Ending the Shackling of Pregnant Prisoners

by Matt Kelley · 2009-09-05 07:00:00 UTC
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Last week, New York became the sixth state to ban the practice of shackling pregnant prisoners before, during and after birth. This is a huge, overdue victory for human rights in New York and a testament to the persistence of advocates who brought bills banning shackling of pregnant prisoners to Albany eight times before succeeding this year. But, um, it means 44 states gotta get their acts together.

Shackling women while giving birth is a violation of their human rights and it intrudes unnecessarily on an intensely personal - and important - moment in life. Being chained to a bed is a way to remind a woman that the baby she's having won't be with her for long and discouraging the sacred connection with her baby. It doesn't need to be this way. Surely a guard standing at the door can handle the security risk without the woman being shackled. By removing the chains, we encourage a woman to connect with her newborn child.

The Crime Report investigated the issue following passage of the New York reform, and found a spotty landscape of written guidelines, de facto practice and some states with complete silence on the issue. TCR editors talked with Rebecca Project director Malika Saada Saar, who said:

“I think the change at the federal level signaled to states that this was a policy change they should implement,” said Saar, who is now planning a national push to encourage states to enact similar reform. “There might be a way to tie federal funding to the use of shackles, but that’s a punitive approach, which isn’t ideal.”

The Crime Report story includes a list of policies on shackling pregnant prisoners in all 50 states - find your state's rule here.

Once again, a big congrats to the groups that brought about this critical reform -- the Women in Prison Project, the Women's Prison Association, the Rebecca Project, Women on the Rise Telling Her Story and the New York Civil Liberties Union, among others.

Brooklyn Assemblyman Nick Perry, who sponsored the legislation for nine years running told Newsweek: "I am quite elated that today, Governor Paterson has signed this bill into law, thus putting an end to this barbaric practice, and assuring that no woman incarcerated in New York will ever give birth in chains again."

Photo by seanmcgrath

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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