Female prisoners in England left to give birth alone in their cells

Women in Prison has these key facts about mothers and children:

Imprisoned mothers and their children

Only 9% of children whose mothers are in prison are cared for by their fathers in their mothers' absence.

At least a fifth of women prisoners are lone parents before imprisonment, compared to 9% of the general population.

Only half of the women who had lived with or were in contact with their children prior to imprisonment had received a visit since going to prison.

Maintaining contact with children is made more difficult by the distance that many prisoners are held from their home area. This is particularly acute for women given the limited number of women’s prisons; their average distance from home is 66 miles.

One Home Office study showed that for 85% of mothers, prison was the first time they had been separated from their children for any significant length of time.

Imprisoning mothers for non-violent offences has a damaging impact on children and carries a cost to the state of more than £17 million over a ten year period.

www.womeninprison.org.uk/research/key-facts.php

@53rdWay I understand what but then what happens when the baby is 18months does it then get taken from it mother and then but into care ? To me that makes no sense. Also what is the mother is in the there for life ? What's the point of bonding then taking the baby away

Weetabixandshreddies Tue 13-Nov-18 14:26:23
It is shocking! I'm finding it very hard to get my head around the idea that newborn babies are effectively being punished because of who their mothers are.
But you also can't allow women to use being pregnant as quite literally a "get out of jail free" card. It could be argued that it was actually the mother who put her unborn child in danger by getting sent to prison.

Where did I suggest that pregnant women shouldn't be sent to prison? I was commenting on the lack of basic medical care for their babies, who have not committed any crime. Regardless of who their mothers are or what crimes they may have committed, in the UK babies are entitled to the same level of ante and post natal care that any other newborn would be. We don't punish children for the crimes of their parents.

I've just read that newspaper article. Tbh, and I understand that It's terrifying for the women concerned, a lot of what the woman describes happens to pregnant women outside of prison too.

I know of several women who were told that they weren't in labour or who were turned away from the hospital for not being in established labour. All went on to deliver at home, on their own before help could get to them. I think this is symptomatic of some healthcare today. They are under too much pressure and too busy to assess people properly and to give patients the time that they need. All women, prisoners or not, should be entitled to good maternity care.

daisy there is a reason the prison system allows this. It’s better for young babies to be with their mothers than to be passed into and out of foster care. Mother and baby units mean the mothers can get help with baby care and learning how to parent properly, so both can do better when they get back into society.

A few data point questions spring to mind if we're looking at getting a campaign together:

• obviously we need proper data on overall numbers of pregnancies in prisons.
• what proportion of pregnancies are to women in young offenders placements? Likewise, immigration detention centres need consideration and comparison.
• how many are privately run and is there a difference in protocols?
• what is the situation and what protocols are used in Scotland and Northern Ireland - we know the laws around many things are different in these areas to England & Wales and we need to know if figures should be taken altogether for the UK or used as comparators.

I am aghast that pregnancy testing isn't part of the entry to prison protocol - it is absolutely inhumane. I suspect it's also a horrendous liability for insurance purposes - where does the buck stop when a woman or her child dies? Or if the child is disabled in some way which is attributable to prison life?

Really informative post at 11:01, but please, this thread is about pregnant women in prison.

You can't talk about pregnant women in prison without talking about them in context.

Its like talking about drugs without examining why people get addicted because of the circumstances they come from.

Or how we fix obseity without talking about poor people end up fatter than wealthy people.

Or how people blame immigrants for everything, without talking about how politicians like to blame certain groups for their own failings.

People might want to dumb the subject down and simplify it so they can ignore the problem or try and make the causes invisible so they don't have to take action, but it doesn't stop the core underlying reasons or make them magically disappear. They are still there.

Unless people have proper indept grown up discussions about them, then we will end up in a persistant cycle of things getting progressively worst.

I'm not really into that, so excuse me, if I ignore anyone who tries to constrict what I am 'allowed' to talk about because they don't like hearing the truth.

I'm kinda big on proper journalism exposing the crappola that politicans like all their minions to repeat uncritically.

Its not a pity party. Its about how politicians and institutions are not acting in a way to actually improve the situation by being in total denial of the humanity of individuals and having any level understanding of why that individual got to the point of being in prison in the first place. Its too easy and simplistic to merely say of all prisoners that they 'deserved it' and they 'knew what they were doing'. That argument only goes so far unless you believe that poor people or black people are inherently evil or lazy. And if we are going to go down that route, then that is really and truly terrifying and disgusting.

I hope we don't have to have that particular conversation on this thread.

@53rdWay I'm sorry but what sort of mother would actually do that. Keeping a baby in prison should no way be allowed.

This is for England for example: www.gov.uk/life-in-prison/pregnancy-and-childcare-in-prison

Women who give birth in prison can keep their baby for the first 18 months in a mother and baby unit.

A prisoner with a child under 18 months old can apply to bring their child to prison with them.

From the Howard League, a study of the impact of motherhood in sentencing decisions in England and Wales.
howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/mitigating-motherhood.pdf

Even on their site, I can't find any mention of studies or stats re women giving birth in prison - it seems to be completely overlooked.
Amazing when you think that a pregnant woman in prison should be ranked as especially vulnerable.

Surley you didn't think they keep a baby locked up

Well, yes, there are prisons with mother and baby units.

I suspect you can measure the humanity of a society on how they treat their newborns. By the looks of it the UK is faring badly.

A baby is entitled to NHS care as needed just like any other British citizen. If the prison service blocks access to that, surely they're committing a crime?

@Melamin what sort of life is that for a baby ? Stuck in a unit with a prisoner mum not being able to go out etc ? Surley you didn't think they keep a baby locked up

Huh?

Wow - flurry of posts!

Stats are usually a very good starting point for planning services, even for criminals

VP did indeed do time for admitting taking the flack for her DH driving misdemeanours, during the divorce fallout.

Off to read some of the links.

@Melamin what sort of life is that for a baby ? Stuck in a unit with a prisoner mum not being able to go out etc ? Surley you didn't think they keep a baby locked up

It is shocking! I'm finding it very hard to get my head around the idea that newborn babies are effectively being punished because of who their mothers are.

But you also can't allow women to use being pregnant as quite literally a "get out of jail free" card. It could be argued that it was actually the mother who put her unborn child in danger by getting sent to prison.

I remember seeing a tv programme where a heavily pregnant woman was caught joy riding in a stolen car and the ambulance was calked to check her out. She had multiple other children in care and this baby was due to be taken away at birth. Something has gone very wrong in her life to be behaving like this but then should she be allowed to escape punishment because she's pregnant?

My house was burgled by a woman last year. Sentimental irreplaceable jewellery was taken. Our car was taken. I was very ill at the time. My 18 year old daughter was too frightened to be left at home for months afterwards. They did catch this woman and charged her with 50 odd burglaries. Would I want to see her get an easy sentence if she turned out to be pregnant? Like hell I would. On the night she burgled our house she also burgled an elderly neighbour's house too - we were lucky in that we slept through the burglary. The elderly neighbour didn't.

All that being said of course all prisoners should get the same standard of healthcare that we all get. In this day and age I honestly can't believe that any institution would take such huge risks as to seemingly undiagnose pregnancy or not have adequate midwifery provision in place. That just beggars belief. It will only be a matter of time before a mother or baby dies. How can that be allowed to happen?

I don't agree with the premise that women shouldn't go to prison if they are pregnant though.

I had a look on www.whatdotheyknow.com to see if there was any information on numbers of women who were pregnant at the time they were sent to prison or the number of babies born in prisons. A few people have made requests for this over the last few years but they all come back with an 'information not held' response, or a reply that it would be too expensive to find the information.

This is a typical response to these requests.

I understand your point but the women are in prison for a reason and it must be serious for anyone to lock up a pregnant women but if we start saying anyone who is pregnant shouldn't be locked up everyone is going to get pregnant to avoid it.
They should have 24 your access to a midwife though that should be a human right regardless of where you are.

How the fck can prison officers know a woman is giving birth alone and just leave her. To me that is a worse crime than she could possibly have committed.*

They didn't

Choo
I don't understand why you're all holding a pity party for criminals

Not a pity party for criminals.

Merely asking serious questions as to why women are in jail.
Non payment of fines, being heavily pregnant, prostitution, these women are not a danger to society.
And proper stats, would be helpful.

That we don't know how many pregnant women are in jail is shocking.

Short piece from the Howard League for Penal Reform about sentencing of women.
Hope the link works
howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/APPG-report-on-sentencing-31-October-2018.pdf

How the f*ck can prison officers know a woman is giving birth alone and just leave her. To me that is a worse crime than she could possibly have committed.

I don’t think any crime committed by an adult justifies putting a neonate at risk.

I just thought this is worth repeating. It is unbelievably shocking that this is happening.

It is shocking! I'm finding it very hard to get my head around the idea that newborn babies are effectively being punished because of who their mothers are.

The Howard League might be useful for data collection and campaigns for fairer treatment, will take a look.

Yes, +1 to web chat idea.

Writing to MPs would depend on where we lived though - this only applies to England. I’m not sure what the situation is in Scotland/Wales/NI with pregnant women in prison, I’m doing some digging around it now.