“To end the shackling of pregnant individuals, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section reduces by 25 percent the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program allocation to any state that lacks laws restricting the use of restraints on pregnant individuals in prison substantially similar to federal standards under 18 U.S.C. 4322, beginning 6 months after enactment, and reallocates the withheld amounts to compliant states.
This section establishes programs in at least 6 Bureau of Prisons facilities to optimize maternal health outcomes for pregnant and postpartum incarcerated individuals. The Attorney General must create the programs within 1 year of enactment after consulting specified stakeholders, with selected facilities beginning operations within 18 months and running for a 5-year period.
This section establishes the Justice for Incarcerated Moms grant program, under which the Attorney General awards 5-year grants to States, in consultation with specified stakeholders, to establish or expand programs in State and local prisons and jails serving pregnant and postpartum incarcerated individuals. The programs may provide perinatal health workers, nutrition counseling, staff training on trauma-informed care, mental health and trauma treatment, childbirth education, newborn bonding support, reentry assistance, and pretrial diversion alternatives.
This section requires the Comptroller General to submit a report to Congress within 2 years on adverse maternal and infant health outcomes among incarcerated individuals, with emphasis on racial and ethnic disparities. The report must include data on pregnancies, pregnancy-related deaths, severe maternal morbidity, preterm and low-birthweight births, and disparities across federal, state, and local facilities; an assessment of Medicaid ineligibility effects; detention policies tied to drug use; unique causes of adverse outcomes; and recommendations to reduce maternal mortality and address disparities.
This section defines terms used in the Act, including culturally and linguistically congruent care, maternal mortality as a death during or within one year after pregnancy from pregnancy-related complications, maternity care provider to encompass physicians, physician assistants, midwives meeting international standards, advanced practice registered nurses, accredited doulas, and lactation consultants focused on maternal or perinatal health, perinatal health worker to include nonclinical roles such as community health workers and patient navigators, postpartum period as the one-year period after pregnancy, pregnancy-associated death and pregnancy-related death, racial and ethnic minority group, severe maternal morbidity, and social determinants of maternal health.