“A woman does not lose her value as a human being when incarcerated, nor does she forfeit control over her body,” said Senator Nia Gill, in addressing the Federal probe that found rampant sex abuse at New Jersey’s only women’s prison. In the wake of the report’s release, New Jersey’s governor announced the eventual closing of the troubled Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (EMCF).
EMCF is almost an hour and a half trip by car from Manhattan. Located in Clinton, New Jersey, near the Pennsylvania border, removed from the large population centres like Newark and Camden, this facility’s isolation has a three-pronged negative effect on female inmates. First, the prison being difficult, if not impossible, to reach by mass transportation (bus or rail), limits visitation in both minimum and maximum compound units, already restricted to a few hours on weekends and twice during the week. Many inmates are mothers who depend on such in-person visitations to connect with their children. If their sentences are long, they risk missing their child’s formative years.
Secondly, isolation allows allegations of sexual abuse to simmer for years, as loved ones are often conduits for sensitive information reaching the outside world. In the case of EMCF, federal investigators found a multiplicity of inmates, released and still incarcerated, who convincingly depicted staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse. Officers held “viewing parties” of a prisoner on suicide watch who would follow officers’ instructions to dance while she undressed.
Finally, since phone calls, emails, and letters are regularly screened, families are often the only vehicle for exposing medical neglect, which sometimes results in an inmate’s death. Isolation makes for less reporting of medical malfeasance, which is pervasive throughout the criminal justice system. Rationed medical care is woefully deficient for the needs of female inmates, especially their reproductive and mental health. That a veterinarian is said by inmates to have practised for years as a doctor at EMCF is an example of the inadequacies of inmate medical services and oversight.
In January 2021, EMCF again made headlines after a forced cell extraction in the administrative-segregation unit, colloquially known as “lock”; seriously injured three inmates. One woman was punched repeatedly, another’s eye socket was fractured, and a third suffered a concussion and torn ligaments.
During the peak of the pandemic, solitary confinement cells were used to sequester those displaying Covid-like symptoms. No adjustment was made to the rule that inmates wear tight belly belts when showering, and the locked shower stall could only be opened by an officer. Tiffany Mofield was suffering from breathlessness, but medical personnel persisted in treating her for a mild flu. She was locked into a shower stall. “Let me out! I can’t breathe,” she screamed. No officers came. Allegedly, they were too far away to hear. When an officer finally unlocked the shower, Mofield tumbled out, unconscious. All attempts to revive her failed.
When a woman’s body becomes an inmate’s body, she is vulnerable. Her words are not believed, her body shamed. The widespread construction of prisons far from population centres is especially onerous for the growing number of America’s incarcerated women. The Sentencing Project reports that “between 1980 and 2019, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%.”
Stephanie Dickinson lives in New York City’s East Village. Her Razor Wire Wilderness, a true crime memoir, is based on her long-time correspondence with inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women and has been recently released by Kallisto Gaia Press.