A Crime to be Female
The devastation of having a loved one incarcerated is a pain beyond imagination, which is why the law grants the right to visits from all certified relatives. But what happens when this right collides with the basic need for sanitation and self-care as a woman, when biological cycles make it impossible to visit on a given day? Despite the absurdity, this situation stops becoming hypothetical and has now made it was into a reality for hundreds of women. Due to a report from the New York Civil Liberties Union, several women have had their visitation rights revoked by prison officials after body scanners wrongfully identified their tampons as "contraband." Contraband, which would be in the same violation as drugs, weapons, and cash. Contraband is defined as posing a threat to the prison environment or threatening the security of the facility. Although these women have lined up to meet special people they may not see again for six months to indefinitely, their right to do so is denied all because they were on their own period. Without further observation, this scenario becomes an apparent case of sex discrimination and an unlawful impairment of women’s rights. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision must urgently restore these women’s visitation rights and implement immediate changes to their screening procedures to ensure that all visitors can access facilities without discrimination or restriction due to natural, unavoidable period cycles. This includes accommodating the fact that some visitors will be menstruating, and guaranteeing that no woman is denied her lawful right to see her loved ones because of a basic, unavoidable aspect of her body.
A prominent instance of this was with Caroline Hansen and her 16-year-old daughter. The two had driven three hours from Long Island to visit Hansen’s husband at Eastern Correctional Facility, expecting what should have been a routine visit, only to be subjected to a humiliating and dehumanizing experience. Although Hansen had previously passed through the body scanners without incident, this time, the tampon she was using flagged the system, and she was escorted to a back room with three male officers and a police dog, a setting she described to New York Focus as feeling like the start of a horror movie. The officers interrogated her, requested to search her and her car, and repeatedly had the dog inspect her before finally allowing her to remove the tampon and pass through. However, by that point, both Hansen and her daughter were hysterical, and their visit, which should have been a regular talk between loved ones, was downgraded to a no-contact session behind glass. This experience is not singular, but now is one women are facing all over; reflecting a systemic failure to account for women’s basic bodily needs within the criminal justice system, effectively penalizing them for natural functions and reinforcing barriers to family support. Hansen’s resignation, “Now, I just don’t go when I’m on my period. I don’t want to deal with that again”, underscores how such policies and practices erode dignity, deter engagement, and perpetuate gender inequities, highlighting the urgent need for corrections systems to integrate humane, inclusive protocols that recognize menstruation as a normal, and not at all subject to contraband.
Since then, attorneys, advocates, and legislators say these complaints have been widespread, surfacing soon after the scanners were implemented in the wake of a three-week corrections officer strike in March, during which scanner use was one of the officers’ demands to reduce cavity searches and prevent contraband smuggling. But the scanners detect not only tampons but also anything under the title of “normal anatomy, medical conditions, and predictable artifacts,” including IUDs and other reproductive health devices. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) has defended the scanners as necessary to prevent drugs and weapons from entering prisons, but critics point out that the system penalizes lawful and unavoidable bodily functions while undermining family connections. In response, State Senator Julia Salazar, chair of the corrections committee, has received dozens of complaints and has introduced legislation to tackle this growing problem before it gets out of hand. Known as New York State Senate Bill S8353, it would amend the state’s correction law to explicitly prohibit state and local correctional facilities from denying entry or full-contact visits to people simply because they are menstruating, wearing menstrual products, or have a contraceptive device detected on a body scanner or other screening method. Under the bill’s provisions, no visitor can be barred from visitation due to the presence of menstrual pads, tampons, menstrual cups, IUDs, contraceptive implants, or similar products, nor can facilities require removal of these items to enter or qualify for contact visits.
In conclusion, it’s imperative more than ever that this crisis is avoided, as it has not only created a gendered barrier to the legal right to see loved ones but also inflicts psychological harm, as visitors are humiliated, stressed, and sometimes deterred from visiting entirely. By treating ordinary reproductive health needs as contraband, the system disproportionately burdens women, perpetuating a culture of systemic inequity within the corrections framework. If states allow this behavior to become the norm, it sets a dangerous standard for women globally and women’s rights. Instead of creating policies to shut down women, forcing the removal of necessary menstruation products, support the bills that aim to dismiss this discriminatory effort to, once again, separate women from men in basic visitation rights. Until this injustice is eliminated, advocacy cannot stop, because denying women their rights based on menstruation is not a security measure but a systemic punishment that treats a natural biological process as suspicion itself, as a crime to be female.
Bibliography
Nehme, Maia. “Advocates Push for Strip Search Elimination, Body Scanners in Prisons.” Yale Daily News, 21 Feb. 2025, yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/02/20/advocates-push-for-strip-search-elimination-body-scanners-in-prisons/.
“NY State Senate Bill 2025-S8353.” NYSenate.gov, 2025, www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8353. Accessed 25 Dec. 2025.
“State Prisons Are Turning Away Women after Scanners Pick up Tampons.” Scary Mommy, 11 Dec. 2025, www.scarymommy.com/lifestyle/state-prisons-turning-away-women-after-scanners-pick-up-their-tampons. Accessed 25 Dec. 2025.
Vogelsong, Sarah. “Female Workers Sue Virginia Prison Agency, Claiming Body Searches Discriminate against Women • Virginia Mercury.” Virginia Mercury, 7 Feb. 2024, virginiamercury.com/2024/02/07/female-workers-sue-virginia-prison-agency-claiming-body-searches-discriminate-against-women/.