Missouri Appleseed’s study, a significant driver in this year’s legislation, asked 90 female offenders, 20 nurses and 20 correctional case managers in the state’s two female correctional facilities about their experiences with the provided products.

About 80 percent of respondents said they created their own homemade tampons, and an even greater percentage of staff said they were aware of the problematic practice.

These high response rates came as a surprise to Alana Boyles, who served as the Chillicothe Correctional Center warden for three years before moving into her new position overseeing all of the state’s prisons. During her stint as warden, Boyles said, she was aware of the issue but believed it was far less common.

“I did not have a lot of offenders asking for tampons,” Boyles said. “Not a lot of offenders necessarily complaining about the pads that we were providing. Not getting complaints from offenders about not getting access to the restroom or not having access to enough products and also not getting those complaints from the staff either.”

Staff occasionally discovered female offenders selling the homemade tampons, but the use was “not near as large as it was portrayed in the survey results,” Boyles said.