The Department of Corrections does not want to have laws that bind them to good practice, apparently.
Yesterday, MPBN reported on Maine prisons' grade of F from the National Women's Law Center. The Law Center grades prisons on how they treat female prisoners, considering things like shackling of pregnant inmates at any point during labor, prenatal care, HIV testing, and family based alternatives to incarceration. Maine, along with Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming, received the lowest grade possible.
Denise Lord of the Maine DOC said in response to the grade:
"Just because there isn't a law prescribing certain kinds of practices, or prohibiting certain kinds of practices doesn't mean that the bad practice is what's in place... You can have exceptional practice without a law requiring you to do that."
Lord is correct that you can have good practice without rules requiring you to do the good thing. The DOC is wrong, though, that it's a bad idea to have rules, too. The Maine DOC has a policy allowing for shackles on pregnant inmates in labor when prisoners are in transport to hospitals, according to the NWLC report. Women are not shackled once they arrive at the hospital. Since there's no law prohibiting shackling pregnant women during labor at the hospital, it's only the good will of the corrections officers guarding her that binds them to this practice. Putting a law in place that bans shackling of pregnant prisoners in labor is the only way to ensure women won't wear shackles around their legs and hands when deliver babies.
No woman should give birth to a child while wearing shackles, ever.