nabeepchen

This was posted to a blog, the Real Cost of Prisons, so I am reblogging the blog post (is that correct English?).

This editorial is about a year old, and just a few weeks ago, the New York Times did an article on a similar subject–shackling women prisoners while they are giving birth. I realize that pregnancy and childbirth doesn’t turn a psychotic killer into a saint, but I hardly think that a woman in labor poses much of a risk. And once you’ve removed the machine gun or the axe from the hands of the killer, I don’t think she can be all that dangerous.

As this article points out, if an armed guard can’t handle an inmate in the throes of labor, then he/she needs to find another line of work. If the woman is mentally ill, agitated, and does try to escape, then sedate her. She doesn’t need to be chained. Put an extra guard at the door and one at the bedside.

CA: Women Still Give Birth In Shackles

Tue, Aug. 02, 2005
EDITORIAL, ContraCosta Times, CA
Remove the shackles

A WOMAN IN LABOR writhes in pain on a hospital bed, and as she does, a shackle secures one of her ankles to the bed rail. It sounds like something out of a medieval chamber of horrors. But believe it or not, that’s what happens when a female prisoner in California — and in 20 other states — gives birth.

Women inmates are routinely cuffed during transport from prison to the hospital, during most of their labor and immediately after childbirth. The ankle restraints aren’t removed until the doctor decides that the woman has gone into “active” labor — whatever that is supposed to mean. What it usually winds up being is the final, pushing stage.
\

What possible reason could there be for this barbaric practice when at least one guard is in the delivery room watching an inmate at all times?

“Basically, we don’t want them to escape — that’s the bottom line,” says state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton. “It’s part of our mission of public safety.”

Well, we don’t want them to escape either, but surely a trained prison guard can handle a single inmate in labor.
Under department guidelines, all prisoners, without exceptions, who leave state prisons for outside medical treatment are to be shackled and guarded by at least one officer.
We find it hard to believe that a prisoner going through labor is going to leap off the delivery table and flee, between contractions. True, these women are in prison because they have committed crimes — some of them serious. But a guard who is incapable of keeping a pregnant woman in the throes of labor from fleeing needs to find another line of work.
This absurd logic must have come from the same rocket scientists who were paying vast sums of overtime for corrections officers to guard comatose inmates around the clock at taxpayer expense.
Fortunately, saner minds realize that this kind of treatment has no place in a civilized society. Besides increasing a pregnant woman’s already significant discomfort, shackling can have harmful effects on the baby, who, incidentally did not commit a crime, and is already coming into the world with a major strike against him or her.
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, has introduced a bill that would ban the shackling of pregnant inmates, during transport from prison to the hospital and during delivery. The long overdue bill, now awaits action by the Senate. We support the bill and urge lawmakers to act quickly to put an end to this horrible practice.
Even the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association — usually vehemently opposed to any loosening of inmate restrictions — supports a change in policy, with exceptions only for high-risk inmates.
They too understand that it’s not a matter of coddling criminals; it’s a matter of basic human decency and common sense.

As an addendum to this article, the state of California has subsequently passed a law prohibiting shackling of female inmates during childbirth. The only other state that has such a law is Illinois, although other states are considering them.

Also, lest anyone feel that we are coddling criminals by not chaining their legs together while in childbirth, the majority of these pregnant inmates are in for non-violent crimes. They do not pose a threat to society and are not likely to flee. Many of them haven’t even been to trial yet. I hardly think that a woman who was arrested for smoking pot, or writing a few bad checks, or who worked as a prostitute is a risk to society while she is in the process of giving birth. And there is the baby to think of. Impeding the process of labor can have a detrimental effect on outcome, and the baby has nothing to do with his/her mother’s criminal record.

Just in case anyone forgot, we still have a nursing shortage. Just in case anyone was wondering.

And oh, no major revelations in how to solve it. The powers that be and the experts with alphabet soup following their name are still clamoring for “increased” nursing education and mass produced warm bodies to fill in the slots.

Cool.