Derek Key derekskey, Flickr Creative Commons
WASHINGTON, July 8, 2013 — At least 148 female inmates in California prisons were sterilized without proper authorization between 2006 and 2010, according to a report published yesterday by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). The sterilizations occurring in the California Institution for Women in Corona and the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison, were in violation of several federal and state laws as well as prison rules.
Prison advocates and former inmates claim that repeat offenders were targeted and coerced by the prison staff into consenting to tubal ligation. Moreover, CIR reports that doctors and prison administrators ignored and then tried to get around a 1994 state law that requires a detailed approval process for all sterilizations in California state prisons.
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