Justice For Women

By: Sarah Remelius

April 24, 2018

Another trip to the prison infirmary, another dose of called-back birth control and iron pills, another failed attempt to stop the continuous bleeding. A never-ending cycle that Evelyn Fulbright could do nothing to stop.

“I was a nurse since 1989 so I knew something needed to be done about my health but what could I do?” Fulbright said. “There was nothing I could do.”

During her prison sentence for cocaine possession, Fulbright spent 15 to 20 days of each month bleeding due to a tumor on her uterus.

“I continued to tell them that I was bleeding more than ever and they would take me to the infirmary but they were still doing what they were doing, giving me birth control pills and an iron tablet,” Fulbright said. “It never changed even though the condition worsened.”

Her story, along with those of over 400 women formerly incarcerated in Texas prisons, were collected by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a criminal justice reform nonprofit in Austin. These survey responses are what motivated Lindsey Linder, a policy attorney for the nonprofit, to launch the Justice for Women Campaign.

“The more we looked into this the more we found out about how little women in the system are thought about and how little data is available on their experiences,” Linder said. “We are so excited to bring attention to this topic with the help of this campaign.”

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition operates through the help of grants from the Open Society Foundation and the Public Welfare Foundation. They currently have an organizational budget of $1 million, but they also fundraise on the local and individual level. The organization is hoping to raise about $35,000 from the Justice for Women Campaign, which is doubling as their spring fundraiser.

“Areas like this are just so understudied and there’s not a lot of resources allocated to this work so donations are really helpful,” Linder said. “We’ve definitely been really lucky to get some individual donations.”

On April 24, the campaign will release its second report of a two-part series titled “An Unsupported Population: The Treatment of Women in Texas’ Criminal Justice System,” which will highlight real experiences of women in the prison system, including lack of access to feminine hygiene products, separation from families and dehumanizing and re-traumatizing practices.

“I think it is important for my story to be heard because I think the people don’t know how serious this is,” Fulbright said. “They hear a person has committed a crime, they’re in prison, and then that’s it. That’s their concept, but it’s more to it than that – these are real human beings.”

The first report, “A Growing Population: The surge of Women into Texas’ Criminal Justice System,” examines the growing population of women in the prison system and gives recommendations for gender-specific support, treatment, and diversion options.

“I was as surprised as anyone to find out that Texas incarcerates a little over 12,000 women, which is more women by sheer number than any other state in the country,” Linder said. “I think it’s a testament to how understudied the area is, so we’re hopeful that our reporting and our campaign are just going to make people more aware and just really elevate the issue.”

This campaign will be holding an awareness event on May 10 to help reach its fundraising goal, but its website is full of free information, including a section of stories from system-impacted women. This allows formerly incarcerated women and their children to talk about their experiences and discuss changes that need to be made within this system.

“It’s a population that people have already formed an opinion about,” Fulbright said. “I’ve had so many friends and people I’ve met that, once their eyes were open to what’s going on, they felt different about it and wanted to help. I know if people read my story it will open their eyes as well.”

Linder and other members of the campaign said they hope their work plays a role in changing future state wide criminal justice legislation.

Even though they want to tackle this issue on a larger level, they said it all goes back to helping incarcerated women in hopes of better conditions and experiences in the future.

“I personally believe that the Justice for Women Campaign is going to do a lot to help current and future incarcerated women,” Fulbright said. “My situation in the criminal justice system and others like mine is a domino effect, when it could have been prevented with the first domino, which is awareness.”