A bill passed by the Texas Legislature would ban the practice of arbitrarily using shackles on female inmates during labor.
State Rep. Marisa Marquez, D-El Paso, authored the bill, which was by passed the House and Senate and now awaits Gov. Rick Perry’s signature. Several Texas civil rights groups lobbied for the measure throughout the session.
“These bills came about because of the horrific stories we were hearing from families and friends of pregnant women inside our jails,” said Diana Claitor, executive director of Texas Jail Project, a group that pushed for the measure. “The public has no idea how many young mothers and their babies come out of jail injured or traumatized.”
Women who enter Texas prisons while pregnant are often shackled down through their entire labor, and the group claims there are no minimum standards of extra health care provided to pregnant inmates, Claitor said.
A 1999 report by Amnesty International estimated more than 1,000 babies are born in prisons each year. In Texas, prisons keep no statistics on the number of pregnant inmates or infants born.
In the report, Amnesty International claims that the use of shackles on pregnant women is both emotionally degrading and potentially harmful to the health of the mother and the child.
“Women in labor need to be mobile so that they can assume various positions as needed, and so they can quickly be moved to an operating room,” said Dr. Patricia Garcia, an obstetrician and gynecologist from Chicago. “Having the woman in shackles compromises the ability to manipulate her legs into the proper position for necessary treatment.”
Adan Munoz Jr., executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said there was no opposition to the bill.
A clause in the bill would allow exceptions when the inmate poses a threat to either herself or others, as determined by the sheriff.
The clause raises questions as to what the bill really accomplishes, and Claitor admitted that prison officials said the use of restraints is already limited to rare and extreme situations.
“You need to have a law in the books, even if it only happens five times a year,” Claitor said. “Even if it is only one guard out of hundreds, as long as it’s not a law, it’s a problem. It is too arbitrary.”
