California Attorney General puts county jails on notice over reproductive health care
The California Attorney General’s Office is taking action to make sure all county jails are providing reproductive health care, such as prenatal care, to inmates as required by state and federal laws.
The action follows recent allegations that Tulare County jails have deprived inmates of prenatal care after the ACLU of Northern California looked into the issue.
The Attorney General’s Office told The Bee the action is “part of an independent inquiry by the Attorney General to determine compliance with state reproductive health care laws.”
In a Monday statement, the Attorney General’s Office said the actions were “in response to reports that some counties have failed to provide inmates with adequate care.”
Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to all sheriffs overseeing the state’s county jails on Friday. The letter requests information that will “confirm whether the counties have the required policies in place to protect the reproductive rights of incarcerated individuals.”
“The right to be treated with dignity does not end when an individual is incarcerated,” Bonta said in Monday’s announcement. “These letters are the first step in addressing issues with access to reproductive health care in county jails. Ensuring our laws are followed will help ensure proper reproductive health resources and services are available to those in our justice system who need them.”
The ACLU of Northern California in November sent a letter to Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, expressing its “deep concern over the severely inadequate and unlawful provision of prenatal care in the Tulare County jails.”
Boudreaux has denied the allegations.
Elizabeth Gill, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, on Monday said her organization was “encouraged to see Attorney General Bonta treat the lack of reproductive health care in California jails with urgency.”
“Across the state, Sheriffs and jail officials are depriving pregnant people of essential medical treatment, in violation of California law,” she said in a statement. “We’ve warned that the negligent and hazardous conditions in jails like those in Tulare County have already put the health of many at risk. This danger will continue until we stop locking pregnant people in facilities where medical care is deficient.”
The Nov. 18 ACLU letter details the stories of three pregnant women — including that of Alexandra Meza — who were denied adequate prenatal care in Tulare County jails.
Meza in December told The Bee she bled for three days before Tulare County jail staff took her to the hospital. She was pregnant, and was serving a sentence for felony DUI at the jail at the time of the incident.
“Blood meant that I needed to see a doctor, and every time I would tell them about it, they would just brush it off,” she said in December. “They would even make me, like, pull my pants down and show them that I was actually bleeding, like I was lying or something.”
Similar issues led to a $1.5 million settlement in April in Orange County, after a federal lawsuit alleged a woman gave birth while sitting in the infirmary cell toilet and lost the baby.
The information Bonta is requesting from all county jails will also help ensure compliance with Assembly Bill 732, which was authored by then-Assemblymember Bonta, and expanded prenatal care at the jails.
The new law, signed into law in 2020, requires county jails to provide a pregnancy test within 72 hours from the intake process to people who could be pregnant. The legislation also requires an inmate who is pregnant to be “scheduled for pregnancy examination” within seven days and to receive specific prenatal care, as well as a nutritious diet approved by a doctor.
Pregnant inmates can’t be restrained during and after pregnancy, and can request access to community-based programs designed for pregnant, birthing or lactating inmates. The law also requires that every female inmate be provided with menstrual products. The ACLU said as of October, women at the Tulare County jails reported not receiving menstrual products.
An initial review, according to the Attorney General’s Office, found that many county jails are not in compliance with state and federal laws.
“An initial review of the publicly available custody manuals on each counties’ website indicated that multiple counties either do not have the legally-required policies in place, or if they do, they have not made them available on their websites as they are required to do,” the Attorney General’s Office told The Bee.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California Attorney General puts county jails on notice over reproductive health care."
.jpg)