90.5 WESA: Sam Dunklau - September 21, 2022
A proposal that’s moving forward in the state legislature aims to make conditions a little better for pregnant women in Pennsylvania’s jails and prisons.
The bill from Rep. Lori Mizgorski (R-Allegheny) would limit how and when disciplinary tools like restraints and solitary confinement can be used. It would also guarantee visitation rights between mothers and children in most circumstances, and require prisons to offer feminine hygiene products.
The House unanimously voted for those ideas on Monday.
“Despite being incarcerated, these women are still mothers, wifes, sisters, daughters,” Mizgorski said. “It is in everyone’s best interest that we treat them with dignity.”
Legal advocacy groups like the ACLU have been pushing states to curb punishments like solitary confinement as the country’s female prison population has skyrocketed.
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