Last year, only 8 states banned the practice.

I learned that the practice of chaining women in labor to beds is commonplace. (I cannot fathom dealing with the scope of that loss locked in a 9×9 cell while bleeding from giving birth.)

She gave birth, her baby was put on a slab (where she remained for a few months as the inmate couldn’t pay for a funeral), and the inmate was taken back to prison. So imagine giving birth to an unnecessarily dead baby while chained to the bed like an animal and getting no pain relief. To add insult to this woman’s profound injury - she was in prison on drug charges - she was kept chained to her hospital bed during labor and delivery. It wasn’t until the next day when a guard noticed that she was in distress that she was taken to the hospital, where her perfectly healthy baby girl was stillborn.

One of them involved the neglect of a pregnant inmate, who went into labor a month prematurely and was ignored, made fun of, and left alone in her cell IN LABOR for about 24 hours. There are four real investigative stories folded into that plotline. Some of the highlights were folded into UNLAWFUL CONTACT, one of my I-Team books. (Yes, women giving birth are chained to their beds WHILE being kept under guard.) I’ve covered women’s prison/jail issues extensively for more than 15 years and broke a number of sickening - truly sickening - stories regarding the abuse of inmates. Be warned.Ĭlare: The law I wrote bans the use of shackles on inmates during labor and delivery. But please be aware, before you click for more, that there are some brutal stories in Clare’s account about women in labor in prisons in the US. Last year, she wrote a law that passed in Colorado last year banning use of shackles on female inmates giving birth while imprisoned. A journalist by profession, she’s the author of the I-Team romantic suspense series. Romance novels can and have had an impact on the real world, and Ms. Here’s another answer to anyone who says that romances are all the same, and they are all meaningless fluff. I was having a completely unrelated email conversation with author Pamela Clare this past week when I learned something rather amazing that she did, and I wanted to share this with you.

Unlawful contact by pamela clare