Mothers In Prison

(2 of 2)

Others argue that the risks of prison life are outweighed by the benefits of keeping babies close to their mothers. "It's an impossible situation," says Leslie Acoca of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, who nevertheless argues that it is worse to separate kids from their mothers. New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility opened the nation's first prison nursery 100 years ago, and these days its parenting program has had dramatic results. Only 10% of women who successfully completed the program returned to prison, in contrast to 52% of inmates overall.

With older children, the task becomes trying to maintain some semblance of normal mother-child relations. In Plymouth, Mich., the Children's Visitation Program runs parenting-skills classes at the women's prison to help moms and their kids reconnect. "A lot of [the children] are very angry," says director Florida Andrews. "They've been stigmatized because their mothers are locked up." Girl Scouts Beyond Bars buses kids to prisons once a month, where the scouts hold troop meetings with their incarcerated mothers. Tanyall Law, 15, and her two sisters, members of the Girl Scouts Rolling Hills council in New Jersey, recently went to see their mom at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton. "I miss her a lot, says Tanyall, a soft-spoken tenth-grader who lives with her grandmother.

The burden of raising kids of imprisoned moms often falls on the frail shoulders of elderly relatives. Tiffany Barrett's grandmother has cancer, yet she has been taking care of Barrett's two kids while undergoing chemotherapy treatment. "She's told me I better hurry up and get out of here because she doesn't know how much longer she can hold out," says Barrett, 23, who has served three years on drug charges at Hernando Correctional in Florida. She rides the bus to Reading Family Ties in Miami once a month so Chevas, 6, and Chev'Qavia, 4, can have a virtual visit with their mom.

The siblings sit in front of a tiny, oval-shaped camera. Their mom is visible onscreen--dressed in a blue prison-issue jumpsuit. When the monitor suddenly goes dark, a counselor jiggles the mouse to make the picture reappear. Chevas asks his mom when she is coming home. She flashes three fingers, the number of months until her release. He marks off the days on a calendar. "It's really hard, being that I want to see them and touch them," Barrett says. "But if it weren't for this program, I wouldn't be able to see them at all."

Still, face-to-face contact is crucial. "If I hadn't got the hugs and kisses from my mom and the whispers in my ear," says Nakea Walker, 25, of Staten Island, N.Y., "I know I wouldn't have made it." Walker was 16 when her late mother was sent to a prison in upstate New York, nine hours away. Her five siblings was sent to a foster home. Walker has been fighting to reunite her family. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 will probably send more kids like Walker's siblings into foster care. It allows courts to begin terminating parental rights if a child is in foster care for 15 months out of any 22-month period. An incarcerated woman can spend that long just waiting for trial. "We're creating a monster," says Ellen Barry of Prisoners with Children.

Some states are dealing with the proliferation of mothers in prison by looking for alternative-sentencing solutions. California sentences some nonviolent female drug offenders to Family Foundations, a community-based residential drug-treatment program. In Santa Fe Springs, Calif., female inmates live in what resembles a converted school building with their children up to age six. "You're not just another number where you're not getting any help," says Sarah Ambrosini, 29, who lives there with her two sons, ages four months and 16 months. The program is expensive, averaging $40,000 a year per inmate, compared with $25,000 in a regular prison. But since families stay together, fewer kids wind up in foster care. Also, follow-up studies show inmates in the program have a lower recidivism rate. Says Sterling O'Ran, an administrator for California's Department of Corrections: "We've been able to get them hooked on their kids instead of drugs." Many prison moms would like that same opportunity.