Prisons

There’s a sense—not always spoken, but implied—that a person in prison deserves to be there, and therefore doesn’t deserve health care, preventative or otherwise.

Only four states have policies that bar the shackling of pregnant women in prisons, jails, and detention centers.
With nearly unanimous legislative support for the Anti-Shackling Bill,
New York looks like its on the verge of becoming the fifth state to
restrict a practice that is considered torture by the United
Nations--but only if Governor Dave Paterson allows it into law. Urge Governor Paterson to sign the bill at the Anti-Shackling Rally on July 9.

The Michigan Department of Corrections has prevented HIV-infected prisoners from working in food service positions since at least 1999. But the Michigan Department of Civil Rights argues that the policy violates non-discrimination statutes.

Immigrant women's health care is severely compromised by the immigrant detention system, two new reports find.

The Supreme Court opened its new term with some good news for women: it rejected an appeal from the state of Missouri, which had hoped for one more chance to defend its unconstitutional policy banning abortions for women in the prison system.

The majority of women in prison are mothers of minor children, and women are the fastest-growing prison population in the country. We need to recognize and treat with compassion the humanity of these mothers.

A report released today by the New York Civil Liberties Union discovers that access to reproductive health care services for women in New York jails is unregulated and lacks minimum standards.

In a bit of poetic timing, a federal court of appeals issued a new decision upholding women's rights on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The case, Roe v. Crawford, concerns the near total ban on abortion access implemented by the Missouri prison system in 2005.