The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A new Ohio law will soon give incarcerated women free access to period products in Ohio correctional facilities.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed Ohio House Bill 29 on Dec. 19 and it will go into effect on March 20. The bill passed unanimously in the House and the Senate.
“It’s in the best interest of everybody for women to have access to menstrual products,” said Kayelin Tiggs, who has been doing advocacy work with formerly incarcerated women since 2021. She helped author the bill’s language and worked with Ohio state Rep. Latyna M. Humphrey, D–Columbus.
“What we wanted to do is … ensure that women who are incarcerated, had access to feminine hygiene products,” Humphrey said. “What it does is it kind of takes that worry away from women who are incarcerated.”
Tiggs recalls visiting the Montgomery County Jail and being told there was no formal policy in place for period products at the time.
“They had what was called just a best practice, which was taking a handful of products and passing them out,” she said. “There was no formalized way that these facilities would pass out these products, and there was also a pattern of withholding and denying these products.”
Tiggs heard from formerly incarcerated women that feminine hygiene products would sometimes be withheld.
“It was just up to the discretion of the corrections offices that determined most of the time whether or not the women got their products,” she said.
Courtney Alspaugh, who served five years at the Dayton Correctional Institution from 2017 until 2021, remembers going around begging for pads and tampons. At times, she had to resort to using paper towels or toilet paper.
“It was just like chaos,” she said. “You’re basically fending for yourself on what to do. … I had used wash rags because there was no other option, I had no other choice.”
She cried when she heard DeWine signed the bill into law.
“I was just overall really overwhelmed and excited and just happy that others won’t have to go through that because they’re already going through so much,” she said. “It’s just one less thing for them to have to worry about.”
The Ohio bill has anti-discrimination language that says period products can’t be withheld as a form of punishment or due to a prisoner’s identity. The bill also mandates that all of the facilities have a disposal bin.
“It took us by surprise when we learned that women didn’t have a way to dispose of their products,” Tiggs said. “Oftentimes, they would take their products with their bare hands and either flush them … or they would have to carry them with their bare hands and move them to another part of the facility.”
At times, used period products would just be on the floor, Tiggs said.
“The products are so cheap that they would fall out of women’s pants, fall out of women’s underwear, and just be on the floor, and there was no way to properly dispose of them,” she said.
The new law requires correctional facilities to allow female inmates to shower once per day while menstruating.
The bill was reintroduced for three consecutive general assemblies before being signed into law. It was first introduced at the end of 2022 during the 134th General Assembly.
“We knew that there was not going to be enough time for the bill to gain any traction,” Tiggs said. “We wanted to make noise about it.”
The bill passed the House, but it stalled in the Senate during the 135th General Assembly. The bipartisan bill was introduced by Humphrey and Republican state Rep. Marilyn John this General Assembly.
The federal government started offering free access to menstrual products for federal inmates starting in 2017 and 25 states have laws requiring free access to feminine hygiene products in prisons, according to the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.
A 2025 analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative reported at least six types of rules that can be used against people menstruating in prisons including property damage, maintaining personal hygiene, contraband, physical movement, work assignments, and feigning illness.
“The denial and withholding of menstrual products is a form of intentional punishment,” Tiggs said. “Sometimes all you have left while you’re (incarcerated) is your dignity.”
Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.
