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A review by leahtylerthewriter
The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan
From 1929 to 1974, there was a prison in Greenwich Village called The Women's House of Detention. Ryan opens up the records and inflates the history of the people housed there into stories about human beings.
"To look at prisons historically is to see a monstrously efficient system doing exactly what it was designed to do, hide every social problem we refuse to deal with."
Once again I learned astronomical truths about the history of my country and how we got into the mess we're in today. Ryan doesn't just recreate human stories, he builds the ethos of the times and wow did we do a doozy on our citizens after World War II. The propaganda machine of the American 1950s linked communism with queerness and the "lavender scare" became a whole new way to punish people for stepping outside the established norms.
Women were arrested for prostitution, not men, because it was the offer of sex that was illegal. Not the act. Women with STDs were arrested and imprisoned to prevent the spread to men.
Ryan effectively demonstrates how easy it was for a woman to slip through the cracks of society, and once she did it was nearly impossible to crawl out from the underbelly.
"Three interrelated forces would dominate and ultimately ruin Anne's life. The stigma of her incarceration, the lack of treatment for her mental health, and her inability to find and keep a good job."
The conditions in the prison were atrocious. The physical exam the women were subjected to was abuse. It was illegal to prescribe drugs to an addict so the addicted we're forced to go cold turkey, yet everyone was drugged with excessive amounts of thorazine.
Yes this was a hard book. It's a hard history to learn. An even harder one to have survived. Now a private park and a plaque memorialize this prison, the relic of a system far more interested in punishment than reform.
"To look at prisons historically is to see a monstrously efficient system doing exactly what it was designed to do, hide every social problem we refuse to deal with."
Once again I learned astronomical truths about the history of my country and how we got into the mess we're in today. Ryan doesn't just recreate human stories, he builds the ethos of the times and wow did we do a doozy on our citizens after World War II. The propaganda machine of the American 1950s linked communism with queerness and the "lavender scare" became a whole new way to punish people for stepping outside the established norms.
Women were arrested for prostitution, not men, because it was the offer of sex that was illegal. Not the act. Women with STDs were arrested and imprisoned to prevent the spread to men.
Ryan effectively demonstrates how easy it was for a woman to slip through the cracks of society, and once she did it was nearly impossible to crawl out from the underbelly.
"Three interrelated forces would dominate and ultimately ruin Anne's life. The stigma of her incarceration, the lack of treatment for her mental health, and her inability to find and keep a good job."
The conditions in the prison were atrocious. The physical exam the women were subjected to was abuse. It was illegal to prescribe drugs to an addict so the addicted we're forced to go cold turkey, yet everyone was drugged with excessive amounts of thorazine.
Yes this was a hard book. It's a hard history to learn. An even harder one to have survived. Now a private park and a plaque memorialize this prison, the relic of a system far more interested in punishment than reform.