Regan Moss, MPH (Columbia University), is a doctoral student at Tulane University where she is a doctoral leader with the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, a researcher with the Mary Amelia Center for Women’s Health Equity Research, and PI of the Southeastern Collaborative for Women Impact by Prisons. She is an adjunct professor at Auburn University, serving as the lead instructor for the Alabama Extension course focused on maternal health and substance use. She is also a fellow at Columbia University’s Khora Lab, and a consultant at Johns Hopkins University, where she supports research to address the harms of the carceral system. Through qualitative, mixed-methods, and CritQuant methodologies, Moss’s research integrates reproductive psychology, feminist theory, and behavioral science to examine how stigma, taboo, gendered narratives of criminality and morality, carcerality, surveillance, and policing shape reproductive and maternal (mental) health inequities in the Deep South and Gulf South of the US.
Since 2020, Regan has led the Menstruation & Incarceration study team under the mentorship of Dr. Silvia Vilches. She also co-authored the Period Poverty in Prisons Curriculum as a former Board member of PERIOD., in partnership with the Thurman Perry Foundation. She currently serves on the Board of the Prison Flow Project.
Madeeha Anjum is a recent graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology, where she majored in Neuroscience. Madeeha has been a part of the M&I Research Team since 2024. Madeeha also is the Prison and Jail Access Committee Chair at Georgia STOMP. As an aspiring physician and narrator, she aims to make lasting changes in women’s healthcare by raising awareness about gaps in the current research and policy through educational, legislative, and written pursuits.
Priced Out of Dignity: How Labor Injustice Creates Period Poverty in Carceral Settings
The Commissary as A Scapegoat
Individuals who are incarcerated have long faced barriers to period products, whether these barriers be product choice, cost, quality, or quantity. As advocates – as a measure of harm reduction – push for institutional, county, and state policy change to mandate that facilities provide quality products at no charge to persons who are incarcerated, facilities point to the commissary as a place where products can be accessed. Ambiguous policies, such as ones in North Carolina, might even leave it up to facilities to decide whether products are free or available for purchase: “Paragraph (a) of this Rule, each jail shall make these items available either for inmate purchase or without charge, as determined by the jail.” (10A NCAC 14J .0705). This makes it unclear whether people who are incarcerated are actually being provided products. Further, this creates the grounds for facilities to rid themselves of the responsibility of ensuring all persons that use period products during menstruation have access to safe, quality, period products and dignity, safety, and health while bleeding.
The use of the commissary as a scapegoat for facilities raises the question of the affordability of period products available for purchase at commissaries. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime. Thus, people who are incarcerated are legally enslaved. As such, they earn no money or cents on the dollar, making the positioning of the commissary as the source of dignity largely inaccessible.
A Closer Look: Wages, Commissary Prices, and Product Availability
To examine how commissary pricing and wage disparities contribute to period poverty in U.S. women’s prisons, we conducted a systematic content analysis of commissary price lists across the Southeastern US. We selected this region due to its high incarceration rates, elevated poverty levels, and documented resistance to menstrual equity legislation. Using publicly accessible primary data sources like The Appeal’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) database and the Prison Policy Initiative, we collected DOC commissary lists from 14 states: Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. The collected listings were published from 2022 to 2024. To analyze, two independent reviewers inductively coded each listing to categorize product type, listing price, quantity, and associated taxes and inter-rater reliability was used throughout the analysis process. To estimate affordability, we compared commissary prices against incarcerated wage data from the Prison Policy Initiative and calculated how many hours of labor it would take to afford menstrual products in each state. Monthly wages were converted to hourly wages by 22 workdays per month and 6.35 working hours per day. In these analyses, wages were reported as ranges and hours-to-afford calculations were calculated at both the minimum and maximum of the range to reflect the full scope of economic burden.
An Impossible Task: Products Out of Reach
Through our analysis, we found that commissary data was accessible for only 11 of the 14 states included in the analysis: Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee did not provide commissary lists in response to FOIA requests sent out by the Prison Policy Initiative. North Carolina and South Carolina provided lists that did not include menstrual products, but this is consistent with state laws that mandate free provision. The remaining nine states formed the basis of product-level findings for this analysis. Only three states, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Virginia, offered pads, tampons, and panty liners. We found that pricing across commissaries varied substantially. For instance, tampon unit prices ranged from approximately $0.15 in Virginia to $0.49 in Georgia and Florida. Notably, wages for incarcerated workers were at or near zero in most states, with the highest recorded wages found in West Virginia at 0.04-0.58 per hour.
In Florida, which was the only state to explicitly list a pay rate according to The Appeal’s list, a worker earning $0.32 per hour would need to work over 15 hours to afford a single 10-count box of tampons.
In Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas, workers earn nothing at all, making commissary access entirely dependent on outside financial support from family or loved ones.
What does this mean?
Free provision of period products through facilities is the only true form of access to products for people who are incarcerated and menstruating. Policies that allow for facilities to either provide products for free or allow for access through commissaries are in effect permitting manufactured period poverty; these policies are inadequate.
Period product access is a matter of human rights, and our results show that prisons systematically deny access to products through financial constraints. When incarcerated people earn nothing or near nothing, commissary-based access to period products is not a choice. These practices are not oversights in our correctional systems, but a feature of carceral control.
Until wages, pricing, and free provision are reformed, incarcerated menstruators will continue to be priced out of dignity.
How can you take action?
Support organizations such as Worth Rises, which are fighting to reform the 13th amendment and abolish all forms of slavery. #EndTheException
Engage with organizations focused on addressing economic and labor injustices in carceral facilities, such as the ACLU of Rhode Island, which is fighting for incarcerated persons to be covered by minimum wage laws.
Advocate for states to mandate the provision of free period products for any person who menstruates in any carceral facility and demand accountability mechanisms to ensure the successful implementation of policies.
To connect about the Menstruation & Incarceration study, contact: ram0083@auburn.edu