Essay Example on Incarcerated Women: Lack of Services and Responsibilities of Leaders

Introduction

I am writing this memo to specifically address the significant services that incarcerated women lack, which include mental services due to separation with their families, healthcare servies, care for pregnant inmates, menstrual hygiene products, trauma-informed care and strategic processes for addressing sexual abuse.Leaders in the United States and other parts of the world have the responsibility of maintaining the citizens' welfare through the timely provision of services. The citizens require an excellent infrastructure, accessible and affordable health services, fair prices on essential goods, and protection of their rights. Effective leaders ensure that proper housing, recreational amenities, protection of the environment, adequate planning and development controls are facilitated within the regions that they lead. In the United States, Washington is one of the states that is experiencing numerous service-related issues that require to be urgently addressed. One of the concerns that need the governor Inslee's attention and forms the basis of this memo is the lack of services for incarcerated women. Therefore, the chief aim of this memo is to indentify the potential issues and highlight the improvement measures required in enhancing the services provided for the incacerated women.

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Insufficient Mental Services

In Washington, incarcerated women have been experiencing numerous problems that are triggered by a lack of proper provision of services. The conditions of women in prison need to be assessed and properly analyzed to identify the specific needs that require to be addressed. For instance, imprisoned mothers face inevitable challenges because they are incarcerated far from their families, thus subjecting their children to foster care. The children face permanent separation from their mothers, which deny them the parental rights. Nonetheless, the Dignity Act has played a vital role in ensuring proper contact of children with their incarcerated mothers. In this perspective, the government has made adequate visitation policies and provided free video conferencing and phone calls. However, the mental health of mothers is not significantly addressed (Cabeldue et al., 2019). Despite the incarcerated mothers being given a chance to talk to their children, they are exposed to mental health problems because they live a life that they were never used to, especially of being away from their children. The mentally ill women are still kept in prison instead of being placed in psychiatric facilities.

Inadequate Care for Pregnant Inmates

Pregnant inmates are also a category of incarcerated women who do not receive adequate services in Washington. Most of the expectant mothers have inhumane experiences in prisons. They are threatened by fellow prisoners and receive inadequate nutrition from the management. Moreover, these women do not receive adequate medical care. Failure to obtain the necessary health care exposes the mothers and fetuses in danger as it becomes difficult to detect any complications that may arise during development (Springer, 2010). Placing pregnant women who are in their initial weeks of postpartum in solitary confinement hinders the mothers from exercising, which is essential for a healthy pregnancy. Confining expectant mothers has also increased the stress and depression rates as women feel lonely and out of place. The prison management has imposed laws that restrict frequent interaction with pregnant women, and this obstructs the medical experts' ability to perform immediate emergency processes that assist the expectant mothers in delivering efficiently. Imprisoned pregnant mothers who fail to receive the anticipated health attention are unable to manage extreme pain while giving birth. Severe restrictions make women experience pregnancy-related mental ill-health and other related forms of perinatal mood disorders.

Moreover, born children to incarcerated mothers have deprived nutritional aspects. They are also deprived of psychological benefits because of the decreased binding between the mothers and the children. After delivering, women are forced to go back to prison, making it difficult to breast-feed the infants.

Women cases should be keenly investigated, to ensure that the guilty ones in Washington are taken to prison that suits their needs and conditions. Women should not just be confined in one prison without the consideration of their status. An instance of a woman's case that lacked adequate services in its handling was that of Alice Marie Johnson (James, 2017). This was a woman who was accused of a drug conspiracy. Despite being 62 years old, she was sentenced to life imprisonment, although her offense was nonviolent.

Nonetheless, President Donald Trump commuted the sentence sometime after Kim Kardashian Pleaded on her case (Associated Press, 2018). Johnson's case is an example of a story of incarcerated women who are judged unfairly and separated from their families after being imprisoned. In Washington, incarcerated women who are jailed for involvement with drugs lack essential services such as substance abuse treatment even on having a full history of drug and alcohol use. The women receive inadequate assessment and vocational training, thus exposing them to real emotional distress as well as psychosomatic indicators.

Shortage of Menstrual Hygiene Products

Another problem that incarcerated women are experiencing is the unavailability of adequate menstrual hygiene products. In this regard, imprisoned poor women are the most affected. Most of them used to receive less income before imprisonment, and therefore, they are unable to sustain themselves in prison. For the women who are lucky to get jobs in prison, they can maintain their needs, although the scarce payment is not entirely reliable. Women who are unlucky in acquiring any form of a job while in prison experience menstrual product shortage and are unable to maintain the recommended level of hygiene. Most importantly, the state government should consider providing the necessary help to imprisoned women with endometriosis health conditions. The cost of the menstrual products for incarcerated women with such conditions is burdensome as they require to use a lot of money to get the recommended number of products for use.

Inadequate Trauma-Informed Care

The other significant need that shows that incarcerated women are not provided with sufficient services is the inaccessible trauma-responsive approach. Trauma is a common denominator underlying the life experience of a massive number of women in prison and it influences their ethical behavior (Blitz et al., 2006). In this regard, trauma-informed care is required for imprisoned women who are often exposed to physical and sexual violence. The prison management needs to be conservant with the specific steps that should be followed to ensure the provision of adequate trauma-informed care programs. The fact that women in prison are accused of committing different forms of crimes does not indicate that they should not be given psychological services. Thus, officials in women prisons should acknowledge that trauma-informed care is a cognitive-behavioral therapy that integrates counseling processes to control negative thoughts and behavior that incarcerated women possess.

Moreover, trauma-informed care is more of a programmatic shift. Through the program, imprisoned women can get the reality of how jails operate as they are provided with mindset infuses on confinement programs. The staff should realize that majority of the women have had histories of traumatizing experiences, which affect the normal behavior and thoughts of the women.

To adequately address and implement fruitful trauma-informed care in women prison in Washington, the governor Inslee should consider educating and training the prison staff to enable them to familiarize themselves with the contemporary process that should be incorporated. The training of staff should be based on communication methods and disciplinary strategies that are convenient for women, given the traumatic history. Besides, the programs should be founded on assisting the incarcerated women in learning the fundamental mechanisms for self-regulating diverse emotional responses and defusing tense circumstances. The outcome of the program would be to ensure more resilience is instilled within incarcerated women who do not value themselves for receiving a vicious cycle of traumatization. Therefore, initiating a trauma-responsive approach would gather steam in women prison to ensure the reduction of recidivism. The approach would also be significant in establishing a human corrections system for positively impact behavioral change among incarcerated women. The gender-specific treatment should be strengthened through investigating the nature of the affiliation between the women offenders and prison management staff to establish the appropriate intervention that requires to be incorporated. Emotional and spiritual issues should be addressed.

Unreliable Strategic Processes for Addressing Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse is another challenge that incarcerated women are experiencing in the prisons with the Washington state. In this perspective, the management is failing to provide adequate security to the imprisoned women. The patterns of sexual abuse cases that have been recorded in the past continue to manifest themselves even in the current society. Women's rights are violated as they are exposed to sexual abuse by the staff and their peers. The issue of sexual abuse is compounded by specific factors that make women vulnerable to escape and defend themselves. The initial factor that contributes to incarcerated women's sexual abuse is the inability to run away from the abuser. Women are regarded as weak individuals who can easily be manipulated if they are not careful. Therefore, they require sufficient protection from the management when sexual abuse cases are reported. Ineffectual investigative processes discourage women from reporting the abuse incidences. The Washington state's governor should review the procedures involved in reporting sexual abuse cases and listen to incarcerated women's representatives on the experiences that they pass through to discover the functionality of the system.

Still, on sexual abuse incidences, the prison management lacks the anticipated accountability in handling the cases. For both the criminally and administrative authority, some staff does not care to investigate the cases in detail to help the vulnerable women. Lack of accountability translate to little or no public concerns. The prison management needs to case the reported issues more seriously, to avoid harming women by making the environment in jail more unconducive through abuse.

Guide to the Governor

Washington state's governor Inslee require to address the issue of lack of services for incarcerated women in all dimensions through restorative justice theory. The theory functions through repairing the harm caused to the offenders via the cooperative processes of the stakeholders. Imprisoned women still face victimization, mental health problems, unstable family life, as well as substance abuse related challenges. Socioeconomic inequality prevents most of the women from accessing adequate health care services (Springer, 2010). Moreover, poor women cannot afford hygiene products, which exposes them to the increased stress that may lead to depression. All these challenges would be eradicated through restorative justice policy, and no adverse consequences would be experienced. Women's dignity must be upheld through ensuring that a...