Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa

Prison inmate Julie Bilotta made headlines when she nearly died giving birth in jail. We uncover the shocking reality of what it means to be pregnant behind bars in Canada.

By

· Lisa Gregoire,

Originally published on TodaysParent.com January 23, 2013

Photo: Claudiad/iStockphoto

Julie Bilotta, the Cornwall-born inmate who gave birth to her first son, Gionni, on the floor of a jail cell at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre September 29 because guards and nurses didn’t believe she was in labour, is still awaiting the outcome of three separate investigations into her shocking birth story.

Bilotta and baby Gionni have been living at J. F. Norwood House, a transition residence run by the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa, since she was released from custody in October. Her bail conditions impose a strict curfew and staff supervision when she leaves the facility. Other JFNH residents, many of them separated or estranged from their own children, have been delighted to help care for the baby boy.

Bilotta, who was eight months pregnant and in remand custody awaiting trial on fraud- and drug-related charges, underwent a blood transfusion as a result of excessive blood loss during the high-risk, breech birth. Her release from custody was likely due to the barrage of media coverage. But most women’s complaints from behind bars go unheeded and unnoticed. (In an eerily similar account of neglect, 35-year-old Kinew James died January 20 of an apparent heart attack at a Corrections Canada psychiatric prison in Saskatoon. Fellow inmates say guards ignored a distress alarm and her repeated calls for help. Corrections Canada is now reviewing the circumstances of James’ death.)

Elizabeth Fry Societies across Canada provide assistance to women involved in the Canadian criminal justice system and advocate for the rights of women in prison. Bryonie Baxter, the executive director of the Ottawa society, was instrumental in raising Bilotta’s concerns — and what she calls the systemic abuses that women endure behind bars, especially regarding healthcare. “They punished her for being in labour. It’s barbaric,” said Baxter. “And regardless of what you think about the rights of the mother, we have to think of how the rights of the child have been violated.” The Ontario Minister of Correctional Services, the provincial ombuds office and the Ontario College of Nurses are all investigating why Bilotta’s cries for help resulted in guards shuttling her into segregation instead of an ambulance.

Here are a few things you may not know about pregnancy and prison in Canada:

· There are no special facilities for incarcerated mothers. If you give birth in a federal or provincial prison, custody of the baby goes to a willing and able kin or to the Children’s Aid Society. Visitation thereafter is through glass.

· According to Corrections Canada, two thirds of incarcerated women have children under five years of age. Corrections Canada, under the Institutional Mother-Child Program, can allow women convicts to have their babies live with them behind bars on a full or part-time basis, but because of prison overcrowding, or the preference of individual wardens, it rarely happens, Baxter says.

· Women prisoners are entitled to the same level of healthcare as free women but Baxter has a long list of complaints from women whose health was compromised by inadequate access to care. Baxter described one 2010 case of a pregnant woman at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre who thought she was having a miscarriage because of profuse bleeding. They put the woman in the back of a Corrections van instead of calling an ambulance and stopped at a Tim Horton’s on the way to hospital.

· Julie Bilotta was nearing her due date and not yet guilty of a crime when she was placed in remand custody to await trial. People are placed in remand prior to trial for three reasons: because they are a flight risk, a danger to the public or, in order to maintain confidence in the administration of justice. There are presently more adults in jail awaiting trial in this country than those found guilty and serving a sentence

Editor’s note: Author Lisa Gregoire is an Ottawa writer and board member of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa.

Kim Mackrael

OTTAWA - Globe and Mail

An inmate who died last weekend at the Saskatoon Regional Psychiatric Centre told a judge in 2011 that she had “a lot more strength” than Ashley Smith and was expecting to get herself out of the prison system.

Kinew James, 35, was found unresponsive in her cell early Sunday morning and was later declared dead of an apparent heart attack, according to her mother. Other inmates at the prison have told the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies that Ms. James had called for medical assistance multiple times over the course of an hour or more before help arrived.

Her death has prompted comparisons to Ms. Smith, the 19-year-old Moncton woman who strangled herself to death in 2007 at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont., while prison staff watched but did not intervene. An inquest into Ms. Smith’s death is ongoing.

Ms. James spent several years at Grand Valley Institution, where she was frequently placed in segregation cells, before she was transferred to the Saskatoon facility.

She had a history of mental health problems and had deliberately harmed herself in the past, according to Kim Pate, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

In a May, 2011, court appearance in Kitchener, Ont., Ms. James rejected a judge’s attempt to draw a comparison to Ms. Smith, according to the Waterloo Region Record.

“I’m not Ashley Smith,” she said, according to the newspaper.

“I have a lot more strength than she did…I got my Grade 12,” she added. “I want out of jail. I know I will get out.”

Ms. James entered the corrections system when she was 18, her mother said.

Her sentence at the time was six years, but she accumulated a string of other charges that increased it to more than 15 years. Her charges included manslaughter, assault, uttering threats, arson, mischief and obstruction of justice.

Her mother, Grace Campbell, said she spoke with Ms. James by phone the night before she died, and the two talked about what she would do after her release from prison, which she expected would happen late this summer.

Her daughter frequently talked about her plans for the future, Ms. Campbell said from her home in Winnipeg. “And I told her, that, you know, I can’t wait. Like I’ve been saying this to her every year … I would tell her, please don’t do anything [to extend the prison sentence] again.”

She said her daughter was soft-spoken and a good listener. “She was a good cook, she was a good craftsperson, she was good all around.”

Bryonie Baxter, the executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa, said she visited Ms. James at the Grand Valley Institution.

She said she believes Ms. James was at the prison for women for about four years before she was transferred to the Saskatoon psychiatric centre.

Ms. Baxter said she doesn’t know what will come of the allegations that help was slow to arrive for Ms. James. But she added that they fit into a pattern of health-care related concerns in prisons.

Last fall, Julie Bilotta gave birth prematurely in her segregation cell at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, a provincial prison. Her mother has told reporters that Ms. Bilotta’s cries for help were ignored for hours, a claim the province has said it is investigating.

“The idea that health care concerns are not responded to quickly enough, or that women’s health care concerns are minimized, I would say is fairly endemic in Canadian prisons – both provincial and federal,” Ms. Baxter said.

Canada’s correctional investigator and the Correctional Service of Canada are both looking into the circumstances of Ms. Kinew’s death.

Asked about medical staffing at the Saskatoon Regional Psychiatric Centre, a spokeswoman for the Correctional Service of Canada said the department provides inmates with essential health care and “reasonable access to non-essential mental health care.

“The Regional Psychiatric Centre is an accredited medical institution and is staffed with medical personnel on a 24/7 basis,” Christa McGregor wrote in an e-mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/dead-inmate-in-saskatoon-spoke-of-ashley-smith/article7742724/?cmpid=rss1

We would like to thank Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services for making the right decision in announcing a review into health care in Ontario’s provincial correctional facilities. We look forward to an invitation to participate in the review.

 

We are overwhelmed and touched by the amount of support we have received. Thank you for supporting Ms. Bilotta and for supporting the work we do. If you would like to continue to support women like Ms. Bilotta who have been in or at risk of being in conflict with the law, please consider donating to your local Elizabeth Fry office.

 

Julie Bilotta - News Links

 

 

Inmates upset by cries of woman in labour

Elizabeth Fry Society says inmates ‘traumatized’ by hearing woman’s cries

CBC News

Posted: Oct 11, 2012 6:42 PM ET

Last Updated: Oct 12, 2012 1:03 PM ET

 

Several inmates at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre were upset by hearing the cries from a woman in labour inside a jail cell last month, according to a support group that employs a staff member at the jail.

 

 

“I can tell you that we have heard from other prisoners at the detention centre who have said they were traumatized by listening to what was going on,” said Bryonie Baxter, head of the Ottawa chapter of the Elizabeth Fry Society, which advocates on behalf of women in the justice system.

 

 

Julie Bilotta gave birth on Sept. 29 to a baby boy inside a segregation cell at the jail. The baby, apparently born in the breech position, arrived about a month early.

 

 

Bilotta is being held at the jail on fraud and drug charges while she awaits trial.

 

 

Society hopes mother will be released on bail

Baxter said the society hopes Bilotta will be released into the care of her mother, but if not, they have offered Bilotta a bed at one of the society’s community residential facilities, which is staffed 24 hours a day, every day.

 

 

“When I went to see her … she was able to maintain her composure through telling me the entire story really well, until we got to the part where I said, ‘Did you get a chance to hold the baby?’ And that’s when she started to cry,” Baxter said. “She’s desperate to be with her child.”

 

 

Bilotta’s mother, Kim Hurtubise, said a Cornwall judge asked her to trust the system when her daughter was sent to jail when she was 36 weeks pregnant.

 

 

Some advocates for female inmates wonder why a woman who was eight months pregnant was in a jail awaiting trial.

 

 

“Prisons are very expensive,” said Kelly Hannah-Moffat, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto. “She could have been managed in the community with the appropriate levels of supervision and support, where she could have had a more humane context in which to give birth or see through to end of pregnancy.”

 

 

Baxter said programs to keep mothers and babies together don’t exist in practice.

 

 

“In theory there is a mother child program, in the federal prisons at the very least. In practise, this hasn’t occurred for many, many years,” she said.

 

 

Bilotta has asked her mother to bring the baby to the jail on Saturday for visiting hours, where it’s likely she’ll only be able to see her son through a glass partition.

 

 

‘I’m not taking this lightly,’ minister says

Correctional Services minister Madeleine Meilleur, an Ottawa-area MPP, said the ministry is reviewing what went on in the jail on the day of the boy’s birth.

 

 

Meilleur also said she has a message for Bilotta and her family.

 

 

“Thank you for reporting that to us and telling us about your feeling, and the situation will be reviewed, and I hope that it will not happen again,” Meilleur told Robyn Bresnahan, in an interview on CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning.

“I’m not taking this lightly. We are going to review the situation,” she said.

 

 

Meilleur said an inmate should receive the same level of care inside a jail as a woman in the general population.