CNN writes that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with almost 2.2 million men and women sitting behind bars. One worried grandmother found out first-hand how inhumane the prison system is—especially towards pregnant women.

A woman named Beth living in North Carolina was originally overjoyed when she received a phone call in April. A Carteret County probation officer told her that her pregnant daughter Michelle would be released from prison early. This was part of a state program called “extended limits of confinements” or ELC for short. It was created to allow certain inmates to finish their sentences outside of prison so that they wouldn’t catch COVID-19 The pandemic has struck prisons particularly hard due to the fact that they are very crowded and it is difficult for the inmates to maintain social distancing guidelines.

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To make matters worse, there was an outbreak of the coronavirus at the same state facility Michelle was at. The outbreak occurred from the prisons still sending their female inmates to work at government programs during the pandemic despite the fact the official narrative said they would be stopped. It was only until a prisoner at the jail tested positive for COVID-19 in the middle of April that the work release programs finally halted.

Knowing all of this, Beth immediately called the prison to see when she could pick her daughter up, but no one at the prison seemed to know what she was talking about. “I got the runaround,” she told North Carolina Health News. “They said ‘Oh, I don’t know, she was getting out, I sent the paperwork there and there must have been a mix-up. Nobody would give me a straight answer and that is the way it’s been the whole time.”

It wasn’t until Michelle herself called that Beth learned the devastating truth: the prison had made a mistake. Michelle would not be released. North Carolina is one of 10 states in the country to say that they’d release pregnant women from prison due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Unfortunately, due to certain restrictions, there are still more women imprisoned than there are those being released.

ELC is a long, complicated process that involves screening prisoners by health priority and the reason for their sentence. Michelle was exempt from this program because she was charged with “assault with a deadly weapon” and that was considered a “violent crime.” The pregnant woman gave birth to an infant girl named Mila on June 5th, 2020.

Giving birth while incarcerated is always dicey because they don’t get the proper nutrients they need and pregnant prisoners are still grouped together during the pandemic. Many mothers also don’t get a chance to bond with their baby after they’re born either. Some researchers now theorize that COVID-19 may cause damage to the placenta, so pregnant inmates get even less time with their infant now. Prison advocates such as the ACLU and the NACCP are currently fighting to get the rules changed so that other pregnant inmates don’t have to go through a horror story, like Michelle did.

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Sources: North Carolina Health News, CNN