Alternatives for Pregnant Women in the Correction World

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Alternatives for Pregnant Women in the Correction World In the correction world there is a lot to deal with and one big aspect of it is that there are many women that go into jails or prisons pregnant or already having children. The amount of women in jails or prisons keeps rising over the years. There are better ways then keeping pregnant women in jails. Alternatives for these women are in there best interests. The numbers of women in jails or prisons have increased greatly over the years. Female prisoner population has more than doubled since 1990. Right now there are over 150,000 women in U.S. prisons and jails. (Sokoloff, Violent Female Offenders in NYS: Myths and Facts, Crime and Justice in NY, A. Karmon, 2000-2001) With this being said 75% of these women are mothers most of them have children under the age of 18 and 25% of them have given birth in prison or to the year prior to there arrest. 9% of women in jail are pregnant and that would be about 12,500 women are currently pregnant. Are there adequate facilities for these women? Consult: http://www.aetn.org/mip/jtml/statistics.html For many prisons there facilities aren’t adequate for the pregnant women that are being held there. In a state survey it was found that less then 50% of facilities have written policies specifically relating to medical care for pregnant women and only 48% offer prenatal services. Only 21% offer prenatal counseling and 15% offer counseling to help mothers find suitable placements for their infants after birth. Women that are in the system do not receive regular pelvic exams or sonograms, that they receive little to no education about prenatal care and nutrition, that they have the inability to alter their diets to suit their changing caloric needs, and that they could be shackled during delivery and can not have labor support from family members. There are many reasons why pregnant women should have alternatives. Consult: http://www.aetn.org/mip/jtml/statistics.html There are several things that come into play when it comes to women that are in jail or prison and are having children or have children. For example there women who are in prison or jail and are pregnant are known as high risk population because there can be many issues with pregnant women. For instance women that has her child while in prison are more likely the have children with low birth weight,... ... middle of paper ... ...e separated from there mothers have suffered from many things and go through a great deal of trauma. There are many women that have there children in prison that don’t want to lose their children to foster care if they have no other relative to take care of them, and some mothers can loser there children in foster care because after a certain amount of months they can be adopted. I have a strong belief that children should grow up with there mothers or a mother figure. I myself have found it very hard to grow up without a mother around. A Childs life will be totally different if they don’t grow up with their mother or if they are taken away from their mother. I believe that alternatives like the MOMs program is a wonderful program that seems to be working very well. List of works Consulted Articles~ • Sokoloff, Violent Female Offenders in NYS: Myths and Facts, Crime and Justice in NY, A. Karmon, 2000-2001 Web pages~ • http://www.nicic.org/pubs/2002/period217.pdf • http://www.aetn.org/mip/jtml/statistics.html • http://www.archive.naccho.org/modelpractices/results.asp?practiceid=46 • http://www.movementbuilding.org/prisonhealth.womens.html

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