Melodie Rosser waited six years into a Georgia prison sentence before she got a biopsy, and in the account she gave on October 28, 2026, she says her aunt coming down there is why she is alive.
Black women have the lowest survival rate for every known stage of breast cancer, by the American Cancer Society’s count. What moves that number is finding it early, and inside, Rosser says, that means putting a request in writing and waiting on it.
Rosser is 40 and directs organizing and leadership development at Women on the Rise, an Atlanta nonprofit founded by formerly incarcerated women. Robyn Hasan-Simpson, 50, its executive director, had one mammogram across a 10 year sentence. Keisha Dickerson, 53, a re-entry specialist there, was told to wait until she turned 40. “You really have to put the pen to the paper in order for you to get a lot of things done,” Dickerson said.
Black people are 13 percent of the United States population and 37 percent of its incarcerated people, by the Prison Policy Institute’s count. Dr. Mark Spencer, who directs Stop Criminalizing Of Our Patients, said Georgia prisons sometimes carry staffing vacancies of 50 to 60 percent.
The Georgia Department of Corrections said it provides a full range of treatment services needed to meet contemporary community standards. Christy Perez, who co-founded Georgia Prisoners’ Speak, said that policy is only as good as the paper it is written on.
