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.
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.
