In Prison, Discipline Comes Down Hardest On Women : NPR

In Prison, Discipline Comes Down Hardest On Women
NPR by Joseph Shapiro, Jessica Pupovac, Kari Lydersen
October 15, 2018

​When Monica Cosby, Tyteanna Williams and Celia Colon talk about the years they spent as inmates at women's prisons in Illinois, their stories often turn to the times they would be disciplined for what seemed like small, even absurd things.

Cosby was playing Scrabble in her cell once when a guard asked what she was doing. She responded sarcastically: "What does it look like I'm doing?" He wrote her up for "contraband" (the Scrabble set) and for "insolence."

Williams got written up once when her cellmate, who had diabetes, passed out and Williams cursed at the officer she thought was too slow to help.

Colon got a disciplinary ticket for "reckless eye-balling." She had made a face when a corrections officer gave her an order. She says she ended up in solitary confinement as a result.

"You could get a ticket for anything," Colon said.

Especially, it turns out, if you're a woman.

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