The work is ongoing, and the future remains contested—but these coalitions demonstrate that another world is imaginable and we can construct it.

Citations

Eagle, S. (2020, April 27). OPINION: No one belongs on Rikers Island. Ever. Queens Daily Eagle. https://queenseagle.com/all/opinion-no-one-belongs-on-rikers-island-ever

Hamilton, C. (2019). 2 women sue city over alleged sexual abuse at Rikers—POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/05/2-women-sue-city-over-alleged-sexual-abuse-at-rikers-022279

Kenney, J. L., & Dolliver, M. J. (2022). Time to Bail out: Examining Gender Differences in the Length of Pretrial Detention Using Survival Analysis. The Justice System Journal, 43(2), 203–217.

Law, V., & Nalebuff, R. (2023, March 29). Prisons Use Menstruation as a Form of Punishment. TIME. https://time.com/6265653/prison-menstruation-punishment/

Norton, J. S., Jack. (2017, December 6). A Jail to End All Jails. Urban Omnibus. http://urbanomnibus.net/2017/12/jail-end-jails/

NYC Department of Correction. (1988). 1988: Rose M. Singer & Her Rikers Jail. https://www.correctionhistory.org/html/searches/cnwsrosie.html

Rose, B. H., Lisa. (2016, September 22). Pop. 17,049: Welcome to America’s largest jail. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/22/us/lisa-ling-this-is-life-la-county-jail-by-the-numbers

Singer, S. (2020, May 12). Opinion | The Women’s Jail at Rikers Island Is Named for My Grandmother. She Would Not Be Proud. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/womens-jail-rikers-island-covid.html

Swavola, E., Riley, K., & Subramanian, R. (2016). Overlooked: Women and Jails  in an Era of Reform. Vera Institute of Justice. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/publications/overlooked-women-and-jails-report-updated.pdf?dm=1568746265

The Women’s Center for Justice. (2022). The Women’s  Center for Justice: A Nation-Leading Approach on Women & Gender-Expansive People in Jail. Columbia Justice Lab. https://justicelab.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Womens%20Center%20for%20Justice%20Report%205.18.2022.pdf

Tomasack, S., Scrivener, L., Bond, E., & Chauhan, P. (2021). Women in New York City Jails, 1995-2019. Data Collaborative for Justice. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021_07_09_DOC_Women_Analysis_FINAL.pdf

Valdovinos Olson, M., & Amendola, K. L. (2021). Promoting Health, Safety, and Wellness in Los Angeles County Jails: A Process Evaluation of Gender Responsive Programing for Incarcerated Women. Women & Criminal Justice, 31(6), 422–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2019.1700874