Newsweek: 'Bringing Up Baby in the Big House'

Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2009-05-15 20:05

Article here. Excerpt:

'A prison may not seem like the best place to raise infants. But researchers are finding that it's better than the alternative. Joseph Carlson, a criminal-justice professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney who recently completed a 10-year study, says he thought such programs were "strange" when he began his research. Now he thinks they're "a win-win situation" for mothers and babies—and reduce crime by helping inmates to reform. Carlson also believes such programs can help "stop the generational cycle" in which children of inmates become criminals themselves. "Our goal is that the child will feel loved, the mother will stay out of prison herself and thus will hopefully strive to keep the child out of prison," says Carlson, whose study will be published this spring by the journal Corrections Compendium.
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Some prison guards aren't sympathetic toward the women. They make snide remarks that children don't belong in jail. That attitude angers Toomer, who admits to loving "fast money" but wants to get a college degree when she gets out. "I don't look at it as the babies doing time," she says, "because all the baby knows is they're with their mother and that's where children prefer to be."'

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... and rightly or not you find yourself in jail. Are they gonna let YOU take the baby in with you?

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Submitted by mcc99 on Fri, 2009-05-15 22:04

Prison is no place for babies, and taxpayers and responsible citizens should not be expected to pay for such a program. However, if prisons are going to offer bonding and family opportunities it should be for both genders. Actually, since many more men are in prison and serve longer sentences, I would think that male prisons would have a greater need.

I saw a show about a prison where they had a house on the premises and inmates were given the opportunity to have a family style overnight visit at the house. Their wives and children would come and they would bake cookies, play board games, etc and it gave them a chance to bond as a family. I don't know if many prisons have this program or just the one featured on the show. I know my children's father would have benefited from something like this (his father was in prison). This type of scenario was good for the children. But newborn babies born to female inmates would be better off in foster care or adoption.

I have numerous reasons for having opinions on this topic. My birth mother was in and out of jail, and the father to my children had a father in prison for long periods and he was severely effected by his absence.

I was placed in foster care and later adopted when I was three. This saved my life.

My ex and I seem like opposites, but one of the things we had in common was sympathy for those incarcerated but my sympathy does have its limits and I have very little patience for people that can't help themselves. I have always dreamed of being a foster parent to children that have parents in jail.

Babies deserve opportunity. They can bond with anyone that is nurturing. I don't mean to sound harsh, but any baby that cannot be cared for without government assistance should be given up. Being adopted myself and speaking to a lot of adopted people, we feel no sense of abandonment and no 'void'. 99% of all adopted people are glad they were adopted and know that their lives are better because of it.

Having nurseries in prison for new moms seems very one sided. I believe the only ones benefiting are the mothers. I don't believe it is a 'win-win' situation for the babies. However, bonding opportunities for older children would be good and should be available to both genders.

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Submitted by Kris on Sat, 2009-05-16 15:30