• a lot of the details here are both legitimately unbelievable (in the sense that they’re happening in such an “advanced” and “socially progressive” country as the US) and entirely too believable at the same time (in that they align with how people accused of crimes are treated generally). for example:

    [Ms. Banks] continued to bleed for five weeks in jail. She said she also suffered from hunger and fainting spells. Two times, specialists evaluated her for drug addiction and found she didn’t qualify for free addiction services offered through the state. Her lawyers said investigators then urged Banks to say she had a drug addiction she did not have to bond out.

    “Ms. Banks is currently incarcerated indefinitely because the State will not accept her $10,000.00 cash bail and she does not qualify for a residential drug treatment,” her petition said.

    Since her bond conditions required rehab, and since rehab wouldn’t take her, she continued sleeping on a jailhouse floor until Aug. 25, when an Etowah County judge released her to community corrections.

  • I’m all for protecting fetuses from drugs, but as the article says, imprisonment results in worse outcomes for the baby, so this policy is bizarrely counterproductive.