War on Drugs Taking the Wrong Prisoners

Submitted by Jan on Fri, 02/17/2006 - 10:30am.

The war on drugs has taken a lot of prisoners, especially mothers serving mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Their children bear the burden -- and the loss -- often in isolation or with few supports from the authorities who keep their mothers locked up and unable to care for them.

A project in New Haven makes sure that when a mother is arrested arrangements are made to help the children she is caring for, but much of the time police take mothers into custody without attending to their children at all -- leaving the house empty for when the kids come home from school, or treating preschoolers as co-prisoners, taking them in police cars to the station to fill out paperwork.

Nell Bernstein (All Alone in the World) describes the collatoral damage to these children, the 2.4 million unintended victims from our nation's "get-tough" criminal policies as mandatory sentences have increased the number of women serving time from 13,400 in 1980 to more than 100,000 by the end of 2003.

Traumatizing kids is bad. This is a must-read book to send to every state leader with authority over criminal justice policies.


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I hate to be on the other
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 06/18/2006 - 8:32am.

I hate to be on the other side but I'm not sure that the message, "Have kids and you won't go to jail for drug offenses" is the right one to be sending. From what I've read and seen, a lot of these convicts don't pay any attention to their kids in the first place; only when the kids visit them in jail do they realize that they might have some responsibility to their children. It seems that the policies advocated by the people in this discussion board would result in many kids being raised in loveless and possibly abusive homes; if it's possible to get a good deal for jail time if you have a child then the children become pawns, useful tools for avoiding prison sentences.

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Oregon Troop Helps Moms and Daughters
Submitted by Jan on Fri, 03/10/2006 - 10:50am.

Girl Scouts Beyond Bars now operates in 23 states. Read more about it in this Connect for Kids article. http://www.connectforkids.org/node/3009

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Girl Scouts Beyond Bars Premieres March 21 on PBS
Submitted by Jan on Fri, 03/10/2006 - 10:45am.

They may be drug offenders, thieves or even murderers, but they are also moms trying to help their daughters grow up to be doctors, social workers or marine biologists. Watch the story of Girl Scout Troop 15, trying to help moms and daughters hold it together. It begins airing on PBS on March 21.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/troop1500/index.html

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Sydney Gurewitz Clemens
Submitted by Jan on Thu, 02/23/2006 - 12:07pm.

Sydney Gurewitz Clemens emailed me:

The problem with this issue is that it isn't sexy... nobody wants to think about what it does to a child of 2 or 3 to have her mommy in jail, or her daddy... children at these ages get their whole connection to the world, their whole stability, through relationships with their primary adults and if one disappears from the daily life of the family, the child is traumatized.

Sydney has a website that outlines the problem, identifies what should be done to protect children better and provides tips for teachers and caregivers who have children of prisoners in their care.

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young children with parents in prison
Submitted by Sydney Gurewitz Clemens (not verified) on Thu, 02/23/2006 - 12:05pm.

Not only must we inform state and federal leaders that sending parents to prison away from the childraising they should be doing is bad public policy in many many cases and builds the next generation of prisoners, but we must see to the needs of the children who are in this situation now, doing time along with their parents.

I've written some Discussion Papers on this subject, to get your community started looking at the issues that confront the young children when a parent goes to jail or prison. You can find them at www.eceteacher.org (use the site map to get to the Children of Incarcerated Parents page) and you certainly will want to get copies (free or low-cost) of the Bill of Rights for Children of Incarcerated Parents (available in Spanish as well as English). Ordering information is also on my webpage.

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