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We Need to Stop Shackling Pregnant Women in Prison—Now.
Imagine a woman actively in labor. Now, imagine her handcuffed. Attached to those handcuffs is a chain that links her wrists to a chain wrapped around her belly. That belly chain is the same weight as a bicycle chain. Attached to her belly chain is yet another chain that attaches to shackles around her feet.
This is commonly known as "shackling" and is a grim reality for many women in the United States. In 32 states, prisons and jails are permitted to shackle incarcerated women during childbirth—even though the American Medical Association says the practice is unsafe, "medically hazardous," and "barbaric."
Last week, Washington DC councilmember David Grosso introduced a bill that would keep jails from shackling women during any point of their pregnancy and for six weeks after they've given birth.
"I have introduced this legislation because it is an important human rights issue that must be addressed in D.C.," said Grosso.
Washington DC has one of only a handful of American jail and prison systems that prohibits shackling during childbirth, but only after incarcerated women filed a class action lawsuit. In 1996, a district court ruled in their favor, banning the practice as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The district continues to shackle women during the early parts of pregnancy, though. The new bill would change that.
Although eighteen states have enacted legislation prohibiting shackling during childbirth, only six of those states prohibit shackling people during other points in their pregnancy.
Last year, I worked with WORTH, an organization of formerly incarcerated women pushing for changes to prison policies and practices, to launch their Birthing Behind Bars campaign. The campaign utilizes women's experiences and stories of pregnancy behind bars to further a state-by-state analysis around the intersections of reproductive justice and incarceration.
One of the first women who shared her story with Birthing Behind Bars was Linda Rosa. She learned that she was pregnant with twins after entering jail in 2008. Linda Rosa recalled being shackled each time she was taken to see the doctor: "They used to shackle my hands and my legs. I would have to walk with the shackles on my legs, which would leave cuts on the back of my ankles." Linda had to undergo a C-section and was shackled while recovering in the hospital. She recalled having stitches and staples from her c-section and shackles on her wrists and ankles when she visited her newborn babies in the ICU. "Everywhere I had to go, I had to wear shackles," she said.
When I spoke with her, Linda Rosa was out of prison and living with her twins at Hour Children, an organization that works with incarcerated mothers to keep their children. In speaking with her, it was obvious that Linda Rosa loved her children. Her incarceration did not make her any less a loving mother than any parent who has never set foot in a jail or prison.
Shackling during pregnancy is inhumane and unnecessary. Pregnant women in jails and prisons are more likely to experience miscarriage, preterm birth, low birth weight infants, and potentially fatal conditions like preeclampsia. In addition to being dehumanizing, shackling can increase stress and lead to further complications, as well as render doctors unable to treat women in emergency situations. So why is it so hard to pass laws ensuring this basic health care protection?
It may be that, when we think of prison, we don't think of women in prison, let alone pregnant women in prison. Orange is the New Black is the one mainstream media portrayal that I can easily point to and know that people have at least heard of it. But for the most part, women—and women's issues—continue to be invisible when we think about prison. That means that we don't think about the issues that accompany increasing arrests and incarceration. We don't question narratives of people in prison as scary, threatening, faceless "others" rather than normal people who have done something illegal.
This invisibility also means that we're less likely to question people like Steve Patterson, spokesperson for Chicago's Cook County Sheriff's Department, when he argues against anti-shackling protection using scare tactics like, "If you're laying in hospital bed, and in the next hospital bed is a woman who's in on a double murder charge, because she's pregnant she shouldn't be handcuffed to the side of the bed—I think if you're the person laying in bed next to her you might disagree." (Note: imprisoned people do not share hospital rooms with non-incarcerated people.)
Last year, California signed a law prohibiting the shackling of women at any point during their pregnancy. Washington DC—and the rest of the country—should follow suit.
FROM AMERICA BLOG NEWS
Virginia to continue shackling pregnant inmates while giving birth
Woman Shackled While She Gave Birth THIS IS 2013, NOT 1313!
McALLEN, Texas (CN) - A South Texas sheriff's deputy kept a woman in handcuffs as she gave birth, though she begged in pain for the cuffs to be removed, the woman claims in court.Christina Mejia Gutierrez sued Hidalgo County, its Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Guadalupe Trevino and Deputy Garza in Federal Court. Shackling a woman while she gives birth is illegal in Texas, though Mejia does not raise this claim in the lawsuit, which does not include Deputy Garza's first name.
Mejia says she was incarcerated in the Hidalgo County Jail for theft and was seven months pregnant when her water broke.
"Plaintiff was then transported from the Hidalgo County Jail to the Woman's Hospital at Renaissance to deliver her baby," the complaint states. "Defendant Garza accompanied plaintiff to the hospital.
"Plaintiff, Christina Mejia Gutierrez was shackled at her wrists during transportation. She was shackled at her wrist during her time at the hospital intake; shackled at her wrist during delivery; and shackled by her foot during recovery.
"Defendant Deputy/Officer Garza, a female, was the individual who shackled the plaintiff. ... Plaintiff begged for the restraints to be taken off but to no avail.
"The restraints exacerbated an already painful process and caused a great deal of pain, suffering and anxiety."
Mejia claims Garza was following a Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office policy of restraining pregnant inmates even when they are not a "substantial flight risk."
June 25, 2013
From ABC News: Mothers Miriam Mendiola-Martinez and Alma Minerva Chacon were both victims of the "shackling" policy in Maricopa County, Arizona, in recent years. Both women were in custody on immigration-related charges late in their pregnancies. As inmates, they were both shackled to their hospital beds as they went into labor.
Both women say they were bound to their hospital beds before and after they gave birth, without their husbands and in the presence of a prison guard. Chacon says she was restrained even as she gave birth.
"They handcuffed both my hands and both my feet to the hospital bed, as I gave birth," Chacon told Telemundo in Spanish in 2010. "I gave birth, and the nurse took my baby. I asked if I could hold her, and the guard said 'No.'"
Chacon says she was not allowed to hold her baby until 70 days later, when she was released from custody.
While the Federal Bureau of Prisons instituted an anti-shackling policy in US-run facilities in 2007, state correctional facilities are still free to shackle expecting mothers before, during and after delivery if they see fit. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn't approve of the practice either, but women like Chacon remain susceptible to such treatment during a 72-hour so-called "detainer," in which they are technically held by local enforcement so that ICE can investigate their immigration status further.
The American Medical Association has deemed the practice to be unsafe, "medically hazardous" and "barbaric". Still, many local law enforcement agencies continue the practice in some form or another.
In Illinois, a state that now has anti-shackling laws on the books, 80 female inmates sued for previously being subjected to shackling, and won a $4.1 million settlement in a class action suit.
And although Arizona passed a ban on most forms of shackling in March of 2012, John MacIntyre, the deputy chief of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office told ABC late last year that pregnant inmates are still cuffed to their beds and wheelchairs with chains, handcuffs and anklecuffs - which he called"soft restraints" - before and after they give birth. He says this is to ensure they don't escape or pose risks to those around them.
Settlement for a Shackled Pregnant Woman NYT Oct 17, 2013
Mark Humphrey/Associated Press
Juana Villegas, who was shackled to a hospital bed while giving birth in 2008, wore handcuffs in a 2012 demonstration outside the Tennessee Supreme Court building in Nashville.
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: October 17, 2013
A detained Mexican woman who had been shackled to her hospital bed while giving birth in Nashville will receive $490,000 in a settlement and also has the prospect of a resident visa.
The monetary settlement, which was approved on Tuesday by the council governing Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., closes a five-year legal battle that began when the woman, Juana Villegas, was arrested in July 2008 after a traffic stop in a Nashville suburb.
And in an unusual move, a federal judge has urged immigration authorities to give Ms. Villegas a special visa that is generally offered to crime victims. The judge said the visa was in order because of the violation of Ms. Villegas’s civil rights. His finding created a new legal basis for the victims’ visa, said Elliott Ozment, a lawyer who represented Ms. Villegas.
Ms. Villegas, who was nine months pregnant when she was arrested, was in the country illegally. She was detained for six days because of an agreement between Davidson County and federal authorities that gave immigration enforcement powers to sheriffs’ officers.
As a result of that program, jail officers decided to hold her after learning that Ms. Villegas, who has been living in the United States since 1996, had once been deported.
Soon after Ms. Villegas gave birth, she was returned to the jail without her newborn son. A hospital nurse gave her a breast pump, but she was not allowed to take it into the jail and developed a painful breast infection.
In 2011 a federal judge in Tennessee, William J. Haynes Jr., ruled in Ms. Villegas’s favor, finding that jail officers had shown “deliberate indifference” to her medical needs by cuffing her ankle to her hospital bed through most of her labor and during recovery. Nashville appealed, and a dispute over the amount of the damages was winding through the court when city officials decided this year to settle. Much has changed in Nashville since Ms. Villegas’s arrest. In September 2008, the Davidson County sheriff issued a new policy ending the shackling of pregnant women in detention.
“We do not restrain pregnant inmates at any time unless they are threatening harm to themselves or to others,” said Karla R. West, a spokeswoman for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.
Last year, Davidson County officials decided not to renew their federal immigration enforcement agreement. After intense criticism by immigrant advocate groups of the program, known as 287(g), the Obama administration has reduced it nationwide, declining to sign new agreements or renew existing ones.
She will receive $100,000 from the settlement, and her lawyers, including the Sherrard & Roe law firm, will receive $390,000. Ms. Villegas, who continues to live in Nashville and has four children, all American citizens, was authorized to work legally as the case progressed. Judge Haynes has called for her to get the visa as well.
Mr. Ozment said he continues to receive cases from other states of pregnant immigrants who have been shackled or restrained during detention. “This is not a lone problem, this is a systemic problem,” Mr. Ozment said. The issue of the breast pump was not resolved in the settlement.
Ms. Villegas, speaking by telephone on Thursday, said she was ultimately glad for the publicity surrounding her case.
“If my case had not become public, the sheriff would not have made any changes,” Ms. Villegas said. “I’m glad other women who go to the jail here will not suffer what I went through.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 17, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the type of visa a judge recommended Juana Villegas receive. It was not a permanent visa.
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