A bill to reauthorize the expired 1994 Violence Against Women Act would create a pilot program in federal prisons allowing incarcerated mothers to live with newborn children until they reach 30 months of age.
Under the measure, mothers and children would be housed separately from other inmates. The goal of the measure is to reduce the mortality rate of infants born to incarcerated mothers, and to reduce recidivism rates among the mothers themselves. Participants would have to meet a number of conditions.
Advocates of better prison conditions have identified many shortcomings in the treatment of expectant and new mothers. Federal prisons in 2019 held 16,000 of the 231,000 women incarcerated in the U.S. Per 2003 data, the most recent available, about 3% of women sentenced to federal prisons are pregnant at the time of admission. At least nine state prisons offer similar programs.