Prisoners forced to give birth handcuffed to male prison guards

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/pregnant-women-prison-birth-handcuffed-male-officers-5f0698ks8#Echobox=1740164394-3

Horrific.

'At least two women have come forward over incidents that occurred at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey between 2021 and 2023, with a number of other women also understood to have been affected. Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, who are representing the women, have described it a systematic issue inside the largest female prison in Europe.
The women allege they were handcuffed to male officers, sometimes during antenatal appointments and intimate vaginal examinations, as well as during labour.
One prisoner said she was held in restraints during antenatal appointments and for 48 hours while in labour, at points attached to male staff.
“Being handcuffed and without any privacy, including being chained to a male prison officer, made me feel humiliated and degraded,” she told The Times. “Yes, I had broken the law, but I was still a pregnant woman. I feel I was treated as less than an animal.”'

https://archive.ph/Gk804

What on Earth?! Who thinks this is appropriate treatment and why? What's a woman in labour going to do that necessitates being handcuffed or shackled to anyone or anything? I could - maybe - understand if she was psychotic and liable to hurt herself/others if unrestrained, but in that case wouldn't you go for a c-section under GA? Otherwise, just no.

There is so much evidence that prisoners can not access safe ante natal care and are in much greater danger in labour, I can see no other reasonable course of action than to stop imprisonment of women who are pregnant. There must be other ways of monitoring and safeguarding?

That poor girl who had to Labour alone in her cell because no one answered her call and then bit through to umbilical cord was on remand, I seem to recall charges were later dropped. The report into her case made it really clear that women in prison can not access care comparable to women in the community. And goodness knows sometimes even that falls short!

That poster has posted equally shitty things in the past. She’s a paediatric nurse and calls herself a Christian…. 🧐

Horrible, truly horrible.

The least they should do is have female prison guards with pregnant women. If they are in a locked room they can hardly run away or escape.

But if the very act of locking up pregnant women drastically increases their risk in a pregnancy, surely we just need to stop doing that? At the very least it should be a last resort reserved for only cases where the woman is a threat to others safety.

She clearly didn't read Matthew 9:1-8 and Mark 2:1-12, Matthew 9:10 and Mark 2:13, the list goes on...

Wouldn't have happened in the 19th century - they were very hot on only having female warders for female prisoners. This is regression.

They used to. Now we have equal ops.

The Equality Act 2010 allows for single-sex staff where it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The prison companies could use that legal exemption to give imprisoned mothers the basic dignity of female warders during childbirth.