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 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.
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