California Women Prisons: Inmates Face Sexual Abuse, Lack Of Medical Care And Unsanitary Conditions via HuffPo

Over the course of 12 years, former inmate Beverly Henry watched hundreds of untreated women die in the Central California Women’s Facility, a sprawling complex in Chowchilla that comprises the largest female prison in the nation.

One woman had liver disease, with eyes “yellow as a warning sign” and two tampons stuck up her nose to stem the bleeding that poured from every orifice. Henry brought her to the prison’s clinic where, she said, the two were told to return to work. Within a week, the woman was dead.

“I watched 17 women die in one year,” said Henry, now 62, who spent 40 years cycling in and out of the state system for her drug addiction and worked as a peer health educator inside prison clinics during most of her incarceration. “I’ve seen things that make me wish the mind was not so unique that we have the ability to store memories.”

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