CHICAGO, June 16 (UPI) -- Five former inmates are suing the Cook County, Ill., sheriff's department for allegedly shackling them during childbirth, their lawyers said.
More than 100 former inmates in the county may have been handcuffed or chained while giving birth, said lawyers Thomas Morrissey and Kenneth Flaxman, who are asking for federal class-action status to include the other women.
Illinois law bans the use of leg and waist shackles on any pregnant female who is in labor, the lawyers told The Southtown Star in a story published Tuesday.
The sheriff's department has stopped shackling women transported from the jail, but continues to shackle patients coming from the jail's medical ward, sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson told the newspaper.
When labor begins, deputies unhook the leg shackles but keep the woman handcuffed until delivery, when the shackles are fully removed and then replaced after the baby is born, Patterson said.
"It's dehumanizing. It's degrading. It's demoralizing. It's outrageous," said Simone Jackson, a plaintiff who alleges she was shackled in May while giving birth to a baby girl.
