Pregnant women are facing inhumane treatment at Santa Rita Jail in the East Bay city of Dublin, according to six current and former inmates, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and longtime inmate advocate, and the former opioid treatment program coordinator for the jail who resigned in protest.
The group filed a motion for an injunction on Tuesday asking a U.S. District Court judge to immediately transfer three women who remain in jail, one pregnant with twins, to community placements.
In a sworn statement in support of the new action, the founder of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Ellen Barry -- who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 and 2008 -- said, "It does not appear that Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is providing even the most basic medical care for pregnant women prisoners at Santa Rita, let alone treatment for women who are experiencing high-risk pregnancies."
Authorities at Santa Rita Jail vehemently deny maltreatment of pregnant prisoners and vow to fight the claims in court.
The complaint details a variety of hostile and arduous conditions "so severe as to have resulted in two recent miscarriages, and a third woman giving birth, alone and unattended, in a solitary confinement cell -- at the Alameda County jail at Santa Rita, California."