With the new 2021-22 legislative about to start, state Reps. Tina Davis, Morgan Cephas and Mike Jones are renewing their bipartisan efforts to restore dignity to incarcerated women.
The three joined the advocacy group Ardella’s House, #cut50, the American Conservative Union and York County District Attorney David Sunday for a virtual roundtable discussion, focusing on a bill they introduced in the 2019-20 legislative session and plan on reintroducing in the new session that would update current restraint laws to better document restraint use and protect the mental and physical well-being of pregnant women and their children; prohibit restrictive housing for pregnant or postpartum women and detainees; require all correctional institution employees who have contact with pregnant, incarcerated individuals to undergo comprehensive, professional training related to pregnancy, postpartum and trauma-informed care; create an environment that promotes and supports sustainability of healthy parent-child relationships by treating the mother with dignity and providing the children with some degree of normalcy during her incarceration; and provide a variety of feminine hygiene and incontinence products to incarcerated individuals at no cost to meet their basic human needs.
“Just because a woman has been incarcerated does not mean the state is not obligated to treat her with dignity,” Davis said. “But that is just what has happened, with inhumane and degrading treatment of women in the correctional system being the standard. Our proposal would stop this injustice by requiring the correctional system take into consideration the unique needs of women behind bars, beginning with supplying them with feminine hygiene products, forbidding the shackling of pregnant and postpartum women, increasing family visitations to at least twice a week, and requiring the corrections officer be of the same gender when a prisoner is required to disrobe. This plan would transform the correctional system into a place where the recognition of the dignity of the female prisoner is the foundation of her rehabilitation.”
