Health issues of women aging in prison is topic of March 16 lecture at Idaho State University

The Idaho State University will present the free, public lecture "If I Should Die Before I Wake: Health Issues of Women Aging in Prison" by Kathleen O'Shea at 7:30 p.m. March 16 in the Pond Student Union Little Wood River Room.           

O'Shea's lecture focuses on raising awareness of women's health needs in prison.

"The more we are aware of the problems the easier it will become to provide important and much needed insights," O'Shea said.

Kathleen O'Shea, a former nun and a Pulitzer nominee, is an independent social worker who does research on women prisoners with an emphasis on women on death row. She is on the Board of the National Prisons Foundation in Washington DC and describes herself as a teacher, writer, activist and lecturer.

Ms. Magazine has called her the leading authority on the subject of women on death row. O'Shea published "Female Offenders: An Annotated Bibliography" in 1997; "Women and the Death Penalty in the United States: 1900-1998" in 1999; and "Women on the Row: Revelations From Both Sides of the Bars" in May 2000.

O'Shea said she believes that with the increase of incarceration of women, there is a greater number of them aging in prison and it is important they receive adequate health care.

The event is sponsored by the ISU Women Studies Program, Cultural Affairs Committee and Department of Sociology.

For more information contact Jamie Hively at hivejami@isu.edu.

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