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| Troubled Alabama Women's Prison to Add Worker for Pregnant Inmates |
| By Associated Press/The Birmingham News |
| Published: 01/13/2003 |
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A state social worker will be assigned to Tutwiler Prison for Women as part of a plan to improve medical care at the overcrowded facility, state officials said. The Alabama Department of Human Resources plans to hire the social worker this month at the request of the Department of Corrections, the first time the women's prison has had such a worker, DHR Commissioner Bill Fuller said. The social worker will work with pregnant inmates and their families at Tutwiler, the object of a federal lawsuit claiming the state has provided unsafe conditions and poor medical care for inmates. Tutwiler's average population is about 1,000 women, almost three times its capacity. Fuller said corrections officials have told him there were as many as 24 pregnant inmates at the Wetumpka prison in recent weeks. Last week, prisons spokesman Brian Corbett said there were 10. The new social worker will help find safe homes and oversee care for inmates' newborns and older children, Fuller said. That work currently is done by clerks and secretaries without social work training, Corbett said. The new hire will likely have an office at another Elmore County jail because there is not room at Tutwiler for an office, Fuller said. Corbett said the state has not been ordered to provide better care specifically for pregnant women, and that there have been no unusual increases in the number of pregnant inmates. |
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