A recently release inmate of the Nevada Women’s prison is suing the prison and the state Department of correction for shackling her ankles while she gave birth this October.
Valerie Nabors said she was forced to wear ankle shackles while she was in full labor last October a practice that is against prison policy and medical guidelines.
Represented by the Nevada ACLU Nabors also claims in a lawsuit filed this week said that staff at the Florence McClure Women’s Correction Center (FMWCC) confiscated her breast pump leading to extreme pain and further medical complications.
“The facts of this case are really horrific,” said ACLU lawyer Staci Pratt. “She was a nonviolent inmate she was serving time for a nonviolent crime (stealing casino chips) and she was in full labor. she could not have posed a danger to anyone even if she wanted to and as for being a flight risk? Come on.”
The lawsuit also quotes Nevada law mandating that: “No restraints of any kind may be used on a prisoner who is in labor, delivering her baby or recuperating from delivery unless there are compelling reasons to believe that the offender presents: a. A substantial and immediate threat of harm to herself, staff or others; or b. A substantial flight risk and cannot be reasonably confined by other means.” No officer ever indicated to Ms. Nabors that she represented any threat of harm, or any type of flight risk. Furthermore, Nevada Department of Corrections Administrative Regulation 407.03(3) E, plainly states in bold, in reference to pregnant inmates being transported outside the institution “No leg irons shall be used.”
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“Deliberate indifference to an inmate’s serious medical needs amounts to a wanton infliction of pain. Our contemporary standards of decency do not, and cannot, permit correctional officials to engage in this form of cruel and unusual punishment,” Pratt observed. “This is an assault not only on our client, but also to all women. What kind of society permits a woman to be chained in the very act of bringing new life into the world?”
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“The ACLU of Nevada is committed to assisting prisoners in our state obtain constitutionally required levels and types of health care, mental health care, dental care, food, and exercise, as well as provisions for their religious beliefs, legal counsel needs, resumption of voting rights when they are out of the system, and much more,” said Dane S. Claussen, Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada.
