#women_in_prison

  • We Need to Stop Shackling Pregnant Women in Prison—Now.

    Bitch Media : http://bitchmagazine.org/post/stop-shackling-pregnant-women-in-prison

    Imagine a woman actively in labor. Now, imagine her handcuffed. Attached to those handcuffs is a chain that links her wrists to a chain wrapped around her belly. That belly chain is the same weight as a bicycle chain. Attached to her belly chain is yet another chain that attaches to shackles around her feet.

    This is commonly known as “shackling” and is a grim reality for many women in the United States. In 32 states, prisons and jails are permitted to shackle incarcerated women during childbirth—even though the American Medical Association says the practice is unsafe, “medically hazardous,” and “barbaric.”

    (...)

    Although eighteen states have enacted legislation prohibiting shackling during childbirth, only six of those states prohibit shackling people during other points in their pregnancy.

    Voir : http://www.prisonactivist.org/alerts/end-shackling-pregnant-women

    #shackling #prison #pregnancy #reproductive_rights #women_in_prison #Prison_Activist #BirthingBehindBars

  • Sterilization for women in prison : reproductive rights and choices of female inmates under pressure and coercion

    http://bitchmagazine.org/post/california-prison-sterilize-women-reproductive-rights-investigation

    Starting in 2006, Christina Cordero spent two years in California’s Valley State Prison for Women for auto theft. She arrived at the prison pregnant and was taken to see the the prison OB-GYN James Heinrich. “As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” said Cordero, now age 34. Cordero finally agreed to the procedure before being released in 2008. “Today,” she said, “I wish I would have never had it done.”

    Cordero is one of nearly 250 women who have been sterilized while in the California prison system over the last few decades. While millions of eyes were focused on reproductive-rights debates happening in Texas, Wisconsin, and North Carolina this month, the Center for Investigative Reporting released a report that revealed nearly 150 women were sterilized in California prisons from 2006 to 2010 without proper state oversight. According to state documents, approximately 100 additional women had been sterilized in the late 1990s. Several women said Heinrich had pressured them into the operation, sometimes when they were actively in labor or on the operating table for a C-section.

    In his defense, Dr. Heinrich told the Center for Investigative Reporting that the $147,000 spent on sterilizing inmates was minimal “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children—as they procreated more.”

    Heinrich’s comment reflects the widespread attitude that certain women, such as women in prison (or women in Texas or Wisconsin if you believe those state lawmakers) should not have the right to determine their reproductive choices.

    (...)

    These sterilizations are part of a gamut of reproductive justices facing people in women’s prisons, and not just those in California: until recently, pregnant women in Arizona’s Maricopa County jail had been denied abortions unless they obtained a court order and prepaid transportation and security costs. Such requirements often prevented women from accessing abortions. In most states, childbirth behind bars occurs in shackles and chains.

    (...)

    These attacks are a gendered way of heaping more punishment onto people in women’s prisons, the majority of whom are women of color. We have to remember that the United States has a long history of coerced sterilization of women of color that reaches as late as the 1960s and 1970s. Medical staff often lied to women about the procedure, assuring them that it was reversible, or simply did not tell them that an additional procedure had been added to their prescheduled surgery. Coercing sterilization of women inside prisons is a way to continue these attacks out of the public eye.

    Let’s also remember that people in men’s prisons were not offered, let alone coerced into, sterilization regardless of how many children they have.

    (...)

    #incarceration #pregnancy_in_prison #prisons #reproductive_justice #reproductive_rights #women_in_prison #sterilization #BirthingBehindBars

    • @bp314 je pense qu’il s’agit de femmes qui rentrent en prison déjà enceintes. Sinon je ne sais pas comment sont aménagées les prisons là bas mais en France les parloirs, s’ils n’autorisent pas les rapprochements « charnels », n’ont pas de séparation entre le prisonnier et son visiteur... Il existe aussi des aménagements réglementés pour les couples.

    • Sur le sujet je conseil ce texte
      Sexualités féminines en prison : pratiques, discours et représentations
      par Gwénola Ricordeau
      http://gss.revues.org/830

      À partir d’une enquête de terrain dans cinq établissements pénitentiaires et de la réalisation d’entretiens avec des hommes et des femmes incarcérés, nous questionnons l’idée d’une spécificité féminine des expériences sexuelles en prison, mais aussi d’une spécificité en prison de ces expériences sexuelles féminines. Ce questionnement passe par une description des pratiques sexuelles dans les détentions féminines et des représentations masculines de la sexualité féminine incarcérée, mais aussi par une comparaison des économies de la sexualité dans les détentions masculines et féminines. Trois thèmes sont mobilisés pour cette comparaison : les rapports avec le personnel de surveillance du sexe opposé, les violences à caractère sexuel en détention et les formes de catégorisation – et subséquemment de hiérarchisation – existant parmi les personnes détenues.

      #femme #femmes #prison #sexualité #stérilisation

    • @bp314 Il s’agit effectivement de femmes qui entrent en prison alors qu’elles sont déjà enceintes. Et s’il existe des « bébés parloirs » en France malgré l’interdiction, je ne sais pas quelle possibilité est réellement laissée aux détenues aux USA.

      @soseen Merci pour la référence en Français. Ici l’article sur les prisons californiennes et leurs méthodes de « contournement » du consentement obligatoire en matière de stérilisation des détenues dont le papier de Slate est probablement issu :

      Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

      Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.

      (...)

      The allegations echo those made nearly a half-century ago, when forced sterilizations of prisoners, the mentally ill and the poor were commonplace in California. State lawmakers officially banned such practices in 1979.

      Read more here : http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/07/5549696/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california.html#storylink=cpy