[Lady Sidhe]

" quote:The ACLU, since 1969, and its National Prison Project (ACLU-NPP), since 1979, has had the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in litigation over cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment of inmates in its care. This has amounted to "unquestioned and serious deprivations of basic human needs" and/or "the minimal civilized measures of life’s necessities," as defined by the US Supreme Court. In pursuing a minimal level of care at OPP, the ACLU has tried to prevent a tragedy such as the death of arrestee JoAnn Johnson, a brittle diabetic, on April 6, 1999.


The section I found most disturbing was this

quote:After interviewing over 100 women in OPP regarding medical care and conditions of confinement, the ACLU-NPP on December 8, 1998, filed a motion for emergency relief and enforcement of agreed entry on medical care provisions governing women’s OB/GYN and prenatal care ......... The ACLU found evidence of the following violations, which taken together "threaten the lives of women prisoners and their fetuses:"· Chronic and acute gynecological conditions such as ovarian cysts and vaginal discharge go untreated; Deputies tell pregnant women that they cannot go to the hospital to deliver their babies until 1)their water breaks; 2)they suffer heavy bleeding; or 3)the baby’s head emerges. "



Well, as far as having babies and such, I can't comment on that with any authority. However, I DO know that they tend to take the children away after birth, and either place them with a foster family or with someone in the prisoner's family. I know this because a friend of mine knows a girl who's a crack/meth addict, who spends most of her time in prison for drug use. This girl has had ten children, only two of which have lived, all born addicted, or dead in the womb from the drugs.

I do know that if you wanted a doctor, they didn't make you wait an inordinate amount of time.

The ACLU, from what I've seen, tends to melodramatize situations. I'm not saying that what you quoted is not true, just that it's not a constant, everyday, everyWHERE, ongoing thing. They make it sound as if EVERY prison in EVERY state ALWAYS does this. They don't.

One of the women I was in prison with was a murderer. The other was a crack whore. I didn't talk to the others. However, I don't think the murderer should've been in there. She killed an uncle who'd sexually abused her from a very young age up until the day she killed him. IMO that's self-defense. She'd reported him, and no one would believe her or help her, so she helped herself. However, she told me this: "I killed someone, and no matter what he did to me, I guess I deserve to be here because I did a killing." I've never forgotten that, because, like the people who put her there, she was casting herself in the wrong, when I really don't think she was.

Having been in a physically (not sexually) abusive relationship in the past, I know how hard it can be to "just leave." People act like it's the simplest thing in the world, and for many, many reasons, it's not. I won't go into it because that would be a whole different thread; but I will say that sometimes walking away isn't an option. When it comes down to your life or the abuser's, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to escape.

She was a nice person. I felt sorry that she was there.


Sidhe