An end to the chain gang?

Good news for a change, though this is one of those silver linings that come with dark clouds: Last week New York’s legislature passed a bill outlawing the practice of shackling women prisoners during childbirth. The new law will make New York the fourth state to restrict cuffing of women in labor.

Do the math: That means 46 states and the federal government allow this “barbaric and unconscionable” practice (in the words of Senator Velmanette Montgomery, one of the bill’s sponsors), although apparently the feds are taking steps to restrict shackling of laboring prisoners.

It makes you wonder if, huh, it might be men making these policies. Anyone who has ever been in labor knows you gotta move. Forcing women in labor to lie down and lie still is cruel and unusual punishment that increases pain and raises the likelihood of complications harmful to mother and baby. Shackling a woman raising the likelihood a woman may need a C-section and in turn can cause delay when an emergency C-section becomes necessary, delay that can endanger mother and baby.

(Come to think of it, it’s kind of a metaphor for the ordinary treatment of women in labor by the American medical establishment. In fact, not so long ago, women in labor were regularly tied down to hospital beds.)

Back in 2006, when Amnesty International did a study on the phenomenon, the New York Times ran an article on it. It quoted an Arkansas prison spokeswoman (of course they dug up a woman) defending the practice: “Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent in nature. There have been instances when we've had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery."

In fact, most women in prison (a full 70 percent) are there for nonviolent offenses, and when Amnesty asked prison officials for examples of women trying to escape during labor, they couldn’t come up with a single case.

Yeah, bulletin to prison officials: a woman in labor is busy (that’s why they call it labor). She doesn’t have time or energy to spare on running away.

(Not surprisingly, this news stirred barely a ripple outside the feminist blogosphere. Cheers to Salon and Our Bodies Ourselves’ blog.)

Another related cloud: A lawsuit by an Arkansas prisoner (serving a brief sentence for a nonviolent offense) over her shackling during labor is still wending its way through the courts. A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the claim that the shackling was cruel and unusual punishment, but the ACLU’s National Prison Project successfully demanded a rehearing by the full court. Stay tuned.

Birthing behind bars, but not alone

Reading a recent article in the Seattle Times on doulas in the state prisons, I wasn't sure whether to feel ashamed or proud of my state. It’s a horrible thing for babies to be born in prison—horrible for the mother and boding horribly for the child—made worse by the inhumane ways most prisons treat laboring women (some prisons actually handcuff women to the bed during labor, and prison health care is rarely good). Although the article describes doulas as having been resources for pregnant women for centuries, and it’s true that there have always women who’ve informally offered other women their expertise about childbirth, in fact doulas as such were created only in the last few decades by the women’s health movement, with a prominent role by activists in Washington state, including Penny Simkin.

Typically doulas attend births, while it appears the doulas in the Washington prisons are mostly restricted to prenatal counseling and attend birth in only a few cases. That’s too bad, because studies (PDF) have found that having doulas supporting mothers during labor and delivery dramatically improves health outcomes and reduces C-section rates. Which is a good thing even if you don’t care about incarcerated women; reducing C-sections and reducing complications in birth saves a lot of money for the state’s taxpayers.

The Times article failed to mention that the rate of babies born to incarcerated women has skyrocketed in recent decades, as the female incarceration rate has skyrocketed. U.S. imprisonment has been rising dramatically across the board—we now have the biggest prison population in the world, 1 out of every 100 American adults—but it has been rising much faster for women than men. The female incarceration rate is up 775 percent since 1971, double the rise for men. The single biggest factor in that rise, according to Silja Talvi, author of Women Behind Bars, is the drug war, as I noted in an earlier post.

Again this is an issue worthy of concern whether you’re a bleeding heart or not; imprisonment is expensive. Drug treatment, on the other hand, is cheap.

The Times reporter barely brushed against the other horror of female imprisonment: Most women in prison have been sexually abused. Nearly every one of the hundred or so women Talvi interviewed for her book had been a victim of sexual abuse or domestic violence, and many had been raped. Giving birth can bring the trauma of that experience back to the surface, according to Simkin, who offers special counseling and birth support for abuse survivors.

It will be interesting to track whether the state continues this program and whether it expands it to provide labor support. And keep on eye on whether Washington’s female prisoner population continues to grow. Perhaps as state budgets grow ever tighter, bean counters will notice this huge budget item and see an opportunity.

Cold bars, blue eye shadow, and the price of not snitching

This story broke my heart: In one of those “heartwarming” Mother’s Day stories, a reporter went to a Southern California youth prison to cover a special visiting day for the inmates from their children. A nonprofit had even provided free transportation for families. “The eager moms pulled their hair into neat pony tails, borrowed their favorite blue eye shadow and ironed the only clothes they own as they primped for a visit from their young children.” But only one child showed up.

It gets worse: Father’s Day is always more crowded than Mother’s Day.

The imprisonment of women is skyrocketing, up 775 percent since 1977, rising at double the rate of men. The single biggest factor in that rise, according to Silja Talvi, author of Women Behind Bars is the drug war, with its mandatory minimum sentencing, the resulting pressure to snitch to avoid those sentences, and the fact that women are less likely to snitch than men. “Prosecutors will come to them and say they will go to prison unless they give up the names of three higher-ups, but women usually either say they don't know those people or will simply decline. Men will snitch and, unfortunately, they often get less time in prison than women who don't,” Talvi says. And then men get visits from their kids and women don’t.

Just in case you weren’t already totally bummed:

Nearly every woman I interviewed (around 100) had a serious history of trauma or abuse in her life, emotional abuse or sexual abuse or domestic violence. Many had been raped. More than a third of the women entering the prison system were homeless.

God, this world is unfair. But there are people like Talvi in it. Talvi scraped and fundraised and spent her own money to get the stories of these women out to the world. And she found women beaten but unbowed:

I also didn't expect the women to be as tremendously resilient as they are. I expected to hear "Help me!" or "I can't take it anymore!" or "I'm going to kill myself!" They didn't do that. ... Instead, they often said, "This isn't just about me" ... they have a real sense of responsibility for each other.