54 Women And Their Families Have Sued County Jails. These Are Their Stories.

This article was published successful business pinch Bloomberg Law.

Dozens of pregnant women who are jailed, often for petty crimes, are miscarrying aliases giving commencement successful excruciating symptom into compartment toilets and connected filthy jailhouse floors. Their babies are suffering infections and long-lasting wellness issues. Some die.

Bloomberg Law and NBC News analyzed national lawsuits and recovered astatine slightest 54 pregnant women aliases their families alleged terrible mistreatment aliases aesculapian neglect successful region jails from 2017 to 2024. The catastrophes they picture awesome a overmuch larger problem, since filing a national suit is difficult, experts said.

Most of nan women successful these cases were arrested connected nonviolent charges that included probation violations, theft and supplier possession. They were housed successful jails, mostly intended for short-term detention arsenic criminal cases unfold, not prisons, which are for reward aft convictions.

Here is simply a look astatine their cases:

There’s nary measurement to beryllium definite whether nan gestation complications nan women knowledgeable occurred because of their clip down bars. About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies extremity successful miscarriage. Stillbirths hap successful astir 1 retired of 175 births.

But unsanitary conditions and constricted entree to prenatal care, aesculapian providers and captious medicine are factors that tin impact a patient commencement aliases lend to preterm labor.

Read much here.

Methodology:

The 54 cases successful this article are drawn from much than 200,000 civilian authorities and prisoner-related complaints revenge successful national territory tribunal from Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2024. Reporters identified applicable cases by searching 9 civilian quality of suit codes declared by nan plaintiffs, arsenic good arsenic keyword searching nan matter of complaints to place position specified arsenic “baby,” “mother” and “jail.” Pro se cases, successful which group take to correspond themselves alternatively than prosecute attorneys, were mostly excluded. The squad besides utilized Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.5 to summarize complaints and OpenAI’s GPT-4o to reply questions including “Does this lawsuit impact harm to a pregnant person?” Reporters reviewed each of nan imaginable cases and included them if they met nan pursuing criteria: The pregnant female was housed successful a installation that chiefly incarcerates pretrial detainees and location were allegations of harm to nan female aliases her gestation while she was nether nan attraction of that facility.