Take off the shackles
Posted on Friday, February 9, 2007
DON’T GIVE UP, Representative
Sharon Dobbins. Your bill to take
the shackles off pregnant inmates is the right thing to do, no matter what a state Senate committee says. Don’t forget that once upon a time using prisoners as contract laborers and arming trusties to guard other inmates was just fine with legislators, too. Of course, that was a long time ago, in Arkansas’ equivalent of the dark ages. Well, it seems it’s still dark at the state Senate. That Sharon Dobbins has to fight this battle in the first place is a shameful comment on the Arkansas of 2007. Even after the legislators got letters from medical types and national organizations calling on the state to stop this plain ol’ mean practice, the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Government Affairs couldn’t get a second from anybody on the committee for Sharon Dobbins’ bill. Yes, shameful. In defense of the committee’s (non ) action, it’s said the Department of Corrections has a policy that requires the least restrictive use of restraints necessary during labor. But that still means, in some cases, metal shackles.
“These are not just everyday gals,” warns the department’s director. “Many of them have serious problems.”
We don’t doubt it. That’s why they’re in the pen.
How about if we just lock the door while these moms deliver ? Or place a guard just outside the birthing room ? Does the state really have to handcuff—or legcuff—women during childbirth ? Barbaric.
But doesn’t the department’s policy already exclude such tactics as a general rule ? Even so, decent treatment of prisoners—and mothers—should be a matter of law, not just changeable policy.
That way, those in charge of these women know they’ll need clear justification before resorting to the cuffs.
Keep up the good fight, Representative Dobbins. Doing the right thing all by yourself doesn’t make it any less right.
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