County's Settlement With Pregnant Inmates Shines Light on Missing Policies

November 16, 2017 | Lizzie McLellan | The Legal Intelligencer

Pennsylvania has received high rankings nationally for its treatment of pregnant inmates, but under a recent settlement, one of its counties will be forced to make changes to its conditions for women who are expecting while in jail.

Allegheny County agreed to a settlement earlier this month in Seitz v. Allegheny County, under which they are changing their policies for housing pregnant inmates. The agreement stems from five inmates’ federal lawsuit against the county over the practice of placing pregnant inmates in solitary confinement at the Allegheny County Jail. Four of the five plaintiffs had spent time in solitary confinement, between six and 22 days, during which time they spent 23 to 24 hours per day in an isolated cell.

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Allegheny County Jail agrees to stop putting pregnant inmates in solitary

November 9, 2017 | Ben Schmitt | Trib Live

The American Civil Liberties Union announced a settlement Thursday regarding complaints about the Allegheny County Jail's practice of putting pregnant inmates in solitary confinement.

Four of the five plaintiffs spent time ranging from six to 22 days in solitary confinement while pregnant inside the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh.

“We are grateful that officials in Allegheny County have recognized how harmful it is to keep pregnant women in solitary confinement,” Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “It's unfortunate that it took a federal lawsuit for them to recognize this, but we're pleased the county has agreed to a progressive, comprehensive and humane policy. People who are incarcerated have a right to basic health care needs and to be treated humanely.”

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In Allegheny County Jail, pregnant inmates have been held in solitary confinement for infractions such as having one too many pairs of shoes

December 23, 2016 | Matt Stroud | Medium

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, along with The Abolitionist Law Center, PA Institutional Law Project, and Reed Smith filed a lawsuit on behalf of five pregnant women who spent as many as 22 days in ACJ’s Disciplinary Housing Unit for transgressions such as storing envelopes in a library book, and possessing three pairs of shoes instead of two. One of the women named in the lawsuit told Rewire that she was placed into the DHU — a euphemism the county uses for solitary confinement — because she kept her physician-prescribed medications in her cell, apparently against the jail’s policy. Once in the hole, she said she felt “like I was going to be in there forever.” When she filed a written grievance with the warden about being placed into solitary, she noted that she was going through a high-risk pregnancy — a detail that one would imagine the jail’s primary overseer might take seriously. A reply was scribbled at the bottom of the form: “If this is a problem don’t come to jail.”

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