Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

TROY, Va. - Corrections officials are investigating whether inmates are being denied access to religious services at Virginia's largest women's prison, scrutiny partly prompted by earlier allegations that the lockup segregated masculine-looking lesbian prisoners.

State Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg, said he was told access to religious services had been curtailed in interviews with dozens of former volunteers at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

He asked the Department of Corrections to investigate in June after conducting those interviews and reading a story by The Associated Press about the practice of housing prisoners with masculine appearances in a separate wing.

Prisoner rights advocates, inmates and their families say they also have asked the department to investigate changes at the 1,200-inmate prison since Warden Barbara Wheeler took over in 2004 and brought in Major Michael Frame as head of security in 2008.

"Fluvanna was recognized certainly regionally if not nationally as being a role-model women's prison," Ruff said in an interview. "That does not appear to be the case at this time."

Department director Gene Johnson told Ruff in a July 8 letter he was sending investigators to the prison, but he had the impression things were running smoothly.

"I am taking this action not because I believe there has been any misconduct or malfeasance at the facility, indeed all reports I receive would indicate things are operating as they should," Johnson wrote.

Department spokesman Larry Traylor said the investigators' report isn't finished and may not be made public.

Wheeler declined interview requests, while Frame didn't return phone and e-mail messages.

Ruff was particularly concerned that inmates did not have the access to religious programs and services that they did under the previous administration, when he said about a third of the women attended services.

Inmates now must designate a religion and be approved and placed on a list to attend services. Only about 250 inmates are allowed to attend. Prison officials update the overall activity list, which includes those allowed to attend religious services, only once every three months.

Federal law allows prisons to limit religious freedoms only for compelling reasons, like safety, but requires that it be done in the least restrictive way. So requiring prisoners to designate a religion is OK, but requiring inmates to do so every three months or be denied access to religious services is excessive, said Helen Trainor, director of the Virginia Institutionalized Persons Project.

Gail Bradley, 53, who is serving time for theft and fraud, says the list to attend church has been full since she got to Fluvanna in December.

Several inmates said they have been turned away from religious services for punitive reasons, such as their hair being too long. If inmates go to segregation or are moved to another housing unit, they are removed from the list and denied services.

Lay chaplain visits and numerous self-help and other programs run through the chaplain's office were stopped. Ruff said some programs were suspended after administrators learned about his meeting with the volunteers.

Ruff also asked corrections officials to look into what inmates and some guards said was a practice of placing inmates with more masculine features in a separate cell block, referred to by inmates and guards as the "butch wing" or "locker room wing." The moves were intended to curb sexual activity and break up relationships, the prisoners and guards told the AP article for an published in June.

Wheeler has denied that prisoners were targeted because of their sexuality or appearance, and the practice apparently stopped this summer soon after the AP asked about it.

Among other changes made under Frame and Wheeler's watch, according to letters and interviews with more than 30 inmates, and interviews with advocates, former volunteers and a prison guard, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of being fired:

• _Inmates are placed on a waiting list to use the restroom at night, early morning or during long lockdowns because their cells do not have toilets. Many say the wait can be up to an hour or longer, and that if an inmate relieves herself in her cell she is sent to segregation.
• _Inmates have two white cotton blankets for their beds and can only wash one every three months instead of once per week, as department policy outlines. In response to an inmate's August 2008 grievance obtained by the AP, Wheeler responded, "One clean blanket every 90 days is more than sufficient."
• _Although department policy allows females' hair to touch their shoulders, Fluvanna bans hair past the top of the collar. Inmates say they have been turned away from meals, visits, church, educational classes and graduation ceremonies because their hair was not in compliance.
• _Despite it being against department policy, inmates say officers regularly withhold food as punishment.

Marguerite Richardson, 54, is serving 57 years for a series of robberies. She has been at Fluvanna since it opened in 1998 and says the focus has changed from rehabilitating inmates to "this kind of blanket it's-going-to-be-rough-on-you thinking."

Frame came to Fluvanna after the prison's former head of security was fired and later convicted for having sex with inmates. Because of that, Ruff said it was no surprise Frame "came in with a heavy hand."

Alicia Yates Hill, 35, first came to Fluvanna in 1999 for writing bad checks. She said she knew she was in prison, but "I felt like a human being." She came back four years later for probation violation and said everything had changed.

"I know that I'm here for punishment and rehabilitation," she wrote. "However, does it have to be hell?"

http://www.wtkr.com/news/dp-va--womensprison-inv1124nov24,0,3711517.story