A Freedom Story Turns Into a Birthing Story

TJP Client Advocate Goldie with B.M. outside Harris County Jail

“Every time I think I’ve seen it all, the criminal punishment system throws something new and more horrific our way,” said Goldie, our client advocate and lead on our Freedom Stories project funded by Arnold Ventures.  

As part of the project that ran from Fall 2022 to Spring 2023, Goldie and another team member had been canvassing outside Harris county jail, twice a week, to collect positive stories of misdemeanor bail reform. Their task was to interview people charged with misdemeanors who are released on a General Order Bond (GOB) under the O’Donnell Consent Decree and record the impact of that freedom on their lives. They met dozens of people who were arrested on minor misdemeanors, held for a day or two in the grossly overcrowded jail and then released on a GOB. Along with interviews, Goldie also ensured that people received our care packages with bus passes, food, water, access to phone chargers, etc.

One warm morning in October, they met B.M. as she struggled to walk down the steps of the jail. Dressed in a t-shirt and pants, B.M. looked visibly distressed and exhausted like most people do right after being released from jail. Very quickly it became apparent that B.M. wasn’t in any ordinary distress. She was 8 months pregnant. Through gasps and moans she told her story of how her water had broken just a couple of hours prior to her release in the jail. Instead of checking her for dilation or rushing her to a hospital, the jail staff scolded her for “soiling herself,” provided her a change of clothes and expedited her release without even letting her make a phone call to her family. B.M. possessed neither a phone nor a wallet or any means to get home.

Goldie acted swiftly. She ordered an Uber, phoned our executive director who patched in a close ally who’s a doctor at a county hospital and together we got B.M. to her family and a hospital where she gave birth later that day. The doctors at the hospital told B.M. that she had actually been in labor for more than a day. They also told her that her son was breach which is why her water breaking at the jail seemed like “soiling” to the jail staff because it was mixed with meconium. B.M’s infant son had to spend over three weeks in the NICU before he was well enough to be sent home.

B.M’s story was the focus of one of our public comments later that year in the Harris County Commissioners Court. We also included this story in our essay in The Appeal about neglect and abuse of pregnant people in Harris county jail.