Skip to content Skip to footer
|

The Light Inside: Giving Birth Behind Bars

What’s it like to give birth or raise an infant, inside the walls of a prison? Or even worse, have to give up your child the day it’s born? On this edition, a look at pregnancy, and motherhood, inside Americas jails and prisons. What does the huge number of incarcerated women in prison foretell for the next generation of America’s kids? Special Thanks to segment producers: intern Shaunnah Ray, and freelancer Shannon Heffernan. Heffernan’s Time on the Outside project is produced with support from the Soros Justice Media Fellowships Program of the Open Society Institute. Thanks also to Sarah Olson for voices from her 2007 Making Contact edition, Lockdown on Life: Stories from Women Behind Bars.

What’s it like to give birth or raise an infant, inside the walls of a prison? Or even worse, have to give up your child the day it’s born? On this edition, a look at pregnancy, and motherhood, inside Americas jails and prisons. What does the huge number of incarcerated women in prison foretell for the next generation of America’s kids?

Special Thanks to segment producers: intern Shaunnah Ray, and freelancer Shannon Heffernan. Heffernan’s Time on the Outside project is produced with support from the Soros Justice Media Fellowships Program of the Open Society Institute. Thanks also to Sarah Olson for voices from her 2007 Making Contact edition, Lockdown on Life: Stories from Women Behind Bars.

Featuring:

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness; Hukee, Prison Doula Project Birth Attendant Program coordinator; Simon Conrad, Marin Fahey, Sarelle Caicedo, doulas; Teresa Correll & Genisis, women who gave Birth at the Washington Correctional Center For Women; Casey & AJ, mothers at Decatur Prison; Susan Creek, Decatur Prison warden.

Join us in defending the truth before it’s too late

The future of independent journalism is uncertain, and the consequences of losing it are too grave to ignore. To ensure Truthout remains safe, strong, and free, we need to raise $46,000 in the next 7 days. Every dollar raised goes directly toward the costs of producing news you can trust.

Please give what you can — because by supporting us with a tax-deductible donation, you’re not just preserving a source of news, you’re helping to safeguard what’s left of our democracy.