PREGNANT IN PRISON
Stein, Loren & Mistiaen, Veronique
Pregnant in Prison In one jail, 80 per cent lose their babies BY LOREN STEIN AND VERONIQUE MISTIAEN When Doris Mitchell went up before a California judge in June 1985 for violating probation, she...
...In the worst of circumstances, they say, pregnant prisoners are locked in stripped-down isolation cells, given drugs dangerous to their unborn children, or shackled during labor and recovery...
...And that has meant severe overcrowding and further deterioration in the quality of medical care...
...They weren't getting us down...
...All of the studies show very dramatic and traumatic effects of separating children from their mothers, and this ought not to be done without really careful thought about the effects on and the best interests of the child...
...Now, because of a lawsuit by inmates seeking access to the program, four new halfway houses have opened...
...They scheduled another visit for August 9. Jail officials ignored that appointment as well...
...I had worried so much before, when I was going through the vomiting, exasperated and dizzy...
...I didn't realize the judge could give me time," she says...
...I figured I'd have enough time to get everything ready...
...The barracks-style room had two toilets, two sinks, and a shower...
...I'd never been on probation before...
...Bari Robinson, her attorney, says, "I think it's easy for people who work in these institutions to get callous...
...I said to her, 'Now that I really think about it, I haven't felt a lot of movement in the past two days.' " Mitchell's baby, as it turned out, was dead...
...Bricknell confirms that pregnant women have missed scheduled appointments at Highland Hospital, "but given the great volume of business and the number of folks moved," he says, "it is not done maliciously...
...Thousands of miles away, pregnant inmates are battling similar conditions in two East Coast prisons...
...It really hurts," she says...
...She didn't notice an absence of fetal movement until the next morning, when the guard who dispenses medication made his rounds...
...It's overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe...
...This special care is what pregnant inmates don't get...
...They said you're only going to one of these, and we'll decide...
...It not only complains of many of the same practices opposed by the California and Massachusetts women, but also takes a different tack, challenging the prison policy of forced separation of mothers and their children...
...I guess I had talked myself into it...
...They also sued and won a settlement in April 1987 and reportedly are pleased with the changes so far...
...In routinely overcrowded facilities, medical services are underfunded and understaffed...
...Bellavita is the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit filed by inmates and the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) against Niantic officials in 1983...
...Prison guards and administrators tend to single out pregnant inmates for harsher treatment because the pregnancies are seen as an intrusion on routine and security, says Nancy Shaw, a San Francisco sociologist who specializes in prison health issues...
...In California, the Community Prisoner Mother-Infant Care Program is seen as a potential model for other states...
...She said, T like Justin in red.' I said, 'But what's his favorite color...
...Working various jobs, she raised enough money to move to Berkeley, California...
...She is also suing individually, seeking personal-injury damages...
...Today, because he's not with me, I could kick myself...
...Are we going to send women back out with more problems on top of the problems that have already gotten them into prison...
...David Kears, the man in charge of Alameda County's health-care services, which contracts out to the jail for medical services, confirms there are problems...
...I gave birth to him...
...If friends or relatives are not available to provide care, the child is placed in a foster home...
...An hour east of Boston, Framingham is the only correctional institution for women in the state...
...They also learned she had a history of high-risk pregnancies: a miscarriage, toxemia, two Cesarean sections...
...And he would wake the baby when he screamed...
...Her stillborn daughter weighed six pounds...
...Participating inmates can see their children regularly, breast-feed them, and develop a nurturing relationship until reunited at release...
...My daughter was immediately placed in a foster home...
...The children have done nothing and deserve no punishment from the state...
...I asked the doctor, 'I'll just stop, if you think I can,' " Mitchell says...
...And then I said no, I'm going to do it right, I don't want to be running with a baby the rest of my life...
...He had this heavy-duty, hollering voice...
...While she was in the hospital, she had considered trying to escape with her newborn...
...Although the courts have held that jails and prisons have a constitutional duty to provide "adequate" medical care, most inmates receive grossly insufficient care...
...A trailer housing a women's infirmary opened early last year...
...Her one-year-old son, Jeffrey, was taken in by her mother when she went to 'When I spoke with a prison psychologist only two weeks after my baby died, she told me I was only feeling sorry for myself, since the baby was not in pain.' prison in 1983...
...But he said, 'No, you can't do that, it'll hurt the baby...
...Judge Gold said he didn't like it that I was on drugs," says Mitchell, "and he was going to make sure I got a long term...
...The trauma of separation—whether it's the taking within a day or two of birth or the placement of older children in foster care-can be overwhelming for both mother and child...
...Calm and controlled, the thirty-four-year-old woman talks about the circumstances that led her to jail and what happened inside...
...he agrees with Bricknell that the jail is unsanitary and unclean...
...When Mitchell didn't show up at the clinic, the doctor called and asked jail officials why they hadn't brought her...
...In Lock-up C, Mitchell began to show the signs of abrupt withdrawal: vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhea, headaches, watery eyes, running nose, muscle spasms, loss of appetite, and sleeplessness...
...With the help of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, pregnant inmates at Framingham Prison have filed a class-action suit against the prison...
...In 1982, she and her children returned to Berkeley...
...Pregnant women should not even be in a county jail...
...Over the next few years, she had a daughter and lived in various northern California cities...
...Lining up for dinner on August 11, Mitchell felt two very strong kicks in her abdomen but attributed them to indigestion...
...But as long as pregnant women are imprisoned, their medical needs deserve attention...
...In Massachusetts, a group called Aid to Incarcerated Mothers is placing infants born to inmate mothers in homes near Framingham Prison...
...Doris Mitchell sits in her lawyer's office in downtown Oakland...
...When she returned to Santa Rita, Mitchell was barely able to function...
...They treat u's like animals," says Roberta Adams, who spent almost her entire pregnancy locked in a cell for twenty-two hours a day with half a dozen women awaiting sentencing in Framingham Prison in Massachusetts...
...The baby would always kick me and I could never go back to sleep...
...A jail is a jail...
...It wasn't...
...Inmates who become mothers in prison face a different problem: separation from their newborns—often, depending on the individual prison's policy, only twenty-four to seventy-two hours after delivery...
...Officials have been forced to reevaluate their priorities...
...Loren Stein and Veronique Mistiaen are associates of the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco...
...The typical female inmate is both poor and a single mother...
...Those who are pregnant are therefore more likely to enter prison with high-risk pregnancies, a condition requiring closely monitored prenatal care and access to emergency services...
...Prisoners'-rights advocates Betsey Smith and Lila Austin created a program for Framingham women in 1982...
...I'd be holding my stomach, saying, 'C'mon, kid, we can make it.' And I thought we had, we had won...
...jails and prisons get little exercise or fresh air, eat poorly, and are crowded into unsanitary cells...
...Pregnant inmates are not only abused and neglected," she says...
...For pregnant inmates, whose health needs are both greater and more specialized, the consequences of medical neglect can be tragic...
...When I saw Justin's foster mother, I said, 'What's his favorite color?' I don't even know...
...An inmate," says Kears, "should not be denied the appropriate community standard of medical care, regardless of the charges...
...So I said, 'Let me see her.' She just looked like she was asleep...
...At the Santa Rita jail where Doris Mitchell lost her baby, for example, there are usually ten to twenty pregnant prisoners...
...I believe the average inmate coming into our care receives higher quality medical care than when on the streets," says David Brick-nell, who is chief of detentions and corrections for Alameda County...
...They are no longer together...
...The children would also benefit...
...And an obstetrician-gynecologist is now on staff full-time...
...Since her release in September 1985, Bellavita has been fighting in court to reclaim her sons...
...If the mother remains imprisoned for more than a year, she may lose custody altogether...
...There has been some change at Santa Rita," says Jan Casteel, coordinator of the Prison MATCH study...
...In fact, she hasn't seen Jeffrey for more than a year and a half...
...Pregnant in Prison In one jail, 80 per cent lose their babies BY LOREN STEIN AND VERONIQUE MISTIAEN When Doris Mitchell went up before a California judge in June 1985 for violating probation, she assumed the judge would simply reinstate her original, unserved sentence of forty-five days...
...I had just had this baby," says Bellavita, ''and after having Jeffrey torn from me before, I wanted to take my baby and run...
...But it's only a beginning...
...they seek visiting rooms, better transportation, access to telephones, as well as a community-release program where mothers and their children can live together...
...That's when her troubles began...
...Due to grossly inadequate medical care, incarceration of a pregnant woman is a potential death sentence to her unborn child," says Ellen Barry, director of San Francisco's Legal Services for Prisoners with Children...
...But they made no exceptions to their hard-and-fast rule...
...Mitchell applied to a drug-treatment program in Berkeley...
...Most are inside for petty theft, forgery, welfare fraud, drug abuse, or prostitution...
...In the meantime, she was moved to Dorm Two, crammed in with seventy-eight women...
...The way I planned it, forty-five days would put me out in July, and I was scheduled to have the baby in August...
...The jail finally has a drug-treatment program and a new perinatal-care coordinator...
...I'd have the baby, I'd be free...
...Released from Santa Rita in October 1985, Doris Mitchell now lives and works in the Bay Area...
...Of these, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 are pregnant...
...I said, 'No, let me listen, let me try.' So she got an even bigger monitor and there still was no heartbeat...
...They told me they would give him back...
...Because the penal system, by nature, is focused on security and confinement, prisoners' health and well-being are often a low priority with prison officials...
...The researchers found that more than a third of the pregnancies end in late-term miscarriages—more than twice the rate in the outside community...
...When I spoke with a prison psychologist only two weeks after my baby died," says Annette Harris, a former inmate of the California Institution for Women, "she told me that the pain I felt about the loss of my baby was only my feeling sorry for myself, since the baby was not in pain...
...The boys were placed together in foster care...
...One problem led to another, and she was arrested on a series of charges ranging from drug possession to soliciting and sentenced to probation in lieu of serving forty-five days in jail...
...You've got to get better, you can't let them do this to you.' They kept talking to me and talking to me, and I just kept crying and crying, and finally they talked me into stopping crying and into being angry...
...The suit is pending...
...There she was given a sonogram and allowed to hear the baby's heartbeat...
...She is among a group of women suing the Santa Rita jail in a class action...
...On that day, they had me down twice— to go to Superior Court and to the clinic...
...Seven months later, while at Niantic, Bellavita gave birth to a second son, Justin...
...Everything would be fine...
...Santa Rita officials will not comment directly on lawsuits against the jail, but they say health care is adequate...
...On August 6, she made her first visit to the high-risk clinic at Highland...
...Anxiously awaiting their return, she feels that her life is on hold...
...Created in 1978, it allows mothers to live with their children, up to age six, while serving their sentences in an alternative residential setting...
...They are asking for improved facilities to maintain contact with their children...
...The crime just doesn't fit the punishment...
...On July 23, she was taken, handcuffed, to Highland Hospital for an examination, consisting of a blood and urine test administered by a nurse practitioner...
...It took all my money just to pay the lawyers so I could get probation," she says...
...he gave her six months in Santa Rita county jail...
...I just didn't know...
...If it's not on the computer, you don't go...
...But he says the jail does meet state guidelines: "It's a jail—not a hospital, not a halfway house...
...They forgot to take me," she says...
...a 1981 Federal law allows such a child to be put up for permanent adoption...
...asks Betsey Smith...
...No matter what a person's prior life may have been—that isn't even relevant...
...When Mitchell went to Highland Hospital for her scheduled appointment on August 13, she was surprised when the doctor couldn't find a fetal heartbeat...
...But the judge apparently wanted to set an example...
...This issue unites nearly all incarcerated women, since most of them are mothers or become mothers while imprisoned...
...Then she lost custody of her daughter...
...I only mentioned it casually, because I didn't really believe it...
...The late-term rate at Santa Rita is fifty times higher than the statewide rate...
...In fact, according to state social work consultant Madeleine Dale, only 21 per cent of the pregnancies there end in live births...
...They're being deprived of their mother because their mother happened to be caught for prostitution," says CCLU attorney Shelly Geballes...
...A health-care team closely monitors each pregnant inmate and has set up procedures for emergency care and high-risk pregnancies...
...Niantic officials and the CCLU reached an initial settlement in 1984 that is being renegotiated...
...With her mother and father, a carpenter, she lived in a comfortable house until she had her first son, two days before graduating from high school...
...Since 1980, there has been a dramatic increase—of more than 100 per cent—in the number of women entering prison...
...The lawyers hope to prevent other women from repeating Doris Mitchell's experience and, eventually, to bar the jailing of all pregnant women at Santa Rita...
...Down in southern California, at the California Institution for Women, the world's largest prison for women, pregnant inmates faced problems rivaling those at Santa Rita—including the prescription of controversial drugs and leaving pregnant women to hemorrhage in their cells...
...I felt more insecurity than I've ever felt my whole life," she says...
...During her screening, jail personnel learned she was addicted and therefore would be withdrawing cold turkey-jail policy at the time...
...Research for this article was supported, in part, by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism...
...Doris Mitchell's story is far from unique...
...Justin needs somebody to know what his favorite color is...
...More than 40,000 women are held in prisons and jails nationwide, according to Justice Department statistics...
...Her lawsuit charges jail officials with "gross negligence and a reckless and callous indifference" to her rights to adequate medical attention and protection from cruel and unusual punishment...
...Their unborn children are punished as well, and then mother and child are punished again when they are separated...
...He's my son...
...Inmates can study the cycle of abuse, street living, drug addiction, and crime that led most of them to prison...
...And I think I'm the only one who wonders about that...
...Her doctor told her that under no circumstances should she try to withdraw from heroin on her own, especially during the third trimester...
...With an official capacity of 165 and an actual population of about 400, the prison is vastly overcrowded and ill-equipped to care for pregnant women...
...Victoria Bellavita, a twenty-eight-year-old former Niantic inmate, felt this pain acutely...
...Her son went to live with his father in Reno, and Mitchell took to living in motels and hotels...
...It was almost six weeks before she was seen by an obstetrician...
...The first of its kind, the Women's Health and Learning Center offers prenatal health and counseling services as well as parenting and nutrition classes...
...In fact, it was a long term for two, for Doris Mitchell went to jail six months pregnant...
...At the time of my arrest," she says, "I couldn't get hold of anyone to pick up my daughter from school...
...I thought we had made it this far, we were home free...
...Inmates who have lost children often find their grief dismissed by an indifferent medical staff...
...When Mitchell arrived at the jail in June 1985, she was housed in Lock-up C with twenty-one other women...
...Despite her condition, she claims, she was denied proper prenatal care and was neglected by jail personnel...
...Prison MATCH, an Oakland-based prisoners'-rights group, spent two-and-a-half years studying the health-care needs of pregnant women there and at two state prisons and found that all three institutions fell far below standards set by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology...
...Her short hair frames a freckled face with dark, observant eyes...
...I feel that I have a right to cry about the death of my baby...
...With crayons, what color does he grab for?' Nobody knows...
...But as of 1985, it had room for only forty of the hundreds of eligible women...
...What is happening now in women's prisons across the country is inexcusable, in the opinion of CCLU's Shelly Geballes...
...I don't want to see any girl go through this again," she says...
...So they took her to the police station, and from there to protective services...
...These conditions, as well as the lack of consistent health care, can lead to such complications as high blood-pressure, hepatitis, and heart disease...
...Reno, Nevada, was a small town when Mitchell was growing up...
...I felt I didn't want to live any more...
...Male inmates outnumber females by a ratio of eighteen to one, so funding for medical services in women's prisons takes on an even lower priority...
...After racking up $ 1,800 worth of parking tickets, Mitchell spent two days in jail...
...Many people, including many prison officials, think most pregnant offenders should not be incarcerated in the first place and suggest alternative sentencing plans...
...The findings of a state-sponsored study back up their feelings about the jail...
...An informal community network in Riverside, California, provides the same service for prison mothers at the California Institution for Women...
...Again, a doctor on Highland's staff called the jail immediately, this time in anger...
...She was admitted to the hospital that morning and, because doctors were unable to induce labor, underwent a Cesarean two days later...
...But this sort of thing should not happen, it's as simple as that...
...There has to be some understanding that women aren't born with needles in their necks, women aren't born with guns in their hands, that something happened along the way for women to get into that position...
...They contend that under normal circumstances, pregnant women in U.S...
...I asked the doctor," she says, "if there was anything wrong with her—did she have all her fingers, all of her toes, if she was deformed in any way...
...He said no...
...And physical abuse is not the only problem...
...She didn't know either...
...When he came by, I said, 'Wow, the baby's giving me a break this morning.' " "Then I kept thinking I was feeling flutters...
...Nobody's taken the time to find these things out...
...And if we don't look at what created the crime, what causes the problems that created the crime, we're not doing society or anybody any kind of favor...
...Maybe it's because they're working with so many heavy problems every day, maybe it's lack of regard...
...I thought the baby's not getting enough oxygen, and I'd sit down and try to breathe right...
...Another appointment was made for August 13, when Mitchell was already eight-and-a-half months pregnant...
...Two months later, Mitchell underwent an emergency Cesarean at Highland Hospital in Oakland...
...You'll lose the baby.' And so I said I'll just have to get on methadone...
...Her baby girl was born dead...
...But, now six months pregnant, she was rearrested and taken to Santa Rita before she could begin the treatment program...
...Connecticut's Niantic prison, in a rural setting bordering on Long Island Sound, is the target of another major lawsuit pitting female inmates against prison officials...
...According to prison officials and health experts, many women prisoners were physically or sexually abused at home and enter prison dependent on drugs or alcohol...
...Few are serving time for violent crimes...
...Jeffrey has moved three times, Justin four...
...instead, many appear to be casualties of hard economic times and stressful home lives...
...They said the appointment wasn't on their computer...
...She was scheduled to go back the next day but never made it...
...But there is no obstetrician on staff, and one nurse practitioner provides primary care for up to 300 women...
...During the past five years, pregnant inmates in California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have filed lawsuits against prison and jail officials for negligence and cruel and unusual punishment...
...Once in Santa Rita, Mitchell was forced to withdraw from heroin cold turkey, with no medical assistance—a practice doctors say is highly dangerous during pregnancy...
...says Legal Services director Ellen Barry...
...I couldn't understand if God was going to punish me, why he would kill my baby," she says, "and why I was being punished, because I've never felt I've done anything that bad to deserve that, to kill a baby...
...She asked repeatedly for medical attention but was brushed aside...
...In 1986, the class-action suit was filed by Public Advocates and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, two public-interest law firms in San Francisco...
...In response to the Prison MATCH study and the lawsuits, Santa Rita officials have made some changes that critics say were long overdue...
...It's not a pleasant environment under any circumstances...
...The girls helped me, saying, 'Hey, you've got to get through this...
...I don't think anybody can be a mother to him like I can...
...Are we going to send women back out who haven't recovered from addiction...
...I lost all the steam I ever had...
...She had decided to get on methadone maintenance, which most doctors agree is the safest course for a woman in her condition...
Vol. 52 • February 1988 • No. 2
