Abbi Olivieri
“Make a list of the words that define the conditions of these girls. Depression, alcohol, cutting, drug abuse, eating disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, trauma, homelessness, abuse, pimps, pregnancy.” - ‘Fuck Love’
Pregnancy is not uncommon among young, incarcerated girls. Leslie Acoca MA, MFT mentions that “in 2014 up to 2,000 teen girls will walk, traumatized and shackled, through the locked gates of three huge and intimidating county detention centers. Estimates are that between 160 and 240 of these eleven- to seventeen-year-old girls will be pregnant.” Being pregnant as a child or an adolescent brings its own challenges. Coupled with cyclical trauma and incarceration, the notion of pregnancy during incarceration is terrifying. Inherently, due to social, emotional, and medical needs associated with motherhood and carrying a child, individuals who are in such a position understandably need additional support during this period.When in a detention center that extra support may look like nothing at all, or worse, being placed in isolation for “safety reasons.”
“Being in detention may be the closest thing to healthcare that some of these girls have available to them.”
C.C., age 15 said, “I’ve been pregnant twice. I had two miscarriages. I was a drug baby. My mom was on drugs when I was born.” B.Q., age 17 said, “I’ve got a 3-year-old daughter. I got pregnant when I was 14. No dad was ever around. I think maybe he was on drugs and is incarcerated.” And B.E., age 16 said, “I have two kids. The first I have from my dad when I was 14. The first thing he did when he got out of prison was rape me and get me pregnant. I didn’t show until I was eight months. The baby was tiny, so I didn’t know I was pregnant. I had irregular periods all the time anyway. I was still doing a lot of drugs, heroin and crystal. The baby was born three pounds eight ounces.”
These stories are just a few of thousands of girls who are pregnant and incarcerated. In fact, between 20 percent and 30 percent of incarcerated girls nationwide have been or are currently pregnant. Yet in 2007, only 18 percent of the 3,200 locked facilities holding teen girls nationwide routinely tested for pregnancy (Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007). Plus, incarcerated pregnant teens are often at increased risk for a number of pregnancy complications related to their co-occurring high-risk health behaviors (Hufft, 2004). Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), that prisons must provide adequate health care to those incarcerated at both the state and federal level, which includes incarcerated juveniles. Unfortunately for these girls, their rights, both legal and human, are often infringed upon due to being overlooked when it comes to healthcare. Being pregnant while incarcerated can compound the trauma of not only being locked up, but the trauma of pregnancy in young girls as well. For example, prenatal nutrition is important for the development of the baby, but in many cases girls will get fed the same as everyone else, with potential for one extra portion.
Medical care in juvenile detention centers in general is far from adequate. Although some youth in the justice system interact with medical professionals on the regular, many are left with essentially nonexistent care. The National Juvenile Detention Association says, “I can say to you with no equivocation that health care in juvenile detention and corrections, as a whole, is extremely inadequate.” And unfortunately, there are no federal regulations that dictate the level of health care that must be provided in juvenile facilities. Plus, incarcerated youth face disproportionately more morbidity and mortality than the average adolescent, including pregnant girls who tend to face many more complications.
Despite the poor conditions, the truth of the matter is that being in detention may be the closest thing to healthcare that some of these girls have available to them. Coming from the streets or the foster care system doesn’t render them with the best healthcare, if any. E.E., age 17 said, “I have a 7-month-old son. He’s with foster parents. Today was my first day seeing him in 6 months. My baby’s dad was there. He makes me feel awful by supposing he is better than me.”
Past trauma is present in nearly 100% of incarcerated girls, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Plus, girls in custody report nearly two times the rate of past physical abuse. This means that they likely grew up underserved in some way. Much of this abuse is sexual abuse, and as sexual abuse occurs, so do unwanted pregnancies. K.R. said, “[w]hen I turned 13, I found out I was pregnant. My baby’s father changed from being sweet and caring to abusive and when I was three months pregnant, he pushed me down the stairs and started kicking me in the stomach. Because of his actions I had a miscarriage, so I began to do more drugs and started robbing people.” The additional levels of trauma that incarceration presents these girls is severely detrimental to their rehabilitation potential, thus, added to the trauma of having a child in a detention facility, one cannot imagine how awful these circumstances really are for them.
Sources
Gallagher, C., and Dobrin, A. (2007). “Can Juvenile Justice Detention Facilities Meet the Call of the American Academy of Pediatrics and National Commission on Correctional Health Care? A National Analysis of Current Practices.” Pediatrics 119 (4): e991–e1001
Hufft, A. G. (2004). Supporting Psychosocial Adaptation for the Pregnant Adolescent in Corrections. MCN, The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 29 (2), 122-127.