Arrested New York Moms Stay With Kids Instead Of Going to Jail

Submitted by Mastodon on Thu, 2012-10-11 21:46

Article here. Excerpt:

'Rita Zimmer, the founder of Housing Plus Solutions, the nonprofit that runs the program, said it costs $34,000 annually to house a woman and her children at Drew House. It costs nearly four times as much to incarcerate a woman and put her children in foster care.

Some prisons allow women to keep their infants with them, and some drug treatment programs allow children, but no other program allows women arrested on other felonies to live with their children instead of prison.

The idea came from prosecutors working with Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and took nearly a decade to get off the ground, until Zimmer came on board. The house opened in 2008, and was named for Hynes' mother, a victim of domestic violence.

"There's just a lot more to public safety than locking people up," Hynes said.'

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Comments

Especially if they are female! In that case, there's special programs, they are allowed to keep their kids, they aren't really locked up at all (well, they do have to sign in and out and all...). I mean wow, if you can assault someone and "pay for it" by getting into a free housing and child care system program, what's not to love? There'll be impecunious mothers all over NYC now walking up to people and whacking them just to get into this kewl new WOMEN-ONLY program!

Meanwhile, fathers of small children just plain get sent to prison for the same crimes. But that's right, I keep forgetting: they're men, so it doesn't matter what happens to them.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2012-10-12 00:03

or their children

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Submitted by Kratch on Fri, 2012-10-12 14:08