Every year thousands of female inmates give birth while incarcerated. Based off of reports from the Center for Disease Control, we have “present-day prevalence rates of 6,000 to 20,000 pregnant inmates annually in the nation’s jails and prisons” (Dignam & Adashi, 2014). Due to human rights issues, many states have outlawed shackling female prisoners while they labor and give birth. Bill’s like Hawaii’s help define when shackling can occur and when it cannot, but the lines aren’t completely clear. While these bill’s have been great for pregnant, female inmates, they also have their setbacks. Proponents of these laws, such as the department of health and the department of safety, and policies argue that the legislation is necessary to protect correctional staff, medical personnel, and members of the public from harm. In order to look at all sides of the shackling argument, we will look at the pro’s and con’s of shackling laws passed, like the Hawaii shackling bill. The Hawaii shackling bill isn’t very long in length, which already makes one skeptical of its effectiveness over such a large issue. To begin, it defines ‘labor’, ‘postpartum recovery’, ‘restraints’, and ‘transport’. This part of the bill is extremely important as to set the basis for when shackling can occur and what constitutes being in each term for the pregnant inmate and for …show more content…
Shackling can actually impinge upon the medical staff’s ability to do their job. Sichel notes, “[i]f there were a need for a C-Section, the mother needs to be moved to an operating room immediately and a delay of even five minutes could result in permanent brain damage for the baby” (Sichel, 2008). Though important to protect the medical staff, is it an equal or more important trade off over protecting an unborn child’s
3) In Throwaway Moms: Maternal Incarceration and the Criminalization of Female Poverty, authors Suzanne Allen, Chris Flaherty, and Gretchen Ely specifically focus on mothers incarcerated for drug offenses. Furthermore, they discuss the negative effects incarceration has had on the relationships between mothers and their children. The article involves the interviews of 26 mothers incarcerated in a Kentucky prison in 2007. According to the authors, maternal incarceration is surrounded by a large number of issues and policies. This includes poverty, addiction, federal legislation, the War on Drugs, child welfare, and other financial issues that mothers in particular face (Allen, S., Flaherty, C., & Ely, G. 2010).
Physical restraint, according to Health Care Financing Administration, can be defined as any handling, physical and mechanical methods applied to a patient with the aim of denying him or her the freedom of movement or access to his or her own body (Di Lorenzo et al., 2011). It may involve use of belts or ties that restrain movement of an individual such as seclusion. Seclusion refers to isolation from others, often done in a room that’s I avoid of any furniture and has a small observable window as the only connection to the outside world (Chandler, 2012). The use of physical restraint in handling patients has been on debate for several years now. In most countries such Italy, it
The correctional system as a whole has a significant impact on the United States. Incarceration, sexual victimization, and segregation all have a relationship of sorts. Simply stated, it is the butterfly effect. The overpopulation throughout correctional facilities across the United States leaves more opportunity for inmates to encounter sexual victimized. Additionally, the number of people placed in segregation is higher because of the large population of inmates in prison. When one decision, action, or lack thereof, is implemented, there will either be positive or negative consequences. Statistics encompassing sexual victimization,
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
Over the course of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with regard to her reproductive rights.
Sexual Abuse has gained an outrageous amount of attention as it quickly inclines to the top concerns of the prison system. Officials have been severely struggling as surveys display the number of sexual assaults with no regard of the person’s age, gender, or race. Officers and other staffs have been engaging in sexual activities with inmates undermining the rules and regulation of the system, and ignoring the oath taken prior to becoming an officer. Inmates have been raped, had affairs, become pregnant and deeply involved with the staff of the prison. As a result of the struggles, officials generated the PREA Act, a policy that was put in place to help prosecute and punish officers who engaged in such behavior.
One of the greatest stressors of women in prison is being apart from their children, Women inmates are more likely than fathers who are in prison to worry about the child’s living arrangements while they are serving their time. Women are usually the primary caregivers to their children before they enter the system, making the strain of separation difficult. Being able to communicate with each other, the mother and child are able to learn how to cope while b...
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
While most expectant mothers are planning for baby showers, shopping for maternity clothes and preparing the baby’s nursery, the incarcerated mother-to-be has to remain in a constant state of alertness and preparedness for situations that can put her and her unborn baby at risk, in an environment that is both intimidating and routinely violent. (Hutchinson et. al., 2008)
...o find a balance between interventional and non-interventional birth. With this being said, I also understand that there are strict policies and protocols set in place, which I must abide to as a healthcare provider, in any birth setting. Unfortunately, these guidelines can be abused. Christiane Northrup, MD, a well recognized and respected obstetrician-gynecologist has gone as far as to tell her own daughters that they should not give birth in a hospital setting, with the safest place being home (Block, 2007, p. xxiii). Although I am not entirely against hospital births, I am a firm believe that normal, healthy pregnancies should be fully permissible to all midwives. However, high-risk pregnancies and births must remain the responsibility of skilled obstetricians. My heart’s desire is to do what is ultimately in the best interest of the mother, and her unborn child.
There have been many questions raised if the nurseries programs were fair but “the number of women incarcerated in state prisons in the United States (US) has dramatically increased in the past 20 years, and 70% of these women are the mothers of minor children, as of the last Bureau of Justice estimates” (Mumola, 2000). “Allowing women to parent their children within correctional facilities in the US may be “one of the most controversial debates surrounding the imprisonment of women” (Bel...
More than one in three women in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2012). Thirty to sixty percent of perpetrators tend to also abuse children in the household (Edelson, 1999). Witnessing violence between parents or caretakers is considered the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next (Break the Cycle, 2006). State legislatures are increasingly passing statues that encourage participants in the Criminal Justice System to attack the issue of domestic violence more aggressively. Some states still fail to realize that IPV involving a woman that is pregnant should be considered a felony because it affects the well-being of the unborn child.
Thomson recognizes that this thought experiment has a very limited application – specifically to those instances where a pregnancy is the result of coercion or violence. In the sec...
When many individuals use up a shared resource out of self-interest, that demand overwhelms the supply and the resource begins to decrease. This situation can be avoided either by making an appeal to conscience or by instituting regulations using mutually agreed upon coercion. An appeal to conscience would be to inform people of how their self-interested decisions negatively affect others in the grand scheme of things. After this, enough people would have to change their behavior to lower the overall costs just enough to lower the resource usage. The coercion would be a punishment such as a law or a fine to the people who do not follow the rules that limit resource consumption. Hardin claims that in seeking to solve the population problem,
“The Rights of Pregnant Women.” NARAL Pro-Choice America. 24 March 2004. <http://www.naral.org/Issues/pregnantwomen/> {unrestricted; internet publication}