Finally, the culmination of all my blood, sweat, and tears. This right here is my PRIDE and JOY! After listening carefully to all your feedback, I finally got the best of both worlds and was able to put together a well-organized project with a strong advocacy position. In the week between the workshop draft and the final submission, I worked on developing my essay and integrating the synthesis of my scholarly sources. I also paid close attention to all the little details so I could polish my work, focusing especially the transitions between paragraphs and topic sentences. I kept asking myself questions like, "What is this paragraph trying to say?", "Why am I using this evidence?", and "How can I connect these ideas?". It was during this part of the course that I finally learned what it meant to critically engage. When I turned in my final draft, I was so happy and satisfied with my work that I even decided to send you a email of appreciation:

Figure 1 shows our email exchange after the AP.

In conclusion, tackling this project was a big accomplishment in my college career. Eventually you gave me an "A", and I've never felt so satisfied in my life because this is literally the best work I've done in any class. I know that I've always been a skilled writer, but there was a gap between my high school writing and college writing that I could not seem to close, and this course helped me to close that gap. Since completing this advocacy project and learning that I'm actually a quite skilled communicator, I've been inspired to keep writing even though 39C is over. In the summer, I made a goal of writing 1000 words a day, and next fall I even plan on minoring in Literary Journalism. Thanks for being such an intellectually stimulating and inspiring professor!

Abstract

Women have been underrepresented at all levels in the criminal justice system, and this has resulted in a penal system in which the specific health needs of female prisoners are often forgotten or ignored. In particular, the routine practice of shackling pregnant inmates throughout the United States has been condemned by multiple advocacy groups and international humanitarian organizations, yet, a variety of factors allow state prisons to illegally restrain women during childbirth despite laws that have been enacted banning the egregious procedure. Regardless of the progress that’s been made through human rights advocacy, there’s still much to be done. Though certain freedoms are taken away in prison, being in a correctional facility does not cancel a woman’s basic right to life and humanity.

Bound by Injustice: The Use of Shackles on Pregnant Women

In the summer of 2009, women wore purple ribbons around their wrists instead of shackles during the press conference and rally outside of New York Governor David Paterson’s office. The rally, coordinated by organizations like the Correctional Association of New York, New York Civil Liberties Union, and Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH), was held in support of state anti-shackling legislation and brought attention to the injustices pregnant inmates face in prison. After several public demonstrations and the relentless efforts of multiple advocacy groups, Governor Paterson finally signed the bill on August 26, 2009, outlawing the use of restraints on incarcerated mothers during labor, delivery, and recovery after giving birth, as well as limiting shackling during transport to and from the hospital for childbirth. Six years later however, the “barbaric and unconscionable practice” still persists in New York and many other states as pregnant women are routinely shackled during labor and denied basic reproductive health care (Simone).

While local advocates have orchestrated a remarkably successful effort to raise the public’s awareness of the issue and initiate policy change, implementing those changes has proven to be challenging. Over the last 16 years, several states have enacted laws against shackling pregnant inmates during and after labor; however, in interviews with former inmates, reports from numerous criminal justice reform groups, and records acquired through freedom of information requests, there is clear evidence of negligence in the implementation of these laws across the country, indicating that anti-shackling legislation, for the most part, is ineffectual. America, sadly, has grown accustomed to "symbolic" legislation which is designed not to advance the public good, but rather, to appease particular interest groups. It is commonly believed that once a law has been made, the problem has been solved, but this misperception is completely misguided as women are still being restrained during pregnancy despite the existence of laws that are meant to prevent such erroneous practices. Historically, the incarcerated population, let alone incarcerated women, have not been the focus of mainstream civil rights movements as it is extremely difficult to gain support for advocacy on behalf of criminals. In order to diminish shackling practices in the United States, the right of incarcerated women to bear children with dignity, free of unnecessary pain and restraint, demands greater attention from reproductive rights advocates from all over the country. Once enough attention has been gathered to appeal to the public, then, and only then, can we eradicate shackling in our country through sufficient legislation and finally recognize the humanity of pregnant women bound by injustice in the American penal system.

As of 2016, only 22 states prohibit the shackling of pregnant women during labor, which indicates that over half of the country still permits such outrageous methods (American Civil Liberties Union). According to a report by the International Covenant on Civil Rights and Political Rights (ICCPR), in 2013, 16 states already had laws that restrict the use of restraints on pregnant inmates; 24 states limit the use of restraints on pregnant inmates only by policies; and 8 states have no laws or policies or any other form of regulation addressing the use of shackles on pregnant inmates. Among the 24 states that regulate the use of restraints only at the policy level, 5 have policies that do not meaningfully limit their use and 6 have not made their policies publicly available, or have done so only in summarized form. A table which can be found in the appendix of the ICCPR report here, provides a summary of the status of laws and policies addressing the shackling of pregnant prisoners in the 50 U.S. states as of 2013. Since the publishing of this report, however, laws have been enacted in Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Despite the progress that has been made through widespread human rights advocacy, legislation has proven to be mostly ineffective as there is no accreditation that requires correctional facilities to demonstrate adherence to such laws, thus, few prisons actually face repercussions for violating anti-shackling statutes, indicating that many women are still suffering.

One of these women includes Maria Caraballo, who delivered her daughter in 2010 while handcuffed to the hospital bed. "They didn't even remove my cuffs for me to hold my baby," Caraballo told reporter Nina-Liss Schultz,  "I had to hold my baby with one hand for two to three seconds. They didn't take my handcuffs off until after I was stitched up and in the prison ward, and I didn't see my baby until the next day.” Caraballo gave birth to her daughter a year after it became illegal to shackle incarcerated women during childbirth in New York, but her experience wasn't necessarily unique.

New evidence published in 2015 suggests that many women continue to be shackled in violation of the law. The Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York (CA), the state’s oldest criminal justice reform group, found a shockingly poor standard of care in women’s prisons and the continued practice of shackling pregnant inmates during labor despite a state law prohibiting it. Based on surveys and interviews with 27 women who gave birth in correctional facilities after the 2009 Anti-Shackling Law went into effect, 23 of the 27 women (85%) who gave birth between 2009 and 2013 were shackled at least once in violation of the law, to which the CA concludes that the state is out of compliance with the law. Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the Women in Prison Project, claims “there’s so little oversight. There’s so little public accountability. And then you have, piled on that, this widespread dehumanization and lack of public sympathy. All those are a recipe for laws not being followed” (Gebreyes). Granted, this study only covers correctional institutions in New York, which was one of the leading states in regards to anti-shackling advocacy.

There are many states with similar standards of care that do not receive nearly enough attention. The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a Washington, D.C. based organization that advocates for vulnerable women in the United States also did a study, conglomerating a state by state report card and analysis of policies and conditions for pregnant women in prison. The report card gives states a letter grade based on the quality of their recognized standards and practices, which includes prenatal care and the shackling of pregnant inmates. Thirty-six states received a D or F for their failure to significantly limit the use of restraints on pregnant women during transportation, labor and delivery, and postpartum phase of pregnancy. The data to determine such grades was gathered from each state’s department of corrections’ response to a series of questions developed by the Rebecca Project and the National Women’s Law Center. It is very difficult however, to pinpoint exactly how many of these states were in direct violation of anti-shackling laws as state institutions do not require incidents where restraints are used on pregnant women to be reported; but considering the trend in research, it is apparent that many states failed to follow previously established policies and procedures. Conclusively, the existence of formal, written, and publicly available policies is a very essential component of the enforcement of anti-shackling state laws as data collection furthers institutional accountability and ensures that women’s established rights are not being violated.

In many prisons, correctional and medical staff are simply not notified about anti-shackling laws or are not properly trained to comply. In Illinois, improperly trained guards continued to restrain women for years after such a law was passed in 2000. According to journalist Audrey Quinn, after about 80 prisoners brought a class-action lawsuit against Cook County, the state passed legislation in 2012 that strengthened protection for incarcerated women in prison (New York Times). However, an unpublished survey of county jails conducted by Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers cites 20 institutions that don’t have written policies that fully comply with the statewide law, indicating that such laws are not properly being enforced. Even California, an early adopter of anti-shackling legislation, has struggled to effectively implement its original 2005 law and an updated 2012 law. A 2014 report from Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, found that 34 of 58 counties in California had yet to implement proper written policies.

One difficulty in enforcing such laws can be attributed to the logic of safety and the assumption that all female inmates are dangerous and pose high security risks. Steve Patterson, a spokesperson for Cook County’s Sheriff's Office in Illinois, offers his justification for shackling: “We have to bring inmates to the same area that the general public comes to,” he states, “if you’re laying sick in hospital bed, and in the next hospital bed is a woman who’s in on a double murder charge, because she’s pregnant she shouldn’t be handcuffed to the side of the bed – I think if you’re the person laying sick in bed next to her you might disagree” (Nation Inside). Other supporters also defend shackling on the premise that it prevents pregnant inmates from attempting to escape. As one department of corrections officer said, “Basically, we don’t want them to escape – that’s the bottom line” (Nation Inside). While there are certainly dangerous women in prison, majority of female prisoners in the U.S. are nonviolent offenders in custody for drug related crimes and pose low security risks to which shackling is unjustified; and for the violent felons who do present a significant threat, however, there are other forms of security that could be used in place of shackling which do not dehumanize or cause unnecessary harm to the inmate. In most cases, armed guards already accompany pregnant women to the medical facility and are usually stationed immediately outside the delivery room. Moreover, pregnant prisoners do not typically share delivery rooms with other patients, especially if they have committed a violent crime. Furthermore, given the physical and mental rigors of childbirth, labor is a restricting mechanism itself which hinders a woman’s ability to travel far, and on top of that modern hospitals already have adequate security systems which prevent patients from leaving the facility.

The reality of the difficulty in enforcing anti-shackling laws lies in the obstacles of advocating on behalf of criminals. There is a universal lack of public sympathy for the incarcerated population as they are commonly deemed as individuals unworthy of being treated with respect because of the crimes they committed. On top of that, prisons are private institutions with no public accountability; in other words, we do not know what goes on behind closed doors, thus most of the public is unaware of such injustices in the first place. Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and author of the The New Jim Crow, argues that advocates are most successful when they draw attention to certain kinds of criminals, “telling only those stories of [injustice] that will evoke sympathy” among the general population (227). With criminal backgrounds, the majority of incarcerated women in prison, whether or not they were convicted of a nonviolent offense, are not seen as “attractive plaintiffs for civil rights litigation” or good symbols for media advocacy (228). Thus, shackling advocacy is problematic simply because it is challenging to get people to care. It is very difficult to elicit sympathy for a woman with a murder charge, but regardless, she is no less human than a woman charged for theft or a woman with no criminal background at all. Shackling women during labor is a direct violation of human rights. People make mistakes but no one, no matter what race, class, gender, or status as an inmate should ever be subjected to such a humiliating, barbaric, and dehumanizing event. The birth of a child is supposed to a sacred and joyous experience, but incarcerated mothers are robbed of this joy; instead, they are inflicted with lasting physical consequences and psychological trauma because of their rank in society as prisoners. This points us to the brutal, political realities of the American criminal justice system of how we treat mothers behind bars. As Alexander beautifully writes about mass incarceration in The New Jim Crow, the same philosophies can be applied to shackling. She concludes, “we must face the realities of the [criminal justice system] and embrace those who are most oppressed by it” if we hope to end the use of restraints on pregnant women in the United States (229).

This lack of recognition for human rights can also be traced to the stigma that women in prison are not respectable mothers, unworthy of parenting and birthing in the first place because of the crimes they have committed. However, the right to conceive and raise a child is one of the most basic civil liberties of (wo)man, and infringing upon such a fundamental right by shackling women lowers us in society, as even animals do not give birth in chains. Dana Sussman, law professor and Commissioner of Human Rights in New York, asserts that “reproductive justice will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social, and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality, and production for ourselves, our families, and our communities in all areas of our lives" (482). This can only be done if we work together in a collective effort to support each other, rather than turning our heads away to the injustices that disadvantaged, vulnerable women face. As women, we must look out for each other and empower one another, because in my mind, if you have the ability to help someone, you should.

There is a kind of mentality that sometimes the public likes to shield itself from these harsh realities experienced by incarcerated women. It is double-fold, both in terms of the level of secrecy that the criminal justice applies to keep the public in the dark, as well as a lack of responsibility on our parts to want to do something to make sure the situation changes. But if more stories were out there, more reports were made on such oppressions, more advocates rallied outside of government offices, more people campaigned for better legislation, if more people cared —  this could potentially cause a paradigm shift in which criminals finally get the respect they deserve to be treated as humans, and incarcerated mothers are given their rightful privilege of freely bringing life into this world without restraint.