Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Joy O'Shea Woomer, a woman incarcerated at Lancaster County Prison, has set up a blog describing her environment and her legal process:
http://joyinprison.wordpress.com/

Lancaster Online covered the existence of her blog recently:

...In her first entry, dated March 9, she indicates that friends are typing the blog from letters she sends from prison...

Woomer says the blog reduces postage costs and allows her to stay in communication with friends and "share with you the absurdities of the Lancaster County Prison and judicial system."

On March 11, Woomer comments on Judge David Ashworth's "disappointing" denial of her bail and newspaper coverage of the decision.

"The partial quote in the newspaper from the 42-page opinion was misleading and presumes all parties testifying thus far have been truthful," Woomer writes.

Woomer discusses a conversation with a representative of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, which monitors inmates in state prisons.

She says the representative told her that the prison "is regarded as the Auschwitz or Dachau of all prisons in Pa."

To that, she adds: "No wonder one of the women's housing units here looks like a dungeon with poor lighting and sewer rats coming up through the toilets." On St. Patrick's Day, Woomer reveals that she "had a little meltdown or what might be described as a little panic attack. Just thinking about being here another six months, possibly, was getting to me."

The next day Woomer undergoes a "shakedown," during which inmates are escorted from their cells so that all contraband can be confiscated. She says guards took her library books.

On March 24, Woomer provides a recipe for tuna chi-chi, explaining that "a chi-chi combines ramen noodles with other foods to create a delicious alternative to prison slop."

For more, go to: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/236994