[Women Prisoner News] In World's Largest Female Prison, Inmates Organize for Health

[Diana Block]

http://www.wecedyouth.org/2015/07/in-worlds-largest-female-prison-inmates-organize-for-health/

*By Claudia J. Gonzalez*

*Photo by Claudia J. Gonzalez*

*CHOWCHILLA, Calif*. — My heart begins to pound as I enter the gym at the
Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) on the outskirts of Chowchilla,
about 20 miles south of Merced. Within moments memories of my own time
behind bars flood my mind.

I can’t help but wonder at my own sense of being so at home after so many
years.

I’m here as a volunteer for a health fair co-organized by an advocacy
organization and a group of CCWF inmates. The facility is one of three
female prisons in the state, and with an inmate population of 3,123 is the
largest female-only prison in the world.

Opened in 1990, CCWF has 2,004 beds, and is currently at 155 percent
capacity. Twenty inmates are currently on death row.

Niki Martinez, 38, has spent the past 20 years as at CCWF. Petite, her arms
decorated with tattoos, she was sentenced as an adult for a crime she
committed when she was only 17.

“I was young and I take responsibility for my crime,” said Martinez, who is
serving a sentence of 45 years to life. “But [now] my goal is to help other
girls avoid ending up in my situation.”

Martinez joined with fellow prisoner Elizabeth Lozano, 40, to form the
Juvenile Offenders Committee (JOC) several years ago, which provides a
support system for women at CCWF who were sentenced as adults when they
were juveniles.

A 2010 study
<http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/documents/UCLA-Literature-Review.pdf>
by the UCLA School of Law Juvenile Justice Project found that 66 percent of
youth sentenced as adults develop mental illnesses. Forty-three percent
were found to have three or more psychiatric disorders.

JOC currently has some 130 members. The group provides workshops on issues
like substance abuse, trauma education and assistance with preparing for
parole hearings.

In June, JOC partnered with the San Francisco-based organization California
Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) and Centerforce, which is
headquartered in San Quentin and has been providing health and family
services to incarcerated populations for the past 30 years, to host the
2015 Health and Wellness Fair. CCWP advocates for women, transgender
people, and communities of color impacted by incarceration, and its
membership encompasses both incarcerated women and activists.

Nearly 1,000 women gathered in the prison gym on the day of the event,
which featured informational booths on substance abuse, transgender
support, disability services and trauma. There were also a variety of
activities like exercise challenges and live performances.

Martinez says events like this are crucial, not only because they identify
available resources, but also because they help build morale among the
inmates and encourage them to support each other.

Sara Kershnar is a coalition member. She says the fair was “organized with
the goal of giving people tools that they can use to take care of
themselves and each other.” She adds that groups like CCWP are working to
“build power in a place where you are humiliated, blamed, and shamed on a
constant basis.”

Recent reports do in fact paint a grim picture of life inside California’s
women’s prisons.

In 2013 the Center for Investigative Reporting published a report
<https://www.revealnews.org/article-legacy/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california-prisons-without-approval/>
that found that between 2006 and 2010, 148 women inmates had been
sterilized without consent in California. Prisoner rights advocates called
the practice a form of eugenics.

That same year a Health Care Evaluation of the Chowchilla prison by medical
experts took note <http://www.prisonlaw.com/pdfs/CCWF2013.pdf> of the
“overcrowding, insufficient health care staffing and inadequate medical bed
space” available at the prison.  The report’s authors attributed at least
one inmate death in 2013 to complications brought on by subpar care.

Such concerns are what drew Lamercie Saint-Hilaire to participate in the
fair.

A practicing physician in San Francisco, Saint-Hilaire spent the afternoon
answering medical questions and providing medical information to attendees.
She says many of the questions were about health care for relatives on the
outside.

“It’s amazing that even when dealing with the daily struggle of surviving
prison, they still prioritized their family’s needs before their own,”
recalls Saint-Hilaire, who says the trip to Chowchilla offered her an
opportunity to help women in need of care, and to gain insight into health
care inside the prison system.

“This experience showed me their humanity … I left the event with a great
sense of humility,” she said.

I shared that same sense of humility, having spent the day listening to the
stories of women whose narratives sounded so much like my own. I was at
turns amazed and inspired at how many of them were eager to help others and
try to give back to their communities from the inside.

As the fair was wrapping up an elderly inmate approached. “I am so happy to
see you here,” she said. “It makes me feel like somebody cares about us.”

I reflected on my own time behind bars, and how I could be where she is now
had I not been given a second chance.

“We do care about you,” I replied. “Never forget that.”


-- 
*Diana*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://womenprisoners.org/pipermail/news_womenprisoners.org/attachments/20150714/3a43a0ae/attachment.html>