Congress passed the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act (the "First Step Act") earlier in December, prior to the government shut-down. The criminal justice bill, supported by President Trump, includes some modest reforms to increase rehabilitation programs in prison and reduce some prison sentences (see a simplified explanation here). One of the lesser-known provisions of the First Step Act is the requirement that federal prisons provide menstrual hygiene products to prisoners. Given that the US has a tremendously high incarceration rate for women (see here), it's surprising -- or maybe not -- that the federal prisons did not have an obligation to make these products available to women.
Prior to the success of the federal legislation, students at the University of Baltimore's Bronfein Family Law Clinic, working under the guidance of Professor Margaret Johnson, had been hard at work trying to persuade the Maryland State Legislature to provide menstrual hygiene products to those incarcerated in state jails and prisons. The student-attorneys wrote about their work. Here is an excerpt:
We and other clinic student attorneys jumped into action because the provision of menstrual products is a basic human right for those who menstruate. The student attorneys, in conjunction with RJI and past residents of Maryland prisons, provided both written and oral testimony to the Maryland General Assembly in February 2018 in support of the proposed bill.
In support of our testimony, we conducted a national survey of the fifty states’ and the District of Columbia’s laws regarding menstrual products for persons in correctional facilities. When we first conducted our study in February 2018, we found that only eighteen states had any provision identifying the issue of providing menstrual products to inmates. Of those eighteen states, eleven states required the facility to provide inmates with these products whereas the other seven states did not specify how inmates would access the products; of those eleven, only two specifically required that those products be provided at no cost. Of the eighteen states, nine states required the state to provide menstrual products only upon demand so they were not freely available. Two states provided unspecified access to menstrual products.
The bill unanimously passed the Maryland House and the Senate and on April 24, 2018, Governor Hogan signed the bill into law. As of October 1, 2018, Maryland correctional facilities are required legally to have a written policy and sufficient supply of free menstrual products.
With this new law, Maryland became a leader in the country with this initiative of making menstrual products available, at no cost, and with unfettered access. This fall, the Clinic student attorneys have filed multiple public information act requests with each Maryland county facility to obtain their policies to ensure compliance with this new law. We have also drafted a model policy to provide to the facilities should they need assistance.
Still over half the US states do not provide access to these products. I'll bet the students at Baltimore have some wisdom they could share!
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