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Women on Death Row
By Rebecca Doran
On April 25, thousands of demonstrators will march on Washington for
what
organizers are calling the largest march ever assembled in America to
support women’s reproductive rights, justice and freedom. The march,
which
has been suitably labeled, "March For Women’s Lives," serves as a harsh
reminder that feminists of today are still facing overwhelming
obstacles
that have been created by the ruling minority in their never ending
strategy
of divide and conquer by class, gender, and race.
The eyes of this mass march and rally will focus heavily on
reproductive
rights, which have been under constant attack by both wings of the
capitalist class since the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973. But
it
is imperative that demonstrators also face and protest other forms of
women’s oppression.
Today in America there are 47 women throughout 23 different states who
have
been condemned to death, segregated from society, and forced to endure
daily
humiliation, intimidation, and abuse at the hands of prison guards who
are
often men. Two other women have had their death sentences reversed and
are
now awaiting final disposition.
These female death row inmates make up only about 0.1 percent of the
staggering 50,000 women who are incarcerated in this nation’s prisons,
and
only 1.4 percent of the entire death row population, which sadly
includes
over 3400 men. Perhaps this uneven ratio of male to female death
sentences
helps to explain the lack of information made available to the public
as
well as a seemingly non-existent sense of urgency for these women who
are
deemed unworthy of life by the patriarchal justice system.
A large percentage of imprisoned women, including those on death row,
are
survivors of domestic violence. In many cases the abuse began at
childhood
at the hands of violent fathers, only to be continued into adulthood by
boy
friends and husbands, and eventually, by over-zealous prosecutors,
stern
judges, and vicious prison guards.
A typical trial of a woman accused of killing her abuser is usually
highlighted by so-called experts who analyze and reject the validity of
the
defendant’s claims of Battered Women’s Syndrome. And the juries, which
are
rarely made up of peers of the accused, are often left wondering why
the
defendant didn’t just simply leave her abuser. Economic oppression and
long-term psychological damage are issues that, even when raised in the
courts, are difficult, if not impossible, for most jurors to
understand.
In cases where a woman has been accused of harming or murdering her
children, she not only faces a hostile courtroom and jury but finds
herself
at the center of a media frenzy and the subject of intense community
hatred.
Claims of mental illness, poverty, and the inaccessibility of
psychiatric
care are angrily dismissed while the public anxiously awaits a guilty
verdict and a judgment of death.
After these women are found guilty and locked behind the solid metal
doors
of America’s hellish correctional facilities, they are quickly
forgotten by
the fickle world that spewed such venom at the time of the trial.
Behind bars, women are separated from loved ones, tormented by regular
strip
searches, and degraded by inhumane verbal and physical attacks. Last
year at
Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif., inmates were
outraged
when Warden Gloria Henry issued a memo ordering male prison guards to
begin
conducting clothed body searches.
Training for this atrocious procedure consisted of simply viewing a
video
that demonstrated the proper technique of patting down members of the
opposite sex. What this video neglected to illustrate was the intense
psychological damage women suffered when forced into submissive
positions
while being degraded and groped by their armed, male oppressors.
For women who have survived rape and incest, the negative effects of
this
legalized form of sexual abuse were multiplied.
It took militant organizing and a tireless letter-writing campaign by
the
inmates of Valley State Prison to put an end to this abuse. On Oct. 14,
2003, several prisoners’ rights organizations wrote a joint press
release in
support of the women inside, and later, Amnesty International issued a
harsh
criticism of the prison’s degrading policy. Shortly after, the warden
discontinued cross-gender body searches.
Unfortunately, this hard-earned victory for the women in the
Chowchilla,
Calif., facility offers only a small amount of relief from the daily
rituals
of imprisoned life that are created to kill the spirit.
In Texas, former death row inmate Pamela Perillo wrote, "We are also
being
strip searched six, some times eight times a day, and most of the time
we
have never left our cells from one search to another. They go through
our
property with no care whatsoever in the way they handle it. Our
property is
left all over our cells when they are done searching.
"My lock box was closed on my picture of my daughter who died, she was
in
her coffin and they put a big hole in her head. When I showed it to the
Lt.,
she said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’"
Pamela Perillo’s sentence was reduced to life in prison but only after
she
served almost 19 years on Texas’ death row. While there, she suffered
the
loss of her best friend, Karla Faye Tucker, who was executed by lethal
injection.
Tucker, the accused "pick-ax murderer," captured the hearts of millions
as
she expressed the deepest regret for her past and demonstrated the
profundity of her self-rehabilitation. Her pleas for clemency reached
the
desk of the governor, George W. Bush, who was reported to have mimicked
her
plea for mercy before he denied her appeal. Tucker was executed on Feb.
3,
1998.
A modern trend in the corporate press is the repetitive coverage of
what
reporters are calling an alarming increase in violent crimes committed
by
women and teenage girls. While these newscasters fill the minds of
viewers
with reactionary tales of the violence of hip-hop culture and the
threat of
women gang members, they’re neglecting to report the facts.
Issues of slashed welfare benefits, inaccessible health care, and lack
of
jobs and education—which all lead to the vulnerability of women and men
alike—are rarely tied to the increase in the prison population by the
corporate press. Yet, as women are forced out into the streets by
vicious
welfare reform and denied the basic necessities of life, Valley State
Prison
for Women alone receives a $63 million annual budget.
As marchers convene on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on April
25,
they must protest with a sense of dire urgency the abuse of their
working-class sisters by the justice system and demand an end to the
death
penalty as well as the immediate release of all political prisoners.
The article above first appeared in the April 2004 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
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