Healthy Start Act
Implementation Evaluation of the Minnesota Healthy Start Act
The number of incarcerated women in the U.S. has risen sharply over the past 30 years. Each year, around 3,000 pregnant individuals enter prisons and 55,000 enter jails. Experiencing pregnancy and childbirth in custody has harmful effects on those who are pregnant, the babies they give birth to, their families, and communities. To address this, Minnesota passed the Healthy Start Act (HSA) in 2021, which allows pregnant and postpartum individuals to be conditionally released from prison into community-based programs for up to a year after giving birth. Our team at the University of Minnesota conducted an evaluation to assess the implementation of the HSA.
Major findings focused on opportunities to adapt screening processes and eligibility criteria; the delicate balance of supporting both mom and baby through this policy; shifting policy implementation to focus on bolstering supports and resources for individuals in the community; and an overall call to action and shift in thinking to upstream interventions and cross-sector policy opportunities. We outlined a series of recommendations rooted in our evaluation results to better support pregnant, postpartum, and parenting people both in Minnesota and nationally.