Prison Born : Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow

Robin F Hansen

A scathing critique of the colonial legal system’s denial of children’s rights

One afternoon in 2016, law professor Robin Hansen receives a call. On the other end of the line is “Jacquie”—a pregnant Indigenous woman, nine weeks from her due date and terrified for the welfare of her unborn son. Jacquie has been sentenced to a custodial prison sentence and her son will be automatically separated from her immediately after his birth.

As Hansen works to help Jacquie with her appeal, she uncovers the legal system’s inherent discrimination against mothers in custody and the children born to them. Using Access to Information requests along with extensive research, Hansen examines the legal rights of these women—the majority of whom are Indigenous—and finds that Jacquie and her son are by no means alone: automatic mother-infant separation without due process remains the norm in most jurisdictions in Canada.

Prison Born calls attention to the colonial and gendered assumptions that continue to underpin the legal system—assumptions that so frequently lead to the violation of the rights and denial of personhood for children and their mothers.