Pamela Clare, Romance, State Law, and Women’s Rights

Pamela Clare's Unlawful ContactI was having a completely unrelated email conversation with author Pamela Clare this past week when I learned something rather amazing that she did, and I wanted to share this with you. Here’s another answer to anyone who says that romances are all the same, and they are all meaningless fluff.

Romance novels can and have had an impact on the real world, and Ms. Clare’s an example of that. A journalist by profession, she’s the author of the I-Team romantic suspense series. Last year, she wrote a law that passed in Colorado last year banning use of shackles on female inmates giving birth while imprisoned.

This story is amazing. Seriously, my jaw hit my desk. But please be aware, before you click for more, that there are some brutal stories in Clare’s account about women in labor in prisons in the US. Unflinchingly brutal. Be warned. 

Clare: The law I wrote bans the use of shackles on inmates during labor and delivery. (Yes, women giving birth are chained to their beds WHILE being kept under guard.) I’ve covered women’s prison/jail issues extensively for more than 15 years and broke a number of sickening — truly sickening — stories regarding the abuse of inmates.

Some of the highlights were folded into UNLAWFUL CONTACT, one of my I-Team books. There are four real investigative stories folded into that plotline. One of them involved the neglect of a pregnant inmate, who went into labor a month prematurely and was ignored, made fun of, and left alone in her cell IN LABOR for about 24 hours. It wasn’t until the next day when a guard noticed that she was in distress that she was taken to the hospital, where her perfectly healthy baby girl was stillborn.

To add insult to this woman’s profound injury — she was in prison on drug charges — she was kept chained to her hospital bed during labor and delivery. So imagine giving birth to an unnecessarily dead baby while chained to the bed like an animal and getting no pain relief. She gave birth, her baby was put on a slab (where she remained for a few months as the inmate couldn’t pay for a funeral), and the inmate was taken back to prison. (I cannot fathom dealing with the scope of that loss locked in a 9×9 cell while bleeding from giving birth.)

I learned that the practice of chaining women in labor to beds is commonplace. Last year, only 8 states banned the practice. Although some states had Department of Corrections that had policies regulating the use of shackles, all jurisdictions in a state have their own policies (city police, county sheriff, etc.) UNLESS there’s a state policy governing the practice throughout the state.
I wrote UNLAWFUL CONTACT and included a fictional happy ending where the senator hero from EXTREME EXPOSURE gets a law passed banning the shackling of inmates in labor and during childbirth. I took all my research to my favorite pet lawmaker, a man, who said he didn’t see what the big deal was. He was no longer my favorite lawmaker. Ptttth.

Then I did nothing for a while.

But it ate at me so very much and that pretend catharsis from the end of UNLAWFUL CONTACT really made me want to make it happen.

So… Last year, I came up with a pretext for visiting the prison midwife and interviewed a bunch of pregnant and postpartum inmates. The story I wrote was supposed to be about their cool new prenatal program, but really I was sneaking around doing research on the shackling issue. I uncovered MORE hideous stories.

This shit haunted me at night. Truly, I had nights where I felt sick. You’re getting a vague outline; I had faces, names, whole stories.

I wrote an article about it, then took that article and all my research to the Senate President. Within 5 minutes of listening to me plead with him to do something to stop this, I had his permission to craft a bill, which he agreed to give late-bill status despite having told lawmakers that no new bills would be introduced.

I’m not a lawmaker, obviously, but once I had his guarantee of late-bill status, I found a WOMAN senator (yes, thank you) who took the bill I wrote, introduced it into the Senate, and carried it through. I wrote all her talking points. I also testified as the expert witness at all the hearings on the subject.

When the bill cleared the final hurdle in the last House committee, I was sitting next to several inmates whose stories I had covered. One of them was the woman who’d lost her baby. She reached over, took my hand, gave it a squeeze, and there were tears pouring down her face. (And now I’m getting teary-eyed remembering it.)

I cannot tell you what that meant to me.

SB 193 passed late in the session with a single NO vote from an asshat from Colorado Springs. Colorado became the 9th state to ban the shackling of pregnant inmates.

Our law contains a few unique things that I wrote in based on inmates’ experiences. It requires the prison/jail to allow a member of the medical staff to be on hand when a post-partum inmate is strip searched on her return to the facility. The horror stories of women with stitches in their vaginas being made to squat and cough while guards told them they didn’t care how much it hurt are hideous to hear.

Also, the law requires the state to make a public record of it every time they use some excuse to shackle an inmate during labor — and that provision is to allow nosy bitch journlists like me to check and see how often they’re making use of the “but she’s really dangerous” clause to ensure they don’t abuse it.

And that is the nutshell version of it. The bill passed.

I’ve been sharing what I did with women in other states in hopes of getting laws in all 50 states. We’ve jumped up to 12 now I think that ban it. Pennsylvania followed Colorado.

So it’s a case of real life going into my book, the book offering a happy ending I wanted in real life, and then I went out and (it still amazes me) made that happen. As a result, I was awarded the Society for Professional Journalists “Keeper of the Flame” Lifetime Achievement Award this year.


The complete account of the bill, and the before and after of what its passage means for women inmates in Colorado can be found at the Boulder Weekly site.

I am struck by the fact that writing a fictional happy ending wasn’t enough. Clare not only wrote a happy ending into her books, but went on to write the bill that banned ankle shackles on pregnant inmates. That is amazing. High fives to you, ma’am. 

 

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  1. Patricia Cochran says:

    AMEN!

    Pat C.

  2. Susan says:

    I live in Texas, and I’m amazed (pleasantly so) that the state Lege passed a law against shackling inmates in labor.  Wow – maybe there *is* hope for my state. I’ve doubted it for sometime now.

  3. Psychbucket says:

    Ms. Clare, you are an inspiration.

  4. FairyKat says:

    As an aside—while I bought Ms Clare’s book as a statement of solidarity, I’m having a great time reading it, and will definitely be buying more.

  5. Tonya says:

    @FairyKat ~~ You won’t be disappointed with her other books. They are all amazing! When you’ve read the I-Team series you know you have read 5 different books. Sometimes series books run together & are basically the same book over & over (what I call cookie-cutter). Not so with Pamela Clare’s books!

  6. Honey Tan says:

    An activist journalist who writes fab books – you’re a star!

  7. I would like, with permission of course, to make a french translation of this article and post it on my blog. I’ve got a friend who married a midwife and they might be interested, so I intended to translate it anyway, if only for personal mail.

    I actually found that, in France, shackles are or have been used on inmates during labor and delivery :
    http://prison.eu.org/spip.php?article377

    “Dans la pratique, les femmes détenues sont en fait systématiquement surveillées au cours de leur hospitalisation, au moyen d’une garde statique placée soit à l’entrée soit à l’intérieur de la chambre ou de la salle de consultation. Par ailleurs, elles sont très fréquemment menottées (au lit d’hôpital, pendant l’accouchement, pendant l’escorte…). Face à la dénonciation de telles pratiques, le ministère de la justice a rappelé dans une circulaire du 10 février 2004 que les femmes détenues doivent accoucher dans la dignité, donc en aucun cas menottées, tout au long de la période de travail. “

    “In practive, female inmates are actually systematically put under surveillance during their hospitalization, with a static guard placed either at the door or inside the room or the doctor’s office. Besides, they are very often shackled (to the hospital bed, during labor, during transport…). To protesters of such practices, the Ministry of Justice reminded, in a memo dated 2004/02/10, that female inmates must give birth with dignity, and therefore in no way shackled, during labor”.

  8. Pamela Clare says:

    Rémi, I think you need Sarah’s permission, not mine. But feel free to share any of the links to the paper and to translate that information to French. I know that women have been shackled during labor/birth in the UK and, at times, in Germany. I got an email from a German reader who shared that with me after reading the post here on SBTB.

    It’s a terrible practice, and I hope the world is moving toward ending it altogether.

    Thanks!

  9. Brianna says:

    That is an amazing story. Ms Clare – you are an inspiration.

  10. Geri J. says:

    I consider myself to be pretty well-informed on social and political issues and this is the first I have heard of these horrors. Thank you for not only bringing the issue to public attention in your books, but for also going forward with your crusade to correct these egregious practices.

    You have made a new fan.

  11. Karin says:

    I’m now a Pamela Clare fan! I got “Surrender” from the library a couple days ago and I loved it! I’m waiting for the new editions of this series to come out so I can buy them.

  12. Kristie(J) says:

    Ms. Clare has long been a hero to me and I’m so glad that Sarah has made this story public.  And I’m so glad now that so many others are seeing what a wonderful caring person Pamela is.

  13. HeatherBetsy says:

    I (Heather Heaton) am recommending my new ebook (“Her Letters from Prison”) as a motivational resource for reading pleasure, review, contemplation, and comment.  My ebook will validate your inquisitive doubts about what goes on in women’s prisons; it can justify the efforts spent toward ministries to women’s prisons; and it can be an inspirational (tell-it-like-it-is) resource for drug rehab/prevention programs.  The book is non-fiction inspirational prison romance (It is what it is!); and the original letters are included as images for authenticity.  You can go to http://www.heather-heaton.com and purchase “Her Letters from Prison”, Parts 1 and 2.

    If you don’t happen to own a Kindle, Nook, or some other eReader device, then download the FREE Adobe Digital Editions software to your computer to read the “epub” version of my ebook as purchased from Smashwords.  Multiple versions of my ebook are available on Smashwords.

    I am a 34 year old college student trying to better my life, in spite of the baggage I carry from my previous life.  To date, I have been quite successful in accomplishing this goal; and I will use the proceeds from the book to help support myself.  My picture is posted, with my book descriptions, at Smashwords.

    My recently published ebook is entitled (“Her Letters from Prison:  Part 1 & Part 2”, by Heather Heaton).  The ebook was published at Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com).  A brief description of the ebook follows:
    1. Breanna tells the true story of her experiences in prison through her letters to her friend Heath.  This is a story of survival and a quest to make a better life.  The letters describe the daily shocking events of prison life involving drugs, sex, utter devastation and humiliation, anger, hopelessness, despair, and finally happiness and hope.

    2. Breanna’s “truth” stands still even as the world around her trembles and burns!  Bad things do happen to good people; and Breanna is the perfect example of this truth.

    3. Breanna’s inner strengths and principles eventually win out over the corruption and evil that surrounds her.  With God’s help, Breanna survives the horrible experiences of prison life and regains her self-confidence and hope for a better life.

    4. “Breanna” was an inmate at Tutwiler Women’s Prison from 2007 to 2009.

    5. “Breanna” benefitted from women’s prison ministries and the LIFE Tech-Wetumpka state-funded self-help program.

    The Introduction page of the ebook follows:

    Introduction:
    The story you are about to read is true.  Unfortunately, it’s my story; and the truth is often much more intriguing than fiction.  I have had to deal with this story (this situation) for more than the past ten years.  I started living out this story with all the hopes and dreams of most (if not all) young American girls; and I will finish this story by realizing most of those hopes and dreams, even though they have been interrupted for a time (in prison) that seems like time and time again.  Through it all, I have managed to learn some life lessons that I hope to give to you; and I am hoping that you can pick up on these lessons earlier in life than I have done.  I should have learned these lessons long ago.  If I had learned these lessons long ago, I assure you that I would not have written the material you are now reading.  My hope is that nobody else has to endure what I have endured learning life lessons that should be given to youngsters and adolescents early in life by the ones who truly love them.  But here again, there are probably other youngsters and adolescents, much like me, who will have to learn these life lessons painfully for themselves, the hard way – by experiencing them first hand.  Well, if you continue to read my story, here’s what you will experience – drugs, sex, violence, prison, utter devastation/humiliation, anger, hopelessness, despair, and finally happiness and hope!

    If you don’t take me seriously and you follow in my path, you are going to experience false hope and disillusionment!  You are going to experience broken trusts, by those whom you trusted most!  You are going to experience pain and agony that brings you to the brink of self-destruction!  You will lose your freedom!  You will lose the right to think for yourself and to make your own decisions!  You will lose your sense of self-worth and self-dignity!  You are going to lose your ability to support yourself!  You are going to lose your self-confidence!  You are going to be victimized; and you can do little to avoid this!  You will struggle and struggle and struggle just to get yourself back onto an even keel!  But if you can ever manage to muster a tremendous mountain of stubbornness and determination, and if you can begin to think better of yourself, you will be able to recover most, but not all, of your ability to manage your own affairs while regaining some of your self-confidence and feeling of self-worth.  I am just about to accomplish this in my life!  Being just about able to accomplish this in my life is what has led me to (it has allowed me to) share my story with you.  At first, I didn’t think I could ever share my story with anyone.  But, I really don’t want you to actually share (live through) my experiences, even if you think you can handle it.  Just read this story and do something positive in your own life.

    Note:  Names have been changed to protect each individual’s privacy.

    Dedication:
    This work is dedicated to Valrise Bendolf (Clay County Dept. of Corrections Holding Facility), Jackie Ratliff (Kilby – Montgomery Womens’ Facility), Fawn Romie/Mr. Roberts/Gary Parsons (Life Tech) and all of Mr. Robert’s little roses that he so diligently cultivated.  For all their good works, these people saved my life!

    I hope that you find this ebook both interesting and helpful.

    Sincerely,
    Heather Heaton
    http://www.heather-heaton.com
    http://www.herlettersfrompriso…

    Customer/Reader Review of “Her Letters from Prison”
    Heather, ever since you first contacted me about your ebooks (and when I received them) I have been giving them traction.  At least two women on my case load checked them out, (like a library card so I would get them back) and were very moved by the content.  I haven’t had another problem with their behavior since they read them.  So…I know they are working.  They should be required reading, ordered by a Judge before women are sentenced to probation, so that they would fully understand the consequences of their behavior.  The coverage by The Prison Art Coalition blog is very good news both for Heather and for those that will read her story. 

    They (“Her Letters from Prison:  Parts 1 & 2) should be used as text books for the next Life Tech facility for Women!!!  I wish I had some pull for money to build a better one.  I pray for it.

    Gary Parsons
    Parole Officer
    State of Alabama – Board of Pardons & Parole

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