{"id":15865,"date":"2014-08-25T07:37:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T14:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=15865"},"modified":"2022-08-24T12:15:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T19:15:57","slug":"shackling-pregnant-women-prisoners-violates-the-law-and-womens-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=15865","title":{"rendered":"Shackling pregnant women prisoners violates the law and women\u2019s rights!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This past session, Maryland passed anti-shackling bill HB 27<\/a>. It took two years to pass a bill that protects pregnant inmates from being shackled. The Maryland bill passed along with one in Massachusetts<\/a>, making these the 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> states to have such legislation. A number of states have passed anti-shackling bills restricting the use of restraints. Still, these bills don\u2019t guarantee protection of the right for dignity of pregnant inmates, especially considering that most pregnant inmates are African Americans, Latinas, American Indians or members of other stigmatized communities.<\/p>\n

The Maryland bill was enacted on July 1, and already the question of monitoring and enforcement has emerged. Why? In the states where these \u201canti Shackling\u201d bills have been enacted, women detainees are still being shackled.<\/p>\n

Recently, some cases of shackled pregnant or post partum inmates made the news<\/a>, in horrific cases of women who were degraded in the process and had long term health consequences or were put at risk of having complications for being shackled during pregnancy, labor or post partum. Equally shocking is that the reasons or justifications given ranged from lack of training of personnel in charge to lack of enforcement power attached to the bill. According to one report<\/a>, \u201cMany correctional systems, doctors, guards and prison officials simply are not told about anti-shackling laws, or are not trained to comply\u201d<\/p>\n

How can professionals in charge of women prisoners ignore what constitutes torture, despite \u201cmodern\u201d means of communication? Speculators can place financial orders to make enormous amount of money in a nanosecond, but a bill that forbids torture needs so much effort to be understood? What type of training is needed to see that a pregnant women walking with chains or having chains around her waist is torture?<\/p>\n

Despite anti-shackling legislation, pregnant women in Texas are constantly at risk of being shackled. New York passed an anti-shackling law in 2009. Recently, in a survey of 27 women<\/a> who had given birth in New York prisons, 23 said that they have been shackled before, during or right after their delivery.<\/p>\n

The women prison population is on the rise. The official language is that the vast majority goes to prison for non-violent offenses. The reality is their social position makes them more vulnerable to being punished for pitiful reasons. Meanwhile the punishment inside the prison is constant and degrading. Abuses go from restricting the number of maxi pads for periods<\/a> per month and per woman, unless the woman pays for more, to restricting motherhood<\/a>, making it difficult to keep contact with already born children as well as guaranteeing decent conditions for pregnancy, delivery and post partum recovery.<\/p>\n

70% of incarcerated women are mothers, and about 6% are pregnant<\/a>. Still, women inmates are treated like men. In Maryland during the discussion of the anti-shackling bill, testimonies arguing against the bill presented possibility of escape as a major risk. All the \u201cevidence\u201d concerned men\u2019s attempts to escape while being transported to hospital. No one said anything to correct this. Women who are pregnant don\u2019t escape. There has been no incident of women in labor escaping or causing harm.<\/p>\n

The anti-shackling bills have also a tendency to be weak in the protection of pregnant women. In Maryland a series of amendments<\/a> dulled the impact of the introduced bill. The language \u2013 including recognition of the conditions of pregnancy, the importance to comply with international human rights principles, and more precisions about the monitoring of use of restraints if deemed necessary of HB 27 \u2013 was crossed out<\/a>. Still, this bill is important, and it is what we have in Maryland. All efforts should now go to monitoring the application and enforcement of the bill so pregnant inmates are not left alone to deal with abuses.<\/p>\n

So far, when pregnant or post partum inmates are shackled in anti-shackling states, the response is a lawsuit. \u201cBut there is no policing entity<\/a> that\u2019s really going to hold these institutions responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conclusion should be clear and should include the entire United States. The United States should pass a clear federal law that prohibits shackling pregnant incarcerated women. Why not become more human and make the incarceration of pregnant women more difficult if not impossible? Why not stop the cycle of violence and torture? Women\u2019s right to dignity has to be defended at the national level. A right is a right, and a law to protect women\u2019s dignity is a law!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Image Credit: RadicalDoula.com)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past session, Maryland passed anti-shackling bill HB 27. It took two years to pass a bill that protects pregnant inmates from being shackled. The Maryland bill passed along with one in Massachusetts, making these the 19th and 20th states to have such legislation. A number of states have passed anti-shackling bills restricting the use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[880,5296,3182,5055,5285,5085,296],"class_list":["post-15865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-brigitte-marti","tag-maryland","tag-pregnant-prisoners","tag-prison","tag-shackling","tag-women","tag-women-prisoners","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15865"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26428,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865\/revisions\/26428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}