Bill Text: NY A08097 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Provides doula services at all correctional institutions and local correctional facilities; requires the department of corrections and community supervision to retain an organization to make at least two doulas at any given time available to provide doula services twice a week, for four hours, at all correctional institutions and local correctional facilities that house incarcerated individuals who identify as female, as well as to provide doula services during labor and delivery, upon request.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-01-03 - referred to correction [A08097 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-A08097-Introduced.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________

                                          8097

                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions

                   IN ASSEMBLY

                                   September 29, 2023
                                       ___________

        Introduced  by  M.  of  A.  CUNNINGHAM  -- read once and referred to the
          Committee on Correction

        AN ACT to amend the correction  law,  in  relation  to  providing  doula
          services  at  all  correctional  institutions  and  local correctional
          facilities

          The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and  Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:

     1    Section 1. The correction law is amended by adding a new section 611-b
     2  to read as follows:
     3    §  611-b.  Doula  services.  1. For purposes of this section, the term
     4  "doula"  means  a  trained  person  who  provides  continuous  physical,
     5  emotional  and informational support to a pregnant person and the family
     6  before, during or shortly after childbirth, for the purpose of assisting
     7  a pregnant person through the birth experience; or a trained person  who
     8  supports  the  family of a newborn during the first days and weeks after
     9  childbirth, providing evidence-based  information,  practical  help  and
    10  advice to the family on newborn care, self-care and nurturing of the new
    11  family unit.
    12    2.  The  department  shall retain an organization to make at least two
    13  doulas at any given time available to provide  doula  services  twice  a
    14  week, for four hours, at all correctional institutions and local correc-
    15  tional  facilities  that  house incarcerated individuals who identify as
    16  female, as well as to provide doula services during labor and  delivery,
    17  upon request.
    18    3.  The department shall ensure that doula services are available at a
    19  frequency to be determined by  factors  including  available  department
    20  resources  and exigent circumstances. The department shall permit doulas
    21  to access any nursery run by the  department  or  a  local  correctional
    22  facility, to access areas where programming is typically provided and to
    23  accompany   incarcerated   individuals  to  medical  appointments,  upon
    24  request.  All known pregnant individuals in the custody of  the  depart-

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD13182-01-3
        A. 8097                             2

     1  ment  or  a  local  correctional  facility shall be permitted to utilize
     2  doula services in labor, delivery and postpartum rooms.
     3    4. No later than January fifteenth, two thousand twenty-five and every
     4  six months thereafter, the department shall provide to the governor, the
     5  temporary  president  of  the senate and the speaker of the assembly and
     6  publish on its website, in a machine readable format, a  report  on  the
     7  number  of doula service hours provided, the types of services provided,
     8  and the number of incarcerated individuals served in the  previous  six-
     9  month period.
    10    §  2.  This  act  shall take effect on the sixtieth day after if shall
    11  have become a law.