Basic reproductive rights for women shouldn’t end when they become incarcerated.

Editor’s Note: 14 East just recently reached out to Logan Square Correctional Facility and Cook County Jail for comment. We will update the document with both comments as soon as they are received. 

For individuals who have a menstrual cycle and those who are incarcerated, having something as normal and natural as a monthly period cycle might put their own life at risk. 

Since re-entry, Quianya Enge has been an advocate for other women incarcerated and is the founder of the nonprofit organization Beyond the Walls. This organization acts as a mobile resource unit for individuals directly impacted by the criminal legal system—run by directly impacted peers. She also works with the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, an organization which removes legal barriers tied to having a criminal record such as roadblocks to proper housing, education and employment. 

Enge was a young mother in her early 20’s when she was convicted and sentenced to decades in the Logan Correctional Center. She was three months postpartum and breastfeeding at the time and was refused access to bras and privacy with her newborn child by staff at the facility. 

“I was engorged and literally one of the female staff members just told me to hold them up with my hands,” said Enge. She goes on to explain that without proper access to any bras she would often have to resort to using tube socks to bind her breasts together to minimize or stop the pain altogether. 

“Engorgement is a very, very painful process when you are not able to relieve the milk from your breast so being given two rolls of tissue a week and given one bag of very cheaply poor manufactured sanitary napkins doesn’t cut it,” she exclaimed. 

Celia Colón was previously incarcerated in Cook County and since becoming a returning citizen, she has turned much of her energy towards helping other women in Cook County Jail through her nonprofit organization Giving Other’s Dreams (G.O.D.). The nonprofit G.O.D. specifically works to fight against the stigma of mental health and supports the reproductive rights of women who are incarcerated or have since re-entered into society. 

Colon has experienced firsthand how women in Cook County have to fight in order to access proper menstrual products or the right to proper screenings within the Illinois state prison system. She explained how people who do not have access to proper menstrual products are left to fend for themselves, often taking desperate measures to maintain proper hygiene each time a period comes along that time of the month. 

“Nobody comes in or is concerned with that part of your body when you are in jail,” she said. “When it comes to us being behind the wall that’s not even a thought and there is not a good system in place.” 

According to the University of Chicago Legal Forum, prisons at both the state and federal levels routinely deny or restrict access to menstrual supplies for women who need them. As a result, the forum states, detainees and prisoners are left to bleed on their clothes and the floor of their cell. Without the adequate amount of menstrual products being provided in state and federal prison, prisoners will often have to resort to unhygienic means of managing periods by leaving a tampon in for too long or using non sterile items like toilet paper to stop the bleeding.

“Women will use their socks, tear up their sheets, tear up their shirts,” she said. “The thing is, too, when they started selling [menstrual products] on commissary, if they ran out by the time it got to your unit, and they didn’t order enough for the whole compound, then you didn’t get it.” 

Advocate and activist of Reproductive Justice Inside Kimberly Haven wrote a commentary for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) giving those outside the carceral system an inside look into menstrual inequality behind the wall. 

While Haven was incarcerated, she was referred to by others as the “tampon queen” because she would make her own makeshift menstrual products out of what was given to her. She explained access to pads or tampons in the carceral system are not a given, as they are heavily restricted and will run out leaving many prisoners to beg for more products from the guards. The tampons and pads that are available need to be purchased in the commissary, a small store within the jail where those incarcerated with good behavior are able to use their trust fund money to purchase any additional supplies or hygiene products. However, this is not ideal for many who are incarcerated as they are either not able to afford it or are not granted access. 

Currently, 38 states across the U.S. have no laws requiring menstrual products to be distributed to incarcerated individuals. There is also no system in place for any state correctional facilities to follow routine screenings or check up.  

According to ACLU Illinois, when you are a woman in prison or jail, “you have the fundamental right to make decisions about your reproductive healthcare.” Having these rights also means that jails or prisons can’t punish or threaten you when you make decisions about your body. However, this is not always done in practice, and reproductive rights continue to be violated in Illinois or other states across the U.S. 

Sharon James, an OBGYN in Chicago who has practiced for over 28 years, has seen patients from all different ages, from teen years through menopause and has worked in labor and delivery as well. Through her years as a gynecologist, she has seen women brought into the hospital who have to give birth while still in shackles.

 James explained the many health problems that can result from excess bleeding during a menstrual cycle without the proper protection of pads or tampons. She also said menstrual cycle’s can range from five days to two weeks with different levels of blood flow, which poses an even greater issue if there is not a good system in place for access to adequate products. 

“Some people have to have double protection,” James said. “Of course, that’s going to cause the pH of the vagina to be off, and those kinds of things lead to things like bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections, and things like that.” 

As of February 2024, the Cook County Inspection report had marked yes for “female detainees provided with necessary articles for personal hygiene” and for “any detainees without funds provided with necessary equipment and articles. 

Another major issue seen from Illinois state prisons and prisons nationwide, is the lack of routine reproductive screenings both before and after a woman enters into the carceral system. Screenings like mammograms, Pap smears and other routine check-ups are not instilled in the carceral system. Colon says these routine screenings are extremely inconsistent and often women in the carceral system who report their symptoms to authority figures will not be believed until falling extremely ill and needing more severe hospitalization. 

Enge said from the time she entered the carceral system at age 25 to the time she left at age 36, she never received a mammogram or Pap smear. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, women who are 21 to 29 should have a Pap test alone every three years. 

Since leaving the carceral system, Enge also noted she has heard about many of her friends and acquaintances from Logan Correctional Center who end up getting diagnosed with reproductive cancer after re-entry. So often, she said, there is no way this could be a simple coincidence. 

James’ husband worked as a medical director in Cook County Jail, primarily with men. He said there were never any specialists within the prison, especially when it came to gynecology. The lack of regular screenings and menstrual products in women’s prisons, James explained, can lead to the larger issue of misdiagnosis, vaginal infections or worse.

A study conducted by the Journal of Women’s Health in 2019 found that women involved in the correctional system have a higher prevalence of cervical dysplasia and cancer than women in the overall general population. The study also found that the acceptance of screenings within the prison system varies across states and the treatment and compliance with follow up recommendations have been found to be poor. 

“There’s never been a gender specific guideline of what medical needs are for women,” Colón said. “With mammograms, cervical cancer screening, HPV, all that stuff is not done until someone is already dying.”

Header by Anna Retzlaff