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Sun 5 Mar, 2006 07:15 am
From the New York Times - March 5, 2006
America regards itself as an eminently civilized country, but in many states female prisoners who give birth are required to be held in shackles during labor. Besides being grotesquely inhumane, this appalling practice is medically dangerous.
A report by Amnesty Interntion U.S.A. finds tht nearly half the state corrections departments - and the Federal Bureau of Prisons - have policies that expressly permit this practice. Prison officials justify the policy by saying that the women are a flight risk, even though many of them are nonviolent offenders who would present little risk, even if they were not doubled over with labor pains or strapped down on a delivery table.
It should not take a genius to see that chaining a woman's feet together or handcuffing her arm and leg to the side a bed is not a smart thing to do during labor or childbirth. Yet doctors and nurses must sometimes fight with reluctant corrections officers if they want their pregnant patients unchained and effectively treated. Court papers in a lawsuit filed in Arkansas claim that because of resistance by the corrections guard, a mother-to-be remained shackled until she had suffered nerve damage and a permanent back injury.
The primitive practice of chaining women in childbirth should shame us all. As one father put it after his wife, who was serving time for vehicular homicide, gave birth in custody: "It sounds like something from slavery 200 years ago."
Oh my god...
I can not BELIEVE anyone would do this.
What... they think a laboring woman can RUN?
what the HELL...
I read an article about that ridiculous practice. There was an accompanying photo showing a woman going into childbirth, ankles still chained.
Not a very good statement about us as a society.
not in the least.
I just dont understand where they ( police men, doctors..) think the threat is?
A woman in labor will not run.
She cant.
And where would she go that you couldnt hear her?
So, if she is jailed and chained.. can she even hold her child after it is born?
shewolf wrote:So, if she is jailed and chained.. can she even hold her child after it is born?
Yes, she can, but the baby has to be chained also.
While Amnesty is making a big deal about the practice being permitted it is interesting that they didn't include any stastical data showing how often it is actually done.
shewolfnm wrote:I just dont understand where they ( police men, doctors..) think the threat is?
A woman in labor will not run.
She cant.
Really? Have you ever spent any time in or around prisons? You'd be amazed at what people can and will do.
I will be back to this post when I've calmed down in order to avoid conflict.
fishin' wrote:While Amnesty is making a big deal about the practice being permitted it is interesting that they didn't include any stastical data showing how often it is actually done.
shewolfnm wrote:I just dont understand where they ( police men, doctors..) think the threat is?
A woman in labor will not run.
She cant.
Really? Have you ever spent any time in or around prisons? You'd be amazed at what people can and will do.
Does it warrant this fishin'? I mean, why not just have a couple of guards there at all times? Or are the big bad guards too squeamish to watch a woman giving birth?
There is absolutely no excuse for this draconian law.
Eryemil wrote: Does it warrant this fishin'? I mean, why not just have a couple of guards there at all times? Or are the big bad guards too squeamish to watch a woman giving birth?
It isn't a matter of the guards being squeamish. Doctors and nurses tend to get a little squeamish when their patient grabs a scalpel and starts swinging it at anyone nearby. Then, of course, they sue the state for not protecting them from their patients.
Quote:There is absolutely no excuse for this draconian law.
I suspect you have absolutely NO experience to draw from to reach this conclusion.
Well, a friend of mine has been a surgeon in a prison hospital for five years - it is out of range even think about such here.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Well, a friend of mine has been a surgeon in a prison hospital for five years - it is out of range even think about such here.
Not according to the exact same Amnesty International report that the original op-ed peice was based on. Germany was one of the other countries listed that restrains pregnant prisoners during labor. The only country that was identified that absolutely doesn't retrain at all is the Netherlands.
Hmm.
Add 1) shackles are only allowed by court order here. And such happens more than rarely - generally, for all prisoners.
Add 2) that prison hospital's gynaecological station has 16 beds plus 30 for the female prisoner's children under the age of 6, a waterbirth room ...
Shackels in water ...
There are no guards in the operation rooms at all, btw.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Add 2) that prison hospital's gynaecological station has 16 beds plus 30 for the female prisoner's children under the age of 6, a waterbirth room ...
Amnesty International's report only looked at prisoners outside of the prison setting for this aspect. These were women who were taken from prisons/jails to a non-prison hosptial facility to deliver their children.
But.. As I said in my original post here - it is interesting that Amnesty International didn't list any sort of frequency for these events (they could have found one instance or a million. They don't put the frequency in their report.).
The practice is completely prohibited in several states and the best studies I can find on the WWW indicate that it happens in less than 5% of cases.
fishin' wrote:Not according to the exact same Amnesty International report that the original op-ed peice was based on. Germany was one of the other countries listed that restrains pregnant
It says
in that quoted survey
Quote:This survey covers all 50 states, DC and the Federal Bureau of Prisons
Can you please give me a link where Germany is mentioned?
The PDF you linked to won't open for me on this computer. The link is to the AI USA. The report I read was on the main AI WWW site. Is the one you linked to a US extract?
fishin' wrote: These were women who were taken from prisons/jails to a non-prison hosptial facility to deliver their children.
Such wouldn't happen here.
Either it is done in the medical ambulances (those have a couple up to 20 beds for "minor cases") or in the prison hospital. (There's not much which can't be done in there (either by the prison doctors themselves or by temporarily employed doctors).
I might be a barbaric but they ARE in prison. If they are required to be shackled, they need to be shacked. Should have thought about all that before getting sent to prison.
Re: GIVING BIRTH IN CHAINS
seaglass wrote:
It should not take a genius to see that chaining a woman's feet together or handcuffing her arm and leg to the side a bed is not a smart thing to do during labor or childbirth.
Can I be the idiot and ask what could happen?
Wouldn't it be very difficult, if not impossible, to give birth while your feet are shackled together?
I do think a prison guard should be present in the delivery room or just outside the door during labor and birth if the event happens outside the prison walls. Also, I would not be opposed to having the woman have at least one hand cuffed to the side of the bed. Fishin' is right when he said "you'd be amazed at what these people can and will do."
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