HB138 Alabama 2025 Session

Summary

Primary Sponsor

Rolanda Hollis Representative

Democrat

Session

2025 Regular Session

Title

Incarceration, supervised pre-incarceration probation for certain pregnant women provided for, self-surrender 12 weeks after birth required, criminal penalties for failure to surrender provided

Description

Existing law does not allow a pregnant woman sentenced to incarceration to defer her sentence until after the birth of her child.

This bill would adopt the Alabama Women's Childbirth Alternatives, Resources, and Education (CARE) Act.

This bill would provide that each woman, upon admission to a jail, shall inform the individual conducting her initial intake medical screening if she is pregnant or suspects she may be pregnant and shall be assessed for pregnancy with a urine pregnancy test within three days of her initial intake medical screening, unless she declines the testing.

This bill would require a woman who tests positive for pregnancy to be released on bail, provided that the court determines that the woman does not pose a significant threat to herself or others.

This bill would provide that, if a woman is pregnant at the time she is sentenced to incarceration, the court shall include a term of pre-incarceration probation to be served until 12 weeks after the woman gives birth, provided that the court determines that the woman does not pose a significant threat to herself or others.

HB138 INTRODUCED This bill would allow any pre-incarceration term of probation to be credited to the woman's sentence and would require any pre-incarceration term of probation to be served with certain electronic supervision and without payment of any fines.

This bill would require a woman serving a pre-incarceration term of probation to report the loss of her pregnancy to her probation officer and would give the court discretion as to when she should self surrender following the pregnancy loss.

This bill would also require a woman serving a pre-incarceration term of probation to self surrender 12 weeks after the birth of her child and would provide that failure to surrender is a Class A misdemeanor.

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Subjects

Incarceration