Running In Jail Analysis

The problems at hand that the SIMARRA Act bill is proposing to address, involves child welfare issues, women’s health concerns, and a lack of protection and healthcare needs for these women and their unborn children within the criminal justice system. According to the bill, it has been propositioned to enhance the welfare and public health for incarcerated pregnant women and mothers by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal prison system, by establishing a pilot program of critical-stage, developmental nurseries in Federal prisons for children born to inmates, with risk needs assessments, and risk and recidivism reduction (H.R.5130, 2016). The bill is intended to focus and alleviate the lack thereof adequate care, stress, and hazardous health practices that incarcerated mothers are experiencing with their infant babies, while also monitoring the health of these women. Both the mothers and infants are affected in these situations because the health of the mother has substantial

Mother Behind Bars examines a lot of inadequate policies and procedures that these states have in place for federal and state correctional facilities. This report card bring up the issue on prenatal care, shackling, prison nurseries, and family based treatment as an alternative to incarceration however in this paper I will focus on the restraints on these pregnant inmates. New Jersey received a grade of D for shackling policies. Besides New Jersey thirty-seven other states obtain a D/F for their failure to comprehensively limit, or limit at all, the use of restraints on pregnant women transportation, labor, delivery, and postpartum recuperation (National Women’s Law Center, 2010). The use of restraints can compromise the health and safety of the women and the unborn child. Shackling pregnant women is dangerous and inhumane; women prisoners are still routinely shackled during pregnancy and childbirth. The reason these women are shackled is for safety and security, despite the fact that shackling pregnant women is degrading, unnecessary and a violation of human rights some state still condone this practice.

Research has revealed that a father’s involvement in his child’s life greatly improves the child’s chances for success. Helping incarcerated fathers foster stronger connections with their children (where appropriate) can have a positive effect for children. What is needed is stronger training of social workers and prison personnel to help males with bonding and effective parenting skills. Prisons also need to work on reorganizing visiting spaces in prisons because they are not always

Some of the children become dependent on the government sustenance. Incarcerated women often find that their actions hurt their family “especially of women, destroys the family network. When the men got to prison, potential role models are lost. When women go to prison, families most often fall apart” (Hotelling) while in an institution they might never see their children. As statistics continuously provides that children lived with and cared for by their

Even in prisons female offender are seen as nurturing and kind. An example of this are mother and baby units in prisons. The United Kingdom Government (Anon. 2017) websites states that women who give birth in prison are allowed to keep their baby with them for the first 18 months of the child’s life in the mother and baby unit and a mother who has a child under the age of 18 months on entering prison is allowed to apply to have their child join then in prison and would be moved to a baby and child unit. Once the child is over 18 months Social Services arrange child care for the toddler, whether that is family members or fostering. There are currently six prisons in England that contain mother and baby units. These are Bronzefield, Eastwood Park, Styal, New Hall, Peterborough and Askham Grange. However, there are no father and baby units. This supports the idea that even as offender’s females are still seen as care givers and loving. It reinforces and maintains social constructions of gender. This is an example of the criminal justice system being lenient to females and harsher on males. A concept described as the ‘Chivalry thesis’ by Pollak (1950). The ‘chivalry thesis’ is the idea that women in the criminal justice system are treated chivalrously in comparison to males in the criminal justice system. However, feminist Heidensohn (1985) argues that this is not the case for female offenders and in

Kids always suffer from situations of incarcerated parents. It is hard socially and mentally. For mothers of new babies, involvement in their children’s lives should start from the time they are little. Many women who are incarcerated have babies. Being away from them for a long period of time is difficult for both mother and baby. They need the extra privilege to get that time with their child. Programs such as the Early Head Start and the Children of Incarcerated Parents Program offer great opportunities for parents and kids to have good experiences and work on building a healthy relationship. Parents can really try to connect with their kids and show they care. It gives these parents hope that their kids can avoid the hard life they have

Some of the challenges in the perinatal care in the correctional setting include lack of prenatal care prior to incarceration, drug or alcohol dependency, psychosocial problems or lack of outside family support, victim or transgressor of past abuse or violence and the psychological challenges of being incarcerated. For many women, the reality of being in the prison system can be devastating; the separation from family, which often includes their own children, and friends can cause depression, anxiety and fear. Personal physical safety is also a concern, as prison is often described as having its own “culture”, structure and hierarchy,

However, the booming number of women in confinement between 1986 and 2006 has rekindle concern in the problematic of mothers in confinement. In addition substance abuse treatment programs have been associated to the progression of parenting programs, “the institution of special visitation areas and programs for mothers and their children, and the reinstatement of childcare in confinement” (Susan C. Craig, 2009).

The children may experience the ill effects of different mental issues including strain, apprehension, remorseful, humiliation, and anxiety. Adverse behavior indicators can consist of grief, removal, low self-worth, and deterioration in school performance, truancy, hostility and a risk of drug or alcohol abuse. A research of thirty-six children from five-years-old to sixteen-years-old of age who were taking part in a visitation program at a female's correctional institution found that seventy-five percent of the children reported side effects (Zaitzow, 2010). Such side effects include depression, trouble with sleeping, focus issues, and flashbacks about their mother’s offenses, arrests, and imprisonment (Zaitzow,

Prisons were historically a male focused institution; correctional facilities often fail to address the needs of incarcerated women. The importance of a women’s prison institution is the way the mothering system needs to be done. Of the women in the correctional system, a majority of them are between the ages of 24 and 35(Staretschi & Vaughn, 2010). There are mothers in prison who have children with a family member, friend, or foster care. Other

Incarceration is a method used by the United States criminal justice system as a repercussion for certain unlawful actions. Criminal punishment varies upon circumstance of crime. The United States consists of approximately 125 federal prisons with approx. 200,000 inmates. According to statistics, women represent 6.7% of inmates in federal prison. When thinking of women in prison, one 's first thought may be, “What about the children?” In the United States, the numbers of incarcerated women are increasing, as well as the impact on the children.

It is usual practice for prison facilities which offer incarcerated mothers and children to live together regardless of the severity of the crime committed. Grudziadz Women’s in Poland for example, offers a mother and child program by which the women can live in a spacious unit with their

In Eye On The Prize About Ain’t Scared of Your Jails, the students from colleges in Nashville set up sit-ins at local restaurants. These sit-ins consisted of black and African American Students would sit at counters or areas where whites had been told only they were allowed to sit. When many of these students were placed in jail, local black African American, and white supporters boycotted businesses downtown since they contributed to much of the cities income. Moreover, while the sit-ins were not violent, some violence occurred to prevent the few black residents who did try to go downtown from shopping, this fear of violence eventually spread to white citizens. The main techniques they used were nonviolent, and peaceful; they had been taught techniques to avoid engaging in violence and maintaining their place at the counter. These students wanted to keep their protests as being a student protest. Moreover, they also organized the freedom rides in order to get President Kennedy to enforce the two supreme court rulings that banned

After watching the ted talk, I learned all about Ismael’s story of his growing up in jail. As a young inmate, New York is one of two states that arrests and considers 16-17 years old as adults. When being in jail so young, I learned how there is nothing in their for you to correct yourself, its almost as if it does nothing. You commit a crime and get sentenced however long, and you just sit, with nothing to do, nothing to change you as person and teach you what you did was wrong. People might say that being in jail already makes you think about the person you are, and what you did, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you “learn your lesson”. Returning back into society after years of nothing, can be rough. Starting all over from

The incarceration of female offenders has increased from 168.5 to 215.2 between 2010 and 2017 (Russel.S 2017). The decision by the judiciary to send these offenders to prison, many of whom are mothers or have experienced their own physical trauma, fails to achieve just and equitable outcomes for these offenders (Kilroy. D 2016). It is vital that female prisoners receive adequate rehabilitation to ensure a reduction of crime rates within female prisoners and to receive effective aid upon release into the community.