The Economies of Care Rising out of Prison’s Structural Violence
Restitution At California’s Women’s Prisons, Social Suffering, And The Rise Of Informal Economics Of Care
For the 3,714 women incarcerated in California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) (“Weekly Report of Population,” 2023), the economic conditions forced upon them behind bars create personal budgeting challenges and health hardships that, by effect, also lead to informal economies of sharing and caring. While some of these economic barriers to health have been eliminated in recent years, the true solution must be one that is holistic in nature rather than piecemealed.
There are large financial forces at play when it comes to prison (the Prison Industrial Complex) (Davis, 2003), but those most acutely felt on a day-to-day basis by the incarcerated include the effects of high rates of restitution paired with low working wages. Together they represent structural violence and create conditions for social suffering, especially for women and their unique health and health care experiences.
Restitution
Restitution is an amount a person pays to the state as penalty for the crime they’ve committed. It is ordered by a judge, paid to a third-party board, and ranges from $300-$10,000. The stated goal of restitution is to “pay back the damage caused, both to the state and to the victim(s)” (Offender Restitution Information - Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services (OVSRS), 2022), a definition that both emphasizes blame, economic punishment, and runs counter to an understanding of social health which acknowledges that violence enacted by individuals is often a product of systemic and social failings forced upon them since— and even before—their birth. Perpetrators of crimes are often themselves victims of social shortcomings (Western, 2015) and the act of requiring them to financially contribute to a system that has failed them so greatly is its own unique form of gaslighting.
In California, the carceral restitution rate is 50% and it applies to all money earned in prison through a work program and all money gifted to an incarcerated person from a friend or family member (Offender Restitution Information - Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services (OVSRS), 2022). The percentage is high, up from 22% in 2001, but not as high as some people who are advocating for a 75% restitution rate, would like (Jane Dorotik, personal communication, April 25, 2023).
Restitution has an effect inside prison much like a tax would have for people on the outside, except that the alleged associated social services that are supposed to come along with it, don’t exist. Instead, it contributes to the economic marginalization of a population already suffering from multiple money-related comorbidities.
Wages
In prison, every penny earned is valuable because there’s not much of it and it’s not easy to earn. Some US states don’t pay their prison laborers at all (How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn in Each State?, 2017). Where unpaid prison labor still exists, it does so due to a loophole in the 13th amendment which made slavery illegal except when used as punishment for a crime (13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865), 2022). By this standard, California stands out as a state that does pay for prison labor (even though it is not yet constitutionally mandated; voters continue to be split on this issue (Lyons, 2022)) at eight-to-thirty seven cents an hour (Prison Wages: Appendix, n.d.).
To put this math equation into perspective, it would take a person imprisoned in California’s system over 137 years of full time work—35 hours a week, for all 52 years a year—at the minimum wage of eight cents an hour, fined for restitution at 50%, to pay back the maximum restitution amount of $10,000. Restitution debts follow people even after they are released from prison where, on the outside, they face other economic barriers to both financial and bodily health (Offender Restitution Information - Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services (OVSRS), 2022).
In these ways, high restitution and low wages, as a matter of policy, become the structural forces that determine the wealth and health of a population. It does so not only at the expense of the affected population, but also for the benefit of decision makers. In lieu of being forced to pay prisoners even a standard California minimum wage of $15.50 (Minimum Wage Frequently Asked Questions, n.d.), they can continue to keep other budgets operating within the status quo.
The amount of money a person is left with after restitution is not much (using the formulation above, a person could expect to bring in $6.40-$29.60 monthly), and yet it is expected to pay for commissary (food, especially to augment poor cafeteria options), necessities (such as deodorant), and even a little bit of fun (like beauty supplies). Whether from the lack of money itself or the circumstances that these economic conditions create, the results manifest as limited choices, increased isolation, humiliation, and poor health experiences for women in California prisons.
Health Consequences: Menstruation
One of the ways these forces manifest is through menstrual cycles. California law requires any menstruating person in custody to be provided menstrual products upon request. It is one of 22 states that offers such legal protections (State Laws Around Access, n.d.), but even a legal mandate cannot guarantee accessibility (or accountability for the lack of accessibility), given the power imbalances inherent to the carceral environment. This gap between the legal promise of menstrual supplies and its reality is its own form of structural violence that women are forced to close by purchasing additional menstrual products when available or by engaging in a sharing economy with their fellow prisoners.
In an interview with Jane Dorotik, a woman who spent 20 years in two California state prisons, she explained that women were allocated two menstrual pads per day of their cycle—but for some women it was often not enough. Cycles and flow vary woman to woman, causing some to need more than two pads per day, or even causing periods to be inconsistent, thereby the need for menstrual products would also be inconsistent. Pad distribution is, by this account, equal, but it is not equitable. Any woman who needed more than two pads could request more, but it was commonplace, Dorotik said, to be informed the prison was out of stock. If and when pads were available through the commissary, prices were often out of reach for women earning at the lower end of California’s prison wages. Without the means or the supply, women would turn to each other. Women would share with each other as needed (Jane Dorotik, personal communication, April 25, 2023), thereby creating informal economies of sharing and relying on their personal networks in order to meet their needs.
In this environment of limited resources despite legal mandates, an exaggeration of agency is created, in which choices and access to menstrual products that seem to be—and are promised to be—abundant, are in fact, not. According to Paul Farmer, structural violence, as the very DNA of the carceral environment, is a barrier to true personal agency (Farmer, 1999). Furthermore, Seth Holmes quotes Scheper-Hughes’s definition of ““everyday violence” to describe the normalized micro-interactional expressions of violence on domestic, delinquent, and institutional levels that produce a common sense of violence and humiliation” (Holmes, 2013). Everyday violence is built into the structural violence of prison.
Dorotik not only had strong familial connections on the outside, but came from middle-class means, which allowed her to navigate these conditions in a relatively privileged way. She was able to meet her basic needs while circumventing at least part of the restitution garnishment by having her family send her boxes of supplies rather than money. Her job in the law library was considered “good” and while her wages were garnished at the 50% rate, she wasn’t forced to budget the remaining 50% she was able to keep down to the penny (Jane Dorotik, personal communication, April 25, 2023). This allowed her to minimize how much money was contributing to the system, while gaining access to essentials. It was savvy, but Dorotik’s access to outside support is the exception, not the norm.
Progress?
That menstrual products are hard to come by despite their supposed mandate, underscores the rift between intention of changemakers and the impact felt by incarcerated populations. The legal mandate, however, does indicate recognition, in society’s most formal, “for-the-record” spheres, that the structural violence inherent in the carceral environment must be corrected. And in this way, California is more advanced than most. In the face of a monstrously-sized problem, where shutting the whole carceral system down—while tempting—is not realistic, issue-by-issue and state-by-state solutions are fundamentally changing the real life, day-to-day experiences of California’s incarcerated population in positive ways.
Take for example, the $6.40 monthly wage mentioned earlier. Up until 2019, a co-pay to visit the prison doctor would cost a person $5, thus leaving them with very few funds to carry them through the month otherwise. While a $5 copay sounds like a bargain on the outside, to people in prison it represented an exorbitant fee that led to tough decision making around how dire a health problem had to get before going to visit a doctor. Self-rationing healthcare is a costly move, both economically and physically, as it can lead to worsened health outcomes down the line, which in turn leads to the need for more involved and more costly care ((Prison Health Care: Costs and Quality, 2017)). In 2019, California deemed it unconstitutional to bill for copays in prison, stating that it violated an incarcerated person’s right to healthcare per the 8th amendment (Ruger et al., 2015). Notably, the $5 dollar figure was found not to be significantly meaningful to prison balance sheets, and therefore its cut wasn’t expected to hurt operating budgets. While true, the argument falls right in line with the existing forms of structural violence enacted against incarcerated people, implying that help and relief will only be possible if it doesn’t disrupt the powers that be.
Another example of progress fighting against both structural violence and the prison industrial complex is telephone calls. Without the internet, social media, email, texting, telephone calls remain one of the few lines of connection to friends, family, and community that incarcerated people have on the outside. Prisons are designed and built to prioritize security, thus in effect amplifying isolation and breeding loneliness. In May 2023, the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic that has terrible health effects from depression to stroke and heart disease, citing social disconnection as the cause (Nirappil, 2023). Loneliness has also been cited as having the equivalent health effect of smoking 15 cigarettes per day (Kidambi & Lee, 2020).
Like copays are a barrier to accessing care, charging for phone calls is similarly a barrier to accessing connection. In 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom made it illegal to charge money for prison phone calls (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2022).
From Here On Out
In this piecemeal approach to deconstructing the structural violence facing incarcerated people, there are many issues of social suffering and inequitable distribution of healthcare resources that legal policy could tackle next. Since modern day prisons are a direct descendent of slavery (The Chains of Slavery Still Exist in Mass Incarceration, 2021), and slavery wiped out so much potential for generational wealth for Black Americans (Schermerhorn, 2019), correcting the economic levers that disenfranchise people within a system of disenfranchisement would be a good place to start.
At the very least, prison wages—which have not kept pace with inflation—should increase to meet the basic standards of wages on the outside, thereby not stacking an economic punishment upon the punishment already inherent in the loss of freedom. Furthermore, if the percentage garnished for restitution resembled a tax, just as on the outside, it would be far less than 50%, thus allowing incarcerated people to hold onto more of their earned and gifted income. Critics of this model would suggest the system can’t afford it, and would go broke and be forced to close.
As society begins to place more emphasis on whole-person health, understand the benefit of prevention, and not only connect the dots between out social conditions and our health and healthcare experiences, but also formalize those values in legal frameworks and healthcare delivery models, there is hope that those same forces will continue to dismantle the structural violence and social suffering incarcerated people are still surviving under.
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