Making Connections Between Feminism and Prison Abolitionism

In the last few weeks, two studies came out: The first about the rate of incarceration in the United States and the second about the rate of STD cases in teenage girls. Activists and organizers recognize the complexities of the issues and campaigns we work on. In order to build stronger movements we have to talk between sectors and build alliances that further push our theories of change and our collective agenda.

Sounds like idealistic talk for those that are not part of the movement for social change, but as someone who spends day in and day out working with people on these issues, I see how talking each other about our differences is sometimes the only way to make connections between our issues. Specifically, the feminist movement and the anti-incarceration movement need to be talking to each other. Thanks to a reader, who saw my article on STDs and on prisons, I was sent a study that came out years ago on the connections between rate of STD cases and the rate of incarceration. The conclusion? Women in communities with higher rates of incarceration are more susceptible to high rates of STD exposure, even when they are engaging in low risk behavior.

An op-ed in the Washington Post titled, "An Epidemic No One wants to Talk About," elaborates,

A decade ago, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine published a landmark report, "The Hidden Epidemic," examining sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. In 1995, the report noted, STDs accounted for 87 percent of cases of the 10 most frequently reported diseases in the nation. Despite the huge costs that such infections imposed on our health-care system, awareness of their importance was all but absent from the public consciousness. We fear that this latest study will have its 15 minutes in the spotlight and also fade from view.

Sadly, our national silence may be related to our difficulty in discussing the roles that race and poverty play in these trends. In 2005, for example, the rate of gonorrhea (a curable STD) among African Americans was 18 times greater than the rate among whites. The contrast in rates for HIV-AIDS, syphilis and chlamydial infection among blacks and whites is only slightly less dramatic. These diseases cost tens of billions of dollars each year, but with the exception of HIV infection, STDs remain the elephant in the room when it comes to the national conversation about health and health care.

One obvious reason is that conversations about sexual behavior, race and sexually transmitted infections remain taboo. Another is that the incidence of many STDs, particularly HIV, is concentrated in poor, segregated neighborhoods that are characterized by high rates of incarceration. Inner-city populations of African Americans and Latinos account for almost two-thirds of the 2.2 million Americans in prison nationwide, and two disturbing trends are increasingly present in these communities.

To take this even further, STDs are also spread in prisons where rape is prevalent and health needs are neglected, well beyond the usual problems of distribution of condoms. The shame functions on two levels, the first is homophobia leading high risk behaviors underground and the shame of being sexually assaulted and the questions that brings up around masculinity, again creating a wall of silence as to the actual conditions for incarcerated populations and rape. Finally, the op-ed concludes that concurrent sexual partnerships are one of the main factors fueling the spread of STDs.

One is the shift in the patterns of marriage and courtship that result when so many men are removed from a community. The other is an increase in the number of "multiple concurrent sexual partnerships," in which individuals are engaged in sexual relationships with more than one person at a time. In many communities, when one sexual partner is imprisoned, the person left behind chooses another partner. When widespread, this behavior creates an efficient, effective pattern for introducing and maintaining an STD through a network of sexual relationships.

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