After Outcry, Virginia Reverses Tampon Ban for Visitors to Prisons

A new policy from Virginia’s Department of Corrections that would have required visitors to remove tampons and menstrual cups when visiting the state’s prison inmates was suspended Tuesday after backlash emerged.

“A number of concerns have been raised about the new procedure,” Brian J. Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, said on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. The policy would not have taken effect until Oct. 6, but even so, he said, “I feel it appropriate to immediately suspend the newly developed policy until a more thorough review of its implementation and potential consequences are considered.”

A spokeswoman for the Corrections Department, Lisa Kinney, said in an email that there have been “many instances” where visitors have attempted to smuggle drugs by concealing them in a body cavity, including the vagina.

Under the policy, prison facilities had planned to offer pads as an alternative to visitors who were wearing tampons, Kinney said. Visitors also would have been permitted to instead wear a pad brought from home, she added.

Visitors would then have received a body scan, she said. If “potential contraband” was seen during the scan, the visitors would have been given a choice: to get strip-searched or leave without visiting an inmate.

“Offenders in Virginia have died of drug overdoses while inside our prisons,” Kinney said. “It’s our job to keep the offenders and staff as safe as we can.”

Carla Peterson, the director of Virginia CURE, a prisoner advocacy group that meets frequently with the State Department of Corrections, said in a statement that the group was pleased to hear about the policy reversal.

“Our hopes are that more steps and policies that preserve and restore the dignity of persons incarcerated and their families will continue to be taken into consideration,” she said.

Reports of the tampon ban began to spread on social media in recent days, creating an outcry among prisoner advocacy groups.

“We’re not sure why this policy is needed now,” Bill Farrar, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said earlier Tuesday.

Maintaining contact with friends and family “is critically important to people being rehabilitated and having a successful re-entry to society and not repeating criminal behavior,” Farrar said. “So this can have a very negative effect and discourage people from visiting those who are incarcerated.”

When Jana White, a co-founder of the Virginia Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, found out about the policy, she said on Twitter she was “pretty bummed.”

In an interview Tuesday, she said the policy was “a complete violation of my rights and discriminating against women.” White, who has a loved one in prison whom she regularly visits, was jubilant to hear of the reversal, saying, “Our efforts were heard!”

In July, a state law went into effect to provide free feminine hygiene products to female prisoners and inmates. Kaye Kory, a state legislator who introduced that bill, said Tuesday she was “delighted” that the tampon ban had been suspended. “I thank Sec. Moran for recognizing that this policy is harassment, discrimination and a violation of privacy,” she said on Twitter.

This regulation “implies that only menstruating women are likely smugglers,” Kory said. And it raised a big question, she added, “How in the world are you going to implement this?”