Article Title
Innocent until Born: Why Prisons Should Stop Shackling Pregnant Women to Protect the Child
Document Type
Note
Abstract
The practice of American prisons to shackle and otherwise restrain incarcerated, preg-nant women is problematic for several reasons. Such practices include shackling, chaining, and handcuffing pregnant inmates during their third trimester, transportation to and from medical facilities, labor and delivery, and postpartum recovery. Current discourse on this topic focuses primarily on how these practices invade the woman’s civil liberties, particularly the Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment, and international human rights. Recent case law vindicates policy rationales for such practices—safety of others, safety of the woman herself, and securing flight risks.
These discussions overlook and this Note confronts the state’s interests in fetal rights and then, after birth, the child’s rights as a constitutionally protected person. Shifting the shackling discussion to protecting the child, this Note argues that shackling practices should be banned in all American institutions because they unconstitutionally infringe upon the child’s rights to due process and against cruel and unusual punishment. ..................................................................................................
Recommended Citation
Melanie Kalmanson,
Innocent until Born: Why Prisons Should Stop Shackling Pregnant Women to Protect the Child,
44 Fla. St. U. L. Rev.
851
(2018)
.
https://ir.law.fsu.edu/lr/vol44/iss2/9