Prison Adoptee
@prisonadoptee.bsky.social
670 followers 860 following 230 posts
Born to a mother in Canada’s first all-women's prison. For many adoptees, especially those with mothers labeled "Juvenile Delinquents," disclosure is denied under the YCJA. #HiddenHistories #PrisonBorn #PrisonAdoptees #PunishedInUtero
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prisonadoptee.bsky.social
‘Keeping Mum’: A Historical Examination of the Andrew Mercer Reformatory and its Contemporary Legacy Through a Framework of Motherhood

qspace.library.queensu.ca/items/82ec50...
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Very few adoptees know we were born in prison. I suspect thousands share this history — but it’s hidden behind youth privacy laws worldwide.

Upcoming event with Deborah Jiang-Stein, author of Prison Baby.
Reposted by Prison Adoptee
kpateonthehill.bsky.social
Today, on #MMIW Action Day, we honour the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People and demand justice and accountability. Too many lives have been lost while governments continue to resist implementing the National Inquiry’s Calls for Justice. 1/2
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Canada's "placing-out" system for indentured domestic and farm labour often secured the children of criminalized and incarcerated women and girls.
Full story of the D’Andrea, case coming soon.

Re D'Andrea, 1916 CanLII 479 (ON SC), <https://canlii.ca/t/gw6np>, retrieved on 2025-09-27
Sixth Annual Report of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto - 1897
Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/r01098_1896_97/page/11/mode/1up?view=theater&q=%22indenture%22
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
Folks in the US pay attention 👇click on the post below to read the whole thread on how to contact your US Senators and your US Representative.
adopteerights.bsky.social
The US Senate has introduced the bipartisan Protect Adoptees and American Families Act, formerly known as the Adoptee Citizenship Act. Let's get this enacted so that thousands of intercountry adoptees finally secure US citizenship. 🥚 adopteesunited.org/congress-int...
The Protect Adoptees and American Families Act | Adoptees United
The fight for US citizenship for all intercountry adoptees continues, with introduction of the Protect Adoptees and American Families Act
adopteesunited.org
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚This is a tragic story beginning in the 1930s. It’s unbelievable what happened to this family—the children, the foster care system, and the adoptions that followed.

Stay tuned as the descendant uncovers truths long buried… and still hidden behind the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).
amreformatory.bsky.social
Mercer descendant, playing with ideas of femininity, class, morality, and resistance
States: this fabric will be joined with printed newspaper clippings from the June 1948 Mercer prison riot — the second month my 17-year-old grandma arrived there
🎥 Watch the reel: www.facebook.com/reel/1428738...
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Adoption statistics declined rapidly in the early 1970s when “juvenile delinquents” at Training Schools were under investigation.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Full article discusses unmarried mothers in maternity homes & ends with a focus on those in Mercer. One of them—my mother—was imprisoned there from Mar/53–Oct/54. Records state her firstborn was being adopted, yet the Ministry holds no record of the agency involved.
#disappeared
Title in ALT text
"Treating Spots to Cure Measles," The Globe and Mail, Nov 24, 1953, 6.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
4/5
This lack of transparency fosters the false impression that their mothers entered maternity homes voluntarily—thereby obscuring the structural realities of criminalization, coercion, and systemic denial that shaped these adoptions.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
3/5
Many adoptees remain unaware of the carceral conditions surrounding their births, because the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) restricts the disclosure of information related to their mothers’ criminalization.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
2/5
𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐃𝐀 has yet to fully reckon with the historical legacy of adoptions involving criminalized and incarcerated women and girls.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚🧵1/5
Mari lost a child to adoption while confined in a U.S. 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄—a facility where, as she vividly recalls, “half of the home was devoted to 𝐣𝐮𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐭 girls” (@13:40).
🎥 www.facebook.com/mari.steed/v...
2.5K views · 130 reactions | This was the 2010 'Would You Believe?' episode I did. Important viewing as we head into #NationalAdoptionMonth ETA: TW - DV | Mari Tatlow Steed
This was the 2010 'Would You Believe?' episode I did. Important viewing as we head into #NationalAdoptionMonth ETA: TW - DV.
www.facebook.com
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚
amreformatory.bsky.social
1/4:
Obscured behind adoptees’ records and adoption stats are likely many girls labeled as "delinquents" or wards of the CAS — committed to Ontario Training Schools (OTS) or placed on probation until age 21 (later reduced to 18).
The image below shows the scale of girls under OTS wardship only.
Annual Report 1962, Part 2: Training Schools, N0 37, p 10.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Adoptees of Bluesky: we urgently need to bring greater attention to the high rate of suicide within our community—worldwide. The trauma of adoption, loss, and identity struggle continues to impact our mental health. It’s time to raise awareness and support healing.
kpateonthehill.bsky.social
Today, on World Suicide Prevention Day, we remember the lives lost and recommit to breaking the silence and stigma around mental health. 1/4
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚"Previous data from Femicide Census suggests far fewer women are killed by adopted sons than biological sons - three, as opposed to 172, over the period of the earlier study."
carceralabolition.bsky.social
UK - More women were killed by their son than by a stranger, according to new figures from a campaign group looking at violence against women.

Of 121 women killed by men in 2022, 12 were killed by their sons and 11 were killed by someone they did not know. www.bbc.com/news/article...
Femicide Census says more mums killed by sons than by strangers
The Femicide Census says 12 women were killed by their sons in 2022 and 11 by a stranger.
www.bbc.com
Reposted by Prison Adoptee
amreformatory.bsky.social
According to Ont Agricultural College, in 1934 L. Payne, a grad, published a book: Bread and Water Diets of Prisoners Found Inadequate. In 1947, K. Sandford documented punishment in the dungeon and the bread-and-water diet at Mercer. This raises the question: when was this punitive practice ended?
"inside Mercer," The Globe and Mail, Jul 04, 1947, 4.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Grueling process retrieving records from the Mercer Reformatory. Sometimes descendants reach out after finding a relative in a census—with a baby! Yet access requests are denied under the YCJA. What!?! Ontario maintained the age of delinquency under 16 in the JDA until the YOA.
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
Incarcerated pregnant mothers face serious issues across Ontario in 2025—imagine what they endured from 1880–1969 at Toronto’s Andrew Mercer Reformatory.
🔗 Bancroft et al. (2025), Precarious Perinatal Care: doi.org/10.1186/s128...
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚 #AdopteesOfBluesky
This thread isn’t unique to Ontario, Canada. If you were born to a young mother, you may want to question your adoption — especially given that records may be withheld under your country’s laws protecting juvenile records.
#MaternityHomes #AdoptionStories #HiddenHistories
amreformatory.bsky.social
1/3
#AdoptionStories #CarceralBirths
A 1948 report from the Ontario Training School (OTS) for Girls reveals that 7 pregnant girls were transferred to other carceral institutions — including MATERNITY HOMES — upon admission.
@debdundas.bsky.social @kpateonthehill.bsky.social
Annual Report 1948, Part 2: Training Schools
1st April, 1947 - 31st March, 1948
Reposted by Prison Adoptee
shaaren.bsky.social
We're trying to get this collaborative documentary off the ground. Hoping #adopteesky has some connections! 🥚
Please and thank you! maidenindiafilm.wordpress.com
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Adoptee suffering has long been ignored. Professionals are only now sharing troubling stats. But one question remains unanswered for prison-born adoptees: What’s the impact of prenatal exposure to a mother’s incarceration on child development? —Punished in Utero
🔗 www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wCf...
Bethany Kotlar | Punished in Utero
YouTube video by Harvard Griffin GSAS
www.youtube.com
prisonadoptee.bsky.social
🥚Great work moonlyfe.bsky.social

Note: Ontario has been moving historical records to CPIN—one CAS said, manually!
Suspicious. How many files were destroyed in the manual process of uploading to the new system? .

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEnD...
Sixties Scoop Survivors call for more support in reconnecting with families
YouTube video by CTV News
www.youtube.com