Jails in Louisiana are falling short in their care for incarcerated women, including a few that use leg irons on those who are pregnant, a new report from the state's legislative auditor shows.
The report adds new data points to a pattern of faltering care for women locked up throughout the Gulf South. That's also spurred reform attempts, such as shackle bans for pregnant women in Mississippi and changes to menstrual product laws in all three states.
In general, the correctional system isn't set up for women's unique and more nuanced needs, said Gabrielle A. Perry, whose nonprofit The Thurman Perry Foundation distributes menstrual care products to jails and prisons in a few states.
Because of this, the penal system can look like "a male-dominated industry ... treating everybody as if they are the same, when these women are inherently not the same, their needs are not the same," Perry said.
The Louisiana review was prompted by a 2023 state House resolution asking for a compliance assessment of care for women in the state's jails and prisons. Last July, that tally was more than 3,500 women, most of whom were held in local jails, according to the report.
Many of those women were jailed in advance of a trial, but more than 1,100 people were serving state Department of Corrections sentences — a quirk of Louisiana, where many who would typically be held in prisons are actually being detained in jails.
Auditors found while many jails surveyed have policies specifically for women's care, many of those rules don't fully comply with state standards. They found some jails aren't following rules around the use of restraints during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
Many jails aren't automatically testing women for pregnancy upon booking, meaning they might not have access to entitlements like prenatal vitamins and snacks. At least two jails only treat pregnant women when something appears to be wrong, regulators wrote.
More than 100 incarcerated people also told auditors that they didn't have access to enough free menstrual products, out of step with state law. Some also flagged an issue with guards not providing period products upon request.
The report did not identify the individual jails where auditors found deficiencies.
Spokespeople for the Orleans and Jefferson Parish sheriff's offices, which run two of the state's larger jails, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the auditor's report. A spokesperson for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office referred questions to the mayor's office.
The state's prison system formally responded to the report, while emphasizing that they do not operate local jails and only issue guidelines for jails that hold detainees who are in state custody. The agency agreed with some findings in part and disagreed with others, according to a letter in the report's appendix signed by Secretary of Corrections Gary Westcott.
"The Department takes the dignity, care and treatment of incarcerated women in its custody seriously," a spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. She highlighted 24-hour medical care, pregnancy care and women's hygiene products offered at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women prison.
The Rev. Alexis Anderson, a member of the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition and director of the nonprofit PREACH, said she was "not surprised" by the report's findings, and would have liked to see jails with various issues named by the legislative auditor.
She said there is little appetite in the state for oversight measures such as requiring sheriffs to make quarterly or monthly reports on their detainees.
"We are not in a good place right now where we are willing to do the hard work of fixing and preventing things," she said.
A trying period
Health care for incarcerated women has attracted attention from media and lawmakers in recent years, particularly around the issue of period parity.
In Alabama, that issue came to a head after Department of Justice investigators said the black market for menstrual products in the state's troubled prisons was so robust it left women vulnerable to sexual and other exploitation, according to reports.
Perry said women her nonprofit serves across the country have told her they are issued as few as two menstrual products per month, and are then told they can supplement their care with purchases from the commissary.
But that costs money, and the products aren't necessarily high-quality. Such problems are so persistent in part because some officials "consider this to be a continuation of the punishment," she said.
Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the research and advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative, said the findings in the Louisiana report were "saddening, but it's not shocking."
In her view, it highlights a gulf between the quality of services in prisons and local jails, which then takes on a heightened importance when so many Louisiana women are held in the local facilities.
"Local jails are even less suited than state prisons to providing care for chronic health problems or things like pregnancy," she said.
Jails are frequently understaffed and have funding challenges, Bertram said, in addition to generally having less oversight than state prisons.
A new women's prison is expected to open in Louisiana in late summer, according to the auditors' report. That facility is expected to have a capacity of 950 people, more space for education and programming, and a postpartum area.
Anderson, of the East Baton Rouge prison reform group, said she does not see expanded women's prison capacity as a solution.
"Why is it doubling its size? Because we're committed — not to reducing crime, but to increasing the number of women we put away," she said.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.
