In the midst of an intense flu season, some Wisconsin counties are stocking “public health vending machines” with free flu tests.
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Wisconsin agencies are navigating funding losses and layoffs after the Trump administration halted most refugee admissions. Some are resettling South Africans under a controversial Trump program, out of principle and to preserve a system they say will be needed again.
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Becky Pepper-Jackson attends the Lambda Legal Liberty Awards on June 8, 2023 in New York City. Her mother sued on her behalf over West Virginia's law barring trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in public schools and colleges. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Lambda Legal )
WASHINGTON — A pair of blockbuster cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court could carry far-reaching implications for transgender rights, even as the Trump administration during the past year has rolled out a broad anti-trans agenda targeting everything from sports to military service.
The court on Jan. 13 will hear challenges to laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Both cases center on whether the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The West Virginia case before the Supreme Court also questions whether the state’s law violates Title IX — a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination.
Lower court rulings have temporarily blocked the states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, and Republican attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“We know we have an uphill fight, and our hope is certainly that we prevail,” Joshua Block, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Project, who will be presenting oral arguments in the West Virginia case, said at a Jan. 8 ACLU press briefing.
“But we also hope that regardless of what happens, this case isn’t successfully used as a tool to undermine the rights of transgender folks more generally in areas far beyond just athletics.”
The outcome of the oral arguments before a court dominated 6-3 by conservative justices will be closely watched. Nearly 30 states have laws that ban trans students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank.
The justices are taking up both cases in one day. First will be Little v. Hecox, which contests a 2020 Idaho law that categorically bans trans athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
Lindsay Hecox sued over the ban in 2020, just months before the law was set to take effect.
Though Hecox wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, the Idaho law — the first of its kind in the nation — would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender.
A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect later that year. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but later adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes.
Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2024.
Since that time, Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case.
An Idaho federal judge in October rejected that attempt, but the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral argument — meaning justices could still dismiss the case.
“The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether Idaho can preserve women’s sports based on biological sex, or must female be redefined based on gender identity,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said at a Jan. 8 press briefing ahead of the oral arguments.
“I think Idaho is just trying to protect fairness, safety and equal protection for girls and women in sports,” Labrador said at the briefing alongside West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, hosted by the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.
After the Idaho case, the justices will hear arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which centers on a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
McCuskey argued that his state’s law “supports and bolsters the original intent and the continuing intent and purpose of Title IX.”
McCuskey said the law complies with the Equal Protection Clause because it “treats all biological males and all biological females identically” and “doesn’t ban anyone from playing sports.”
Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 11 at the time, wanted to try out for the girls’ cross-country team when starting middle school, but would have been prevented from doing so under the West Virginia law because she is transgender.
Her mother sued on her behalf in 2021.
A federal appeals court in 2024 barred West Virginia from enforcing the ban, prompting the state to ask the nation’s highest court to intervene.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity.
Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation and made it the policy of the United States to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”
The NCAA promptly changed its policy to comply with the order, limiting “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
In late 2024, prior to the policy shift, NCAA President Charlie Baker told Congress that of the more than half-million total athletes in NCAA schools, he knew of fewer than 10 who were transgender.
The GOP-led House passed a measure in January 2025 that would bar transgender students from participating on women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
But Senate Democrats in March blocked an attempt at imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s executive order.
Forty-eight GOP members of Congress argued in a September amicus brief supporting Idaho and West Virginia that “if allowed to stand, the interpretation of the lower courts will unsettle the very promises that Congress made to generations of young women and men through Title IX.”
On the flip side, 130 congressional Democrats stood behind the two transgender athletes in a November amicus brief, noting that “categorical bans preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity impose significant harm on all children — especially girls.”
The group argued that such bans “do not meet the standards this Court has put in place to assess discrimination based on sex — whether as a matter of Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause.”
Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda has extended beyond athletic participation in the nearly one year since he took office.
He signed executive orders that: make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female;” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids; and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has noted that there has been “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”
In a statement ahead of oral arguments, HRC’s senior director of legal policy Cathryn Oakley said “every child, no matter their background, race, or gender, should have access to a quality education where they can feel safe to learn and grow — and for many kids that involves being a part of a school sports team.”
Oakley added that “to deny transgender kids the chance to participate in school sports alongside their peers simply because of who they are is textbook discrimination — and it’s unconstitutional.”
A police officer uses the Flock Safety license plate reader system. Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, but a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies. (Photo courtesy of Flock Safety)
As part of its deportation efforts, the Trump administration has ordered states to hand over personal data from voter rolls, driver’s license records and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.
At the same time, the administration is trying to consolidate the bits of personal data held across federal agencies, creating a single trove of information on people who live in the United States.
Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the immigration crackdown. But a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies, such as automated license plate readers, that can be used to identify and track people.
Conservative-led states such as Arkansas, Idaho and Montana enacted laws last year designed to protect the personal data collected through license plate readers and other means. They joined at least five left-leaning states — Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington — that specifically blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from accessing their driver’s license records.
In addition, Democratic-led cities in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington last year terminated their contracts with Flock Safety, the largest provider of license plate readers in the U.S.
The Trump administration’s goal is to create a “surveillance dragnet across the country,” said William Owen, communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger privacy laws.
We're entering an increasingly dystopian era of high-tech surveillance.
– William Owen, communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
“We’re entering an increasingly dystopian era of high-tech surveillance,” Owen said. Intelligence sharing between various levels of government, he said, has “allowed ICE to sidestep sanctuary laws and co-opt local police databases and surveillance tools, including license plate readers, facial recognition and other technologies.”
A new Montana law bars government entities from accessing electronic communications and related material without a warrant. Republican state Sen. Daniel Emrich, the law’s author, said “the most important thing that our entire justice system is based on is the principle against unlawful search and seizure” — the right enshrined in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s tough to find individuals who are constitutionally grounded and understand the necessity of keeping the Fourth Amendment rights intact at all times for all reasons — with minimal or zero exceptions,” Emrich said in an interview.
ICE did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.
Recently, cities and states have grown particularly concerned over the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which are high-speed camera and computer systems that capture license plate information on vehicles that drive by. These readers sit on top of police cars and streetlights or can be hidden within construction barrels and utility poles.
Some cameras collect data that gets stored in databases for years, raising concerns among privacy advocates. One report from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank at New York University, found the data can be susceptible to hacking. Different agencies have varying policies on how long they keep the data, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a law enforcement advocacy group.
Supporters of the technology, including many in law enforcement, say the technology is a powerful tool for tracking down criminal suspects.
Flock Safety says it has cameras in more than 5,000 communities and is connected to more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies across 49 states. The company claims its cameras conduct more than 20 billion license plate reads a month. It collects the data and gives it to police departments, which use the information to locate people.
Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety, told Stateline that while there are local police agencies that may be working with ICE, the company does not have a contractual relationship with the agency. Beilin also said that many liberal and even sanctuary cities continue to sign contracts with Flock Safety. She noted that the cameras have been used to solve some high-profile crimes, including identifying and leading police to the man who committed the Brown University shooting and killed an MIT professor at the end of last year.
“Agencies and cities are very much able to use this technology in a way that complies with their values. So they do not have to share data out of state,” Beilin said.
But critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say that Flock Safety’s cameras are not only “giving even the smallest-town police chief access to an enormously powerful driver-surveillance tool,” but also that the data is being used by ICE. One news outlet, 404 Media, obtained records of these searches and found many were being carried out by local officers on behalf of ICE.
Last spring, the Denver City Council unanimously voted to terminate its contract with Flock Safety, but Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston unilaterally extended the contract in October, arguing that the technology was a useful crime-fighting tool.
The ACLU of Colorado has vehemently opposed the cameras, saying last August that audit logs from the Denver Police Department show more than 1,400 searches had been conducted for ICE since June 2024.
“The conversation has really gotten bigger because of the federal landscape and the focus, not only on immigrants and the functionality of ICE right now, but also on the side of really trying to reduce and or eliminate protections in regards to access to reproductive care and gender affirming care,” Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the ACLU of Colorado.
“When we erode rights and access for a particular community, it’s just a matter of time before that erosion starts to touch other communities.”
Jimmy Monto, a Democratic city councilor in Syracuse, New York, led the charge to eliminate Flock Safety’s contract in his city.
“Syracuse has a very large immigrant population, a very large new American population, refugees that have resettled and been resettled here. So it’s a very sensitive issue,” Monto said, adding that license plate readers allow anyone reviewing the data to determine someone’s immigration status without a warrant.
“When we sign a contract with someone who is collecting data on the citizens who live in a city, we have to be hyper-focused on exactly what they are doing while we’re also giving police departments the tools that they need to also solve homicides, right?” Monto said.
“Certainly, if license plate readers are helpful in that way, I think the scope is right. But we have to make sure that that’s what we’re using it for, and that the companies that we are contracting with are acting in good faith.”
Emrich, the Montana lawmaker, said everyone should be concerned about protecting constitutional privacy rights, regardless of their political views.
“If the government is obtaining data in violation of constitutional rights, they could be violating a whole slew of individuals’ constitutional rights in pursuit of the individuals who may or may not be protected under those same constitutional rights,” he said.
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Kathy Briggs is assisted by case manager Kim Immel, left, and nursery program manager Kim Perkins as she puts on a front-loading baby carrier with her daughter Melody inside at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia, Mo. Prison nursery programs allow babies to live behind walls with their mothers — a rare and controversial approach. (Photo by Amanda Watford/Stateline)
VANDALIA, Mo. — Kathy Briggs slipped her arms through the thick straps of a brand-new baby carrier, tugging it over her beige shirt as two other women stood beside her, tightening buckles and adjusting the padded waistband.
The carrier was still stiff from its packaging, and Briggs shifted her feet as one of the women gently lifted then-6-month-old Melody into the front pouch.
Melody’s gray-blue eyes tracked the women’s hands, and her wispy blond hair — gathered into a tiny pink bow — bobbed slightly with the movement. She blinked up at the adults.
“Put your foot in there,” one of the women said, guiding Melody’s leg through the opening.
“She’s just a little chunk,” the other woman said.
Briggs’ eyes widened, and she squealed, half laughing, as Melody settled against her chest. Across the room, a few women looked up from boxes of newly arrived donations — tiny onesies and hip carriers still wrapped in plastic.
Someone let out a soft “aww.” Briggs, 29, bounced on her heels, testing the weight, her palms hovering protectively near Melody’s back.
For a moment, the room felt like any early childhood nursery: adult chatter and baby babbles, women comparing baby gear and swapping soothing techniques.
Yet the jangling of keys and the watchful eyes of uniformed officers were a reminder that this colorful corner of the world existed not in a day care, but inside a women’s prison in rural Missouri.
Programs like this one allow babies inside prisons — a rare and controversial approach that forces states to confront how punishment, public safety and early childhood development collide. As more women enter state prisons while pregnant, lawmakers and corrections officials are expanding prison nursery programs, betting that keeping mothers and infants together can reduce trauma and recidivism — even as critics question whether any prison can ever be an appropriate place for a child.
Missouri’s program, which opened last February at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, is the ninth nursery program currently operating inside of a prison in the country. The program was adopted into state law in 2022.
Each year, thousands of pregnant offenders are admitted to local jails and state prisons — most for nonviolent crimes. In 2023, the latest year with data available, about 2% of women who were admitted to state prisons were pregnant, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The number of incarcerated women has climbed sharply over the past several decades, making them one of the fastest-growing segments of the prison population. Some experts say the trend has forced states to confront a basic reality: Most correctional facilities were never designed to accommodate new mothers.
“Routine aspects of prison operations just really don’t consider the distinct needs of women, and particularly not of pregnant women,” said Alycia Welch, the associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Welch researches carceral conditions and oversight with a focus on women’s experiences.
Federal reports and research have found that pregnant inmates face systemic barriers to timely care — from guards controlling access to medical treatment to logistical delays and medical fees. Shackling during pregnancy and childbirth persists despite restrictions in at least 42 states.
Prison nursery programs benefit relatively few women, and some criminal justice advocates say they reinforce the notion that incarceration — rather than community-based drug treatment or diversion — should remain the default response for pregnant women in the criminal legal system.
Some research suggests that prison nurseries can strengthen early bonding, improve maternal mental health and support the transition from incarceration back into the community after new mothers have time to parent their infants in a structured, supportive environment.
“This community just lifts us up,” Briggs said.
The room Kaley McDowell shares with her infant daughter, Kimber, is arranged for two mothers and two babies — twin beds on each wall, a pair of cribs nearby and space left open for feeding, rocking and play.
McDowell’s rocking chair sits in the corner, draped with a warm, butter yellow blanket. She settled into the rocker with Kimber in her arms just as a soft, classical melody drifted from one of the crib-soother toys. Kimber curled tightly against her chest; her cheek pressed into her mother’s shirt.
“She thinks she’s gonna eat now,” McDowell joked, shifting her baby upright on her thighs as the two rocked slowly back and forth. She then set Kimber down so the child could try standing.
Kimber steadied herself, then reached down toward her tiny toes as if surprised to find them there.
McDowell, 34, is a girl mom through and through. All four of her daughters — ages 13, 9, 2 and now-7-month-old Kimber — have “K” names, a small bit of continuity she’s proud of.
Inside the nursery unit, she’s the experienced mom, the one other women seek out for advice.
McDowell isn’t set for release until August, which means Kimber will leave the nursery around 15 months old. In the meantime, McDowell is taking classes to get her GED diploma and hopes to earn her license as a certified nurse assistant.
Missouri’s prison nursery program allows eligible women to live with their newborns for up to 18 months. Women must have no more than 18 months remaining on their sentence at the time of delivery, and those who have committed violent sexual offenses or crimes against children cannot participate.
Prison officials also review disciplinary history, physical and mental health, and engagement in programming before approving someone for one of the unit’s seven bedrooms, which collectively can house up to 14 babies at a time.
About two dozen infants are expected to cycle through the nursery each year, and staff anticipate that number will climb — a sign of growing demand for the program.
“I have watched moms transform their lives,” said Kim Perkins, the nursery’s program manager.
Across the day, the nursery fills with the kinds of small, steady interactions that shape early childhood: Mothers reading baby books, caregivers rocking fussy infants, babies sprawled across play mats surrounded by stuffed animals. Correctional officers and nursery staff also often help, whether by holding a wiggly baby or fetching supplies.
“They like to come and steal the babies when they can,” McDowell said. “They’re like our in-house grandmas.”
The unit’s officers also are trained to expect round-the-clock movement, and the team includes male officers, so infants grow accustomed to hearing different voices.
“It’s going to be a good thing for these women,” said Lisa Unger, one of the unit’s correctional officers. While she was initially apprehensive about the program, she said she has watched women genuinely change over time with the support they receive.
When mothers cook group meals — something that happens at least once a week — the unit feels briefly like a crowded family kitchen, with women passing plates, joking and handing off infants so someone else can finish stirring a pot.
Movement across the unit is tightly restricted, though. Babies are not allowed upstairs to the sleeping and living quarters of caregivers — incarcerated women trained for the role — and mothers go there only to “shop” in the storage room stocked with donated clothing. When the weather is nice and staffing allows, the mothers can take their babies outside to the play area. The babies do not enter other parts of the prison.
For much of her life, Kathy Briggs did not imagine a future that included her. She was first incarcerated at 15, and has now been in and out of incarceration three times.
Addiction shaped nearly every corner of her adulthood — where she slept and whom she trusted. Some nights were spent in drug houses, others on the street. She lost two pregnancies.
At her lowest point, Briggs tattooed “DNR” — which stands for “do not resuscitate” — above her left eye.
When Briggs learned she was expecting again — this time while in county jail awaiting adjudication — she doubted her ability to stay sober, to find housing, to understand motherhood at all. When she learned she was carrying twins, her panic deepened and she considered placing them up for adoption.
Who would take them? Who would trust her with them?
The turning point came with a sentence delivered calmly from the bench. Facing drug possession and firearm-related charges, Briggs expected another familiar outcome and that she’d be released shortly. Instead, the judge told her she would go to prison — and have her babies there.
Briggs protested — babies did not belong in prison. But the judge insisted. More importantly, he told her he believed in her. It was the first time, she said, anyone in a position of authority had made her feel like she could overcome her past.
She arrived at the prison nursery unit seven months pregnant. When her daughters were born, she nicknamed them “Little Lyric” and “Mighty Melody,” inspired by the music that always made her feel free.
The infants’ play space is awash in color: Rugs patterned with swirling motifs and florals; shelves crammed with books, dolls and stacking toys; rocking chairs with tufted pillows. A baby swing clicks rhythmically in one corner. Near a window overlooking an outdoor play area, a potted plant soaks up the morning sun.
Inside the nursery, Briggs’ daughters, whom she calls her “best friends,” thrive. Their father also is incarcerated, and the nursery staff are working to make sure he can receive regular updates and photos of the girls.
“Some of us didn’t grow up with good families or a lot of love,” Briggs said. “Here, they’re teaching us how to grow with our babies, and that is such a beautiful thing.”
Some of the program’s caregivers say the strength of the unit comes from the fact that no one is raising a baby in isolation — and that some caregivers bring their own lived experience as mothers to guide the others.
One morning, caregiver Tara Carroll sat on the floor, sorting a pile of donated baby clothes while several women gathered around her — some seated at a nearby table, others standing and talking among themselves.
She organized the outfits by size, slipping the clothes onto tiny colorful hangers. As she logged each item, a few of the women began matching tops and bottoms, holding them up for one another to weigh in.
“This one will fit her, and it’s got cute little pants and a snowflake,” Carroll told one mother.
“That’s cuuuuuute,” another mom chimed in.
Carroll, 34, has been incarcerated for several years on property-related charges, and she remembers what it was like before the nursery existed.
In 2022, she delivered her now-3-year-old daughter, Dillon Rayee, at a nearby hospital and spent 48 hours with her before her husband took their newborn home.
“It was heart-wrenching, and I promised my daughter that I would do everything that I could to come home to her,” Carroll said. She hopes to use her experience in the prison to become a doula.
Until the nursery opened, her birth experience was the norm: a day or two with a newborn, then the baby went into foster care or with family and the mother returned to her cell. For Carroll, helping the women in the unit now — guiding them through feedings, showing them how to swaddle, offering advice during long nights — feels like a way of honoring her promise to her daughter.
Across the country, fewer than a dozen states operate nursery programs that allow incarcerated mothers to live with their newborns.
New York operates the nation’s oldest prison nursery, which opened in the early 1900s at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The program allows up to 25 incarcerated mothers to live with their infants — typically until age 1 — under a system governed by state law and administered by a nonprofit provider, Hour Children.
Newer programs — in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Ohio, Washington state and West Virginia — vary widely in size, eligibility and funding. Many rely heavily on nonprofit partners or donations to cover essentials such as diapers, cribs and parenting classes.
Nebraska’s program, which launched in 1994, allows mothers to participate if their parole eligibility date or release date falls within 18 months of their child’s birth.
Rosita Vizcarra, 29, said the program has been a “blessing,” giving her the chance to bond with her now-9-month-old son, Liam, while also learning how to be a better parent to her two older daughters.
“He’s crawling and starting to stand,” Vizcarra wrote in a message to Stateline through the facility’s messaging platform. “He’s such a happy baby.”
Miranda Messenger, 37, told Stateline in a message that the program has given her what she and her now 4-month-old son, Kyle, need to succeed and stay connected to her support system while separated from her three older children.
“It’s gonna help Miranda tenfold,” said Shannon Fune, Kyle’s father, who has been able to visit the pair a few times. “I was a little bit jealous or disappointed that I wasn’t gonna be there.”
A 2018 study of Nebraska’s program found participation was associated with a 28% reduction in recidivism within three years of the initial offense and a 39% reduction in returns to prison custody within 20 years over the 20-year period of the study. The author, Joseph R. Carlson, a former professor at the University of Nebraska, also estimated that the program saved the state more than $6 million between 1994 and 2012.
A handful of states — Kansas, North Dakota, Virginia and Wisconsin — are considering or expanding nursery programs. Idaho and Wyoming explored nursery plans in recent years, but abandoned them due to space, budget and staffing issues, according to state corrections officials.
Many other states offer other programs they say benefit incarcerated mothers, such as doula programs during pregnancy or during labor and delivery, extended visitation for young children or mother-child facilities based in communities rather than a prison.
Although interest in programs for pregnant and postpartum women in the criminal legal system has grown, experts across the country say there is still not enough research to know how well these programs work — and even basic data on the number and experiences or outcomes of incarcerated pregnant people remains limited.
“It’s, for me, really unfortunate that we are doing this without evidence to inform the policies we’re putting in place,” said Rebecca Shlafer, a child psychologist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Shlafer also evaluated the implementation of Minnesota’s 2021 Healthy Start Act, which allows pregnant and postpartum women to participate in community-based alternatives.
It’s hard to know exactly how many pregnant people enter jails and prisons each year. The federal government does not require correctional systems to track pregnancy data, and reporting varies widely by state.
By the end of 2023, 305 pregnant women were housed in state prisons, according to the latest federal data, which was released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in April. At least 75 women lived in prison nurseries or residential programs with their infants in 2023.
Some of us didn't grow up with good families or a lot of love.
– Kathy Briggs, an incarcerated mother in Missouri
A 2019 study of incarcerated pregnant women — drawing from both state and federal facilities — estimated roughly 58,000 admissions to prisons and jails between 2016 and 2017. The study, conducted by the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People group and published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health, is considered the first national investigation into pregnancy frequency and outcomes in prisons.
There are no federal standards for prison nursery programs, and each state sets its own rules — who qualifies, how long mothers can stay, what staffing and safety protocols look like and what reentry support is offered.
Studies of long-running programs in Nebraska and New York found that mothers who participated were less likely to return to prison than similar women who weren’t admitted. But those results, some experts say, may be shaped by the programs’ strict eligibility rules: Nurseries typically accept people with lower-level offenses and short sentences.
A study published in April in the peer-reviewed Women & Criminal Justice journal found that the existence of prison nursery programs caused stress and anxiety for those who weren’t eligible after giving birth, leaving them feeling like unfit mothers, and diverted resources from other ways to help incarcerated moms maintain bonds with their babies.
“We can think outside the prison walls for how to keep moms and babies together in ways that still maintain safety and accountability,” said Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, a medical anthropologist and an obstetrician-gynecologist at Johns Hopkins University. Sufrin also leads the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People group.
Critics of prison nurseries argue that the correctional environment is fundamentally ill-suited to meet the health, developmental and emotional needs of pregnant or postpartum women and their infants.
Prisons are usually not staffed with maternal health experts or pediatricians, and medical care is often inconsistent. The environment itself limits babies’ movement and ability to form relationships with other family members. The children can’t go outdoors every day.
Financial stability also is a major concern. Some of the existing prison nursery programs nationwide primarily depend on donations or nonprofit support instead of consistent state funding. Critics argue that this makes nurseries a fragile, resource-heavy solution that helps only a small number of women while reinforcing the broader system of incarceration rather than providing a reliable, scalable alternative.
“It’s a real patchwork out there, and every state is different, but again, just not ideal to have women and babies in these settings,” said Erin McClain, a research associate and the assistant director of the University of North Carolina Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health, a research center focusing on high-risk pregnancies and infants.
Briggs is set to leave Missouri’s Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center for a halfway house, again with her babies, later this month. She has thought extensively about what she’ll one day tell her daughters about their first few months of life — and about how far she has come from the days when her “DNR” tattoo reflected a very different outlook.
“I want to live life, and I want to show them that they can live a good life,” Briggs said. “I want to be the light that makes them feel warm.”
Inside the program, she learned how to care for her daughters and, just as critically, how to care for herself, she said. For someone who had grown up without much love or guidance, the nursery became a place where both were taught, deliberately and daily.
She hopes to return someday to help others navigate the early months of parenthood behind bars.
“More mothers in this situation deserve an opportunity to learn to be a better mother.”
Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
In this episode, how a small Wisconsin community stood up to one of the most powerful companies in the world… and won. And what we can all learn from their fight.
Host: Amy Barrilleaux
Guest: Prescott Balch, Village of Caledonia resident
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