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Incarcerated transgender women often require healthcare to meet their physical-, mental-, and gender transition-related health needs; however, their healthcare experiences in prisons and jails and interactions with correctional healthcare providers are understudied. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In 2015, 20 transgender women who had been incarcerated in the USA within the past five years participated in semi-structured interviews about their healthcare experiences while incarcerated.

Participants described an institutional culture in which their feminine identity was not recognized and the ways in which institutional policies acted as a form of structural stigma that created and reinforced the gender binary and restricted access to healthcare. While some participants attributed healthcare barriers to providers’ transgender bias, others attributed barriers to providers’ limited knowledge or inexperience caring for transgender patients. Whether due to institutional (e.g. sex-segregated prisons, biased culture) or interpersonal factors (e.g. biased or inexperienced providers), insufficient access to physical-, mental-, and gender transition-related healthcare negatively impacted participants’ health while incarcerated.

Findings highlight the need for interventions that target multi-level barriers to care in order to improve incarcerated transgender women’s access to quality, gender-affirmative healthcare.

This study provides first-hand accounts of how multi-level forces serve to reinforce the gender binary and negatively impact the health of incarcerated transgender women. Findings also describe incarcerated transgender women’s acts of resistance against institutional and interpersonal efforts to maintain the gender binary and present participant-derived recommendations to improve access to gender affirmative healthcare for incarcerated transgender women.

The US prison population has recently reached an all-time high, with women representing the fastest growing subpopulation. Correctional health-care system in the USA remains fragmented and nonuniform in practice, particularly in women’s health care, with poor transitions between incarceration and release. This study aims to examine the qualitative health-care experiences of women while incarcerated and their transition into the community health-care setting. Additionally, this study also examined the experiences of a subset of women who were pregnant while incarcerated.

After obtaining institutional review board approval, adult, English-speaking women with a history of incarceration within the past 10 years were interviewed using a semi-structured interview tool. Interview transcripts were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

The authors completed 21 full interviews and identified six themes that were both the most significant and most novel: “feeling stigmatized and insignificant,” “care as punishment,” “delay in care,” “exceptions to the rule,” “fragmentation of care” and “obstetric trauma and resilience.”

Women face numerous barriers and hardships when accessing basic and reproductive health-care services while incarcerated. This hardship is particularly challenging for women with substance use disorders. The authors were able to describe for the first time, partially through their own words, novel challenges described by women interacting with incarceration health care. Community providers should understand these barriers and challenges so as to effectively reengage women in care upon release and improve the health-care status of this historically marginalized group.

The purpose of this paper is to present the characteristics of incarcerated women in two prisons in Java, Indonesia and discuss the specific problems and needs incarcerated women with children face with regard to mothering.

A cross-sectional survey using a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 399 incarcerated women in two prisons. Focus group discussions provided additional information on mother’s experiences in prison.

This research finds that children’s welfare was an important concern for mothers while in prison and that they faced various problems in maintaining family ties during their incarceration, including distance, costs and time for family to visit (49.3 percent), and challenges to being able to communicate with family and children (26.6 percent).

This study contributes to the limited research on incarcerated women in Indonesia, broadly, and on mothering and incarceration, in particular, and suggests that women’s needs as mothers have not been taken into consideration by prisons and the criminal justice system.

The purpose of this paper is to describe standards for evidence-based reproductive healthcare for incarcerated women.

The literature on reproductive healthcare in the US criminal justice system and recommendations from professional organizations were reviewed and critical areas of concern were identified. Within these areas, studies and expert opinion were synthesized and policy recommendations were formulated through an iterative process of group discussion and document revision. This brief specifically addresses women’s incarceration in the USA, but the recommendations are grounded in a human rights framework with global relevance.

Women who are incarcerated have health needs that are distinct from those of men, and there is a clear need for gender-responsive reproductive healthcare within the criminal justice system. This brief identifies five core domains of reproductive healthcare: routine screening, menstruation-related concerns, prenatal and postpartum care, contraception and abortion, and sexually transmitted infections. The recommendations emphasize the continuity between the criminal justice system and the community, as well as the dignity and self-determination of incarcerated women.

This brief provides a unique synthesis of the available evidence with concrete recommendations for improving the reproductive healthcare for incarcerated women.

Sub-Saharan African prisons have seen a substantial increase in women prisoners, including those incarcerated with children. There is very little strategic literature available on the health situation and needs of women prisoners and their circumstantial children in Malawi. The study aims to explore this issue.

A qualitative exploratory study using in-depth key informant interviews with senior correctional stakeholders (commissioner of prison farms, senior correctional management staff, senior health officials and senior officers in charge) (n = 5) and focus group discussions (FGD) with women in prison of age between 18 and 45 years (n = 23) and two FGD with correctional staff (n = 21) was conducted in two prisons in Malawi, Chichiri and Zomba. Narratives were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

Three key themes emerged and are as follows: “hygiene and sanitary situation across multiple prison levels and subsequent health implications for women”; “nutritional provision and diets of women and children in prison”; and “women’s access to prison-based and external health services”. Divergence or agreement across perspectives around sanitation and disease prevention, adequacy of nutrition for pregnant or breast-feeding women, health status and access to prison-based health care are presented.

Garnering a contemporary understanding of women’s situation and their health-care needs in Malawian prisons can inform policy and correctional health practice change, the adaptation of technical guidance and improve standards for women and their children incarcerated in Malawi.

There is a strong need for continued research to garner insight into the experiences of women prisoners and their children, with a particular emphasis on health situation.

Over 2 million individuals are incarcerated in the US criminal justice system. More than half of incarcerated Americans are also parents of minors. Parental incarceration can lead to a higher risk of mental illness and enduring trauma in children, as well as other problematic cognitive, developmental, and educational outcomes. Examining parental incarceration through a racial equity lens is critical, as people of color make up 67% of the incarcerated population despite making up only 37% of the US population. Further, gender-related equity issues pose important challenges for families with incarcerated parents. Here, we discuss prison-based psychosocial interventions designed both to build parenting skills and to improve parent well-being within a racial and gender equity lens. We hypothesize that effective services in these areas are essential components in a broad strategy designed to mitigate the potential negative effects suffered by families and children of incarcerated parents of color as a result of their imprisonment.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the invisible incarcerated women population who are convicted of a crime and serving a sentence in a residential correctional facility in the United States (US). Even though correctional populations have been declining in the past years, the extent of mass incarceration has been a significant public health concern even before the pandemic. Moreover, the global spread of COVID-19 continues to have devastating effects in all the world's societies, and it has exacerbated existing social inequalities within the US carceral complex.

We base our findings on data collection from two comparative clinical sociological garden interventions in a large Southeastern women's prison and a Midwestern residential community correctional facility for women. Both are residential correctional facilities for residents convicted of a crime. In contrast, in prison, women are serving longer-term sentences, and in the community corrections facility, women typically are housed for six months. We have developed and carried out educational garden programming and related research on both sites over the past two years and observe more closely the impact of COVID-19 on incarcerated women and their communities, which has aggravated the invisibility and marginalization of incarcerated women who suffered a lack of programming and insufficient research attention already before the pandemic.

We argue that prison gardens' educational programming has provided some respite from the hardships of the pandemic and is a promising avenue of correctional rehabilitation and programming that fosters sustainability, healthier nutrition, and mental health among participants.

Residential correctional facilities are distinctively sited to advance health equity and community health within a framework of sustainability, especially during a pandemic. We focus on two residential settings for convicted women serving a sentence in a prison or a residential community corrections facility that offers rehabilitation and educational programming. Women are an underserved population within the US carceral system, and it is thus essential to develop more programming and research for their benefit.

This study aims to examine the reasons for and the challenges of women’s incarceration coupled with the threats for their reintegration upon release with a focus on the correctional centers at Dessie and Woldia cities.

This study used quantitative and qualitative research methods with cross-sectional and descriptive research design used to collect the quantitative data, and key informant interviews and participant observation were used to collect the qualitative data. A sample of 60 women prisoners was taken from both correctional centers. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis, respectively

Findings of the study indicate that family backgrounds, gender-based violence, illiteracy and socio-economic problems were the causes for the women’s imprisonment. The women perpetrators were mainly accused of theft, vandalism, murder and moral perversion. Poor detention environment, worry for the family breakup, emotional instability, financial hardships and deprivation of spiritual life were the major sources of distress among the incarcerated women, whereas social stigma, lack of trust and fear of revenge were the threats to reintegrate to their families and communities.

This study involved incarcerated women at the correctional centers in Dessie and Woldia who committed various types of crimes. Because the informant women were imprisoned for violating certain established rules and regulations, they might have withheld some relevant issues to this research, which they thought were secret and personal. In addition, the women at the correctional centers might not have felt secure to speak more openly about their worst experiences at prison for fear they should face administrative challenges stemming from disclosing their real-life situations as incarcerated persons. The authors thus believe that further research is needed to uncover facts about women’s criminality and the experiences of women inmates at correctional centers.

The findings of this research do have practical implications as explained below. The local government sectors and non-governmental organizations will benefit from the study so as to develop feasible strategies to mitigate women’s criminality and scale down the increasing number of female perpetrators (prisoners). Local government and non-governmental entities (bodies) can easily identify the violent behaviors of husbands that cause women’s criminality and design comprehensive awareness creation strategies toward reducing hostile gender relations. Governmental and non-governmental stakeholders including the local communities will be able to advocate gender equality programs aiming at eliminating gender discrimination and abuses that exacerbate women’s criminality. Incarceration centers will improve access to education and vocational training to female inmates so that beneficiaries will acquire relevant knowledge and skills to enter into the local labor market to sustain themselves and their families upon release from prison.

This is an original paper with a fresh perspective regarding the lived experiences of women at the prisons of study area guided by popular criminological theories. Thus, the research work would be used as a literature of the study area and help government and non-government bodies to prepare policies and guidelines. Most particularly, the Woldia and Dessie correctional centers would benefit from this paper to develop essential plans and take measures about the adverse situation of incarcerated women.

The menstrual health and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) of incarcerated women remains relatively low on the agenda of public health interventions globally, widening the inequitable access of incarcerated women to safe and readily available menstrual health products (MHP). The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted on the MHM gains made in various development sectors in the global North and South, through its amplification of vulnerability for already at-risk populations. This is especially significant to developing countries such as South Africa where the incarcerated female population are an often-forgotten minority.

This viewpoint highlights the ignominious silence of research and policy attention within the South African carceral context in addressing MHM. The ethical and political implications of such silences are unpacked by reviewing international and local literature that confront issues of inequality and equitable access to MHP and MHM resources within incarcerated contexts.

Structural inequalities in various contexts around the world have exacerbated COVID-19 and MHM. Within the prison context in South Africa, women face multiple layers of discrimination and punishment that draw attention to the historical discourses of correctional facilities as a site of surveillance and discipline.

This study acknowledges that while this viewpoint is essential in rising awareness about gaps in literature, it is not empirical in nature.

The authors believe that this viewpoint is essential in raising critical awareness on MHM in carceral facilities in South Africa. The authors hope to use this publication as the theoretical argument to pursue empirical research on MHM within carceral facilities in South Africa. The authors hope that this publication would provide the context for international and local funders, to assist in the empirical research, which aims to roll out sustainable MHP to incarcerated women in South Africa.

The authors believe that this viewpoint is the starting point in accelerating the roll out of sustainable MHP to incarcerated females in South Africa. These are females who are on the periphery of society that are in need of practical interventions. Publishing this viewpoint would provide the team with the credibility to apply for international and national funding to roll out sustainable solutions.

It is hoped that the gaps in literature and nodes for social and human rights activism highlighted within this viewpoint establish the need for further participatory research, human rights advocacy and informed civic engagement to ensure the voices of these women and their basic human rights are upheld.

The increasing rate of imprisonment of women in the United States and the over‐representation of women victims of violence in the corrections system confirms that there are long‐term, often substantially debilitating consequences to women victims of intimate partner violence, sexual violence and youth maltreatment and injury, including incarceration. As part of a study funded by the National Institute of Justice, the authors pursued an exploration of the personal risks, resiliencies and life opportunities that make a difference in the lives of women who have ended up incarcerated. The findings of this study about the prevalence and consequences of youth maltreatment and adult victimization and the mitigating factors, which may have had an impact on the life trajectories of adult incarcerated women will be reviewed. Recommendations will be given for preventive and interventive policy and practice measures that stand to reduce the negative consequences of victimization, particularly those that can prevent incarceration.