A growing number of women who were pregnant while serving time in a Georgia jail are coming forward about being denied medical and mental health care, and the profound consequences that had on them and their babies.
The women’s testimonies are part of an ongoing investigation into the abuse of pregnant women in jails and prisons nationwide led by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights.
“This is, in my view, the most extreme civil and human rights crisis unfolding in the United States today,” Ossoff said at a congressional hearing in Atlanta on Wednesday.
Tiana Hill, who was incarcerated for seven months at the Clayton County Jail in 2019, testified about how jail staff refused to acknowledge that she was pregnant despite multiple tests proving otherwise.
She gave birth to her son in her underwear. He died five days later.
“They wouldn’t give me any information as to how it happened,” Hill said, holding back tears. “I didn’t know, I still don’t know, and I don’t know where my son’s remains are. Instead of giving me mental health support, the jail just put me in solitary on suicide watch.”
Tabatha Trammell also testified about how little has changed since she gave birth while incarcerated at the Gwinnett County Jail 40 years ago. She is now a certified prison doula.
“Some of the ladies will call and tell me how they are in pain from hunger,” Trammell said. “Many of these women have no support outside the jail, and since commissary items cost money, they can’t afford to buy snacks.”
Both Hill and Trammell are Black.
At another hearing in Washington late last month, Jessica Umberger’s testimony highlighted how some jailed pregnant women are forced to have and then pay for medical procedures, like C-sections, that they do not want.
Many of the women are also separated from their babies soon after giving birth, likely causing them to end up in the foster care system.
“It limits the child’s prospects and it also tears down a whole generation,” Trammell said.
Earlier this year, a report released by the subcommittee detailed how hundreds of children in the foster care system were reported missing and later sex-trafficked in a five-year time span. Others were placed in juvenile detention centers because there weren’t enough foster care homes to take them.
There is currently no hard data on how many incarcerated women are pregnant, or on the outcomes of those pregnancies.
However, two recent reports by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Council on Criminal Justice found that the incarceration gap between men and women is shrinking, driven in part by violent and drug-related arrests.
Men still make up a disproportionate share of people behind bars. But while the male incarceration rate nationwide fell by 10% between 2010 and 2019, the female incarceration rate went up by 12%.
Georgia has followed a similar trend.
During those same years, the number of women in Georgia’s prisons remained steady at about 2,000, while the male population fell from a high of about 20,000 to a low of about 15,000, or by 25%, according to annual reports from the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Experts say stiffer drug sentencing laws and post-conviction barriers to reentry uniquely affect women, who are more likely to have children and a history of abuse, trauma and mental health issues.
