Kara Janssen is the Arizona Empathy Network lead for Dream.Org
I remember looking at the freeway out the dirty window - so close, yet so far away - wondering if I'd ever make it out alive, if I'd ever set foot in the real world again. Five years later, I did, but barely.
Being an incarcerated woman at the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry taught me a type of survival I had never experienced. I was treated as less than human for so long, I started to believe it. Basic human necessities like medical care, food, feminine hygiene and other resources were scarce, if nonexistent. Those would be inhumane conditions for anyone, but with a medical issue that had gone untreated for years, for me it was much worse.
I mean it when I said I barely made it out alive.
I had multiple kidney stones that required surgery but the department was slow at responding to medical requests, slow at sending me to a specialist, slow at sending me to the surgeon, and slow at the follow-up. I was finally sent to the county hospital for surgery but in my jumpsuit, handcuffs, and shackles, on display for the whole world to see, I felt like an animal at the zoo and all I wanted was to shrink away and die.
Even after my surgery, I was handcuffed and shackled to the bed for days with shifts of two correctional officers at a time. They were supposed to take me walking to keep me from developing pneumonia, but I never went for a single walk while I was there, and of course, got pneumonia. Then they sent me back to the prison where I was given Tylenol and a bottom bunk for three days. I was treated like a nuisance and it was another month before I was seen again for my pneumonia. Thank goodness, it went away on its own, but it could have been so much worse.
The August before my November release, I developed another kidney stone.
This one took over two years for me to finally be taken for surgery, but because the stone moved out of my kidney, I was sent back and prepared for a different type of surgery altogether Once I was released in November, my kidney had grown twice its size and I had to have emergency surgery to remove the stone. I don't want to know what would have happened if I had not gotten out when I did.
I have seen too many women lose their lives because they can't get the medical treatment they need in prison. The gross negligence of the medical provider was even litigated against by the ACLU of Arizona over 10 years ago, and the department has failed to meet every requirement of the settlement. A new judge needed to be assigned specifically to ensure the department abided by the agreement of the court. The lack of transparency and accountability is killing people and needs to be addressed, not just for medical cases, but for all treatment of incarcerated people.
Since my experience six years ago, I have devoted myself to making life better for the women I left behind. I became an employee at the ACLU of Arizona with the Smart Justice Campaign and was able to use intel from the women I'd stayed connected to on the inside that contradicted department reports to help with legislation.
In 2020, I assisted in passing the Dignity for Incarcerated Women bill, which ensured free feminine hygiene products for women. These products are a basic human necessity and women should not have to pay $.11 per tampon when they are making $.15 an hour.
But when I went to testify in front of a legislature of men, I was told they were not expecting to talk about blood and periods. To any woman, it should have been common sense, but these men had it in their minds that women were clogging toilets with the hygiene products on purpose.
Even when the bill finally passed, women were only given an unlimited supply of items for about a year before there were more supply shortages. These women are still having to fight for what they need today and if I hadn't kept in contact with them, no one in the public would know.
This is why transparency and accountability for the inner workings of a prison are essential to people's protection. From corruption within the staff, to inhumane treatment, the department has proven its incompetence.. There needs to be a serious change in culture which cannot be addressed without enacting independent prison oversight.
In Arizona, incarceration is higher on the budget than education. The state spends over a billion dollars on incarceration with no rehabilitation and has the fourth-highest incarceration rate in the nation. Where is the money going and why are we failing so miserably? Oversight would allow us to see where the money is going and where it could be better allocated. We need folks with experience to speak up and speak out.
Tell your lawmaker about the importance of prison oversight and why it matters for Arizonans. Whether you are formerly incarcerated yourself, or know someone who has been, your voice matters. Your voice can change hearts and minds.