The United States : A Growing Problem With Women

The prison nurseries that do exist today have the main goal of teaching mother’s how to be effective parents outside of the institution. The purpose of prison for women who are parents is no longer just about punishment. Prisons that implement programs like these have started to see the importance of rehabilitation and creating productive members of society. Once an inmate has served their sentence they will be out as a free citizen, and the criminal justice system is partially responsible for their success away from inmate life. At the same time the individual must also be focused on the goal of improving through these arrangements in special programs. Prison nurseries also do not serve as a vacation or a way to avoid serving a sentence for inmates. The prison nurseries come with many responsibilities as well. Many new mothers suffer from depression and stress after giving birth, and instead of just ignoring these issues they have to face them. At this point the mothers no longer have a way to escape what they are experiencing. They still have to cope and learn how to be mothers, without this program they may neglect themselves and their children. Many nurseries also require the inmates to attend school, during this time the mothers are not even allowed to have their children and they are left with nannies who are inmates as well. The mother of the child has no say in leaving her child with

Approximately 80% of incarcerated women are mothers (Mapson, 2013). On average, the adult female offender is between the ages of 25 and 29. Historically, incarcerated women live with their children prior to incarceration and are the sole financial support for those children. When a mother is incarcerated over 80% live with relatives (mostly maternal grandparents) and about 20% live in foster care. Due to mothers being placed far from populated centers, more than half of mothers will not see their children while they are imprisoned. Women rarely see their children due to the child being in foster care or with family members that do not have the financial resources to travel for visits.

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.

In the past thirty years, the incarceration of women has risen exponentially. Poverty, lack of access to education, abuse, addiction, mental health and parenting issues all impact women’s criminality and health before, during and after they are incarcerated (Hannaher, K., 2007). By 2010 there were nearly 206,000 women currently serving time in the criminal justice system. As the years go by, the numbers are constantly increasing (Women Behind Bars, 2015). The number of pregnant women incarcerated has also been on the rise. Most incarcerated women do not receive proper prenatal care before entering the criminal justice system. Because these women are from mostly poverty neighborhoods, they are more likely to endure domestic violence, poor

We know much more about incarcerated mothers than we know about incarcerated fathers. For example, over 70% of female inmates are mothers of dependent children under the age of eighteen. Almost 90% of incarcerated females are single parents and heads of households. According to some estimates, a quarter of a million children are separated from their parents each year by jail and prison (Glick & Neto, 1977; McGowan & Blumenthal, 1978; McPeek & Tse, 1988; U.S. Department of Justice, 1992). We do not have this kind of information about incarcerated fathers. The lack of statistics concerning fathers in prison may suggest that they are a forgotten group.

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

In relation to the entire incarceration population, women are the most vulnerable, and even more vulnerable when pregnant. Since most of the pregnancies are unplanned during incarceration, the prenatal care is far from superior. This ties into the possible partner violence, substance abuse, and all the other issues the women enter into the prison with, which all compromise the health of the fetus. As earlier stated, these women are likely to be poor, less educated, history of violence in their lives, and tend to be in a non-white ethnic group. Separating a child from his or her mother can impact the child’s life dramatically and it is important to realize the affects incarceration has on the child and the family. It can lead to worsening of all the mental health and social issues already present in the family. It is also crucial to understand that most incarcerated women are in there for nonviolent crimes.

Incarceration has been a pending issue amongst western civilization’s history for some time and today continues to raise a wide range of important questions. Incarceration of individuals have become a tremendous tax payer concern along with the incarceration of the drug war, convictions of street gangs, and the rest of the individuals who have broken the law and harmed other innocent individuals. However, the question is always a concern of men incarceration and hardly addressed of women being incarcerated. Not to say that what men can do women can do better, but studies have shown a drastic increase in women becoming incarcerated throughout a range of years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures research on Children Of Incarcerated Parents by Steve Christian, a study by national survey had reported in August 2008, that during that time, the number of children with a mother in prison increased by 131 percent, from 63,900 to 147,400 (Christian, 2009). Society has always drawn its focus on convicts constantly trying to pin a wrong on an individual’s plate of life, but has never become curious to ask why an individual has become incarcerated and whom it has affected. The drastic increase of women becoming incarcerated have come from numerous of backgrounds in which their choices have led to affect their children as well as their children’s development and in addition affected their own development.

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,

The emotional increment in the quantity of ladies in jail in this nation is a consequence of changes in criminal equity arrangement that were expected to 'really begin to tackle wrongdoing' and pay a 'war on medications'. The outcome of these strategies for ladies is from time to time said and even less is caught wind of their effect on youngsters. 76.4% of the ladies in State detainment facilities are moms contrasted with 59.6% of male detainees who are fathers. (As indicated by the Department of Justice). As a rule the offspring of detained men live with their moms some time recently, amid and after their fathers' imprisonment. At the point when moms are sent to jail, their kids are destined to live with a grandparent or other relative (75.2%).

For many incarcerated mothers, many of their children are also left behind due to their imprisonment. Many children face finical struggles due to their mother being in prison and some may even be placed under the state and placed in foster care. Women are denied authority and power of their own children’s well beings which can lead to juvenile delinquency, failing grades, and even sexual abuse. Parenting classes, employment training, counseling, and other alternative treatment options may not only help lower recidivism rates but may also help strengthen families and communities.

In the early centuries, it was rare to hear about a woman who committed murder, or was incarcerated. However, times have changed, and it has become somewhat of a norm in the twenty first century. According to Kravitz (2010), he states that according to a study conducted by The Institute on Women and Criminal Justice, the number of women in prisons in 2006 is 105,000.

There are policies, practices, rules, and routines that are in place to treat pregnant incarcerated women and their medical needs located in the correctional facilities handbook as well as laws that were passed. Thorough out the years the laws were created because of the disorderly conduct happing inside the facility. These women who are pregnant while incarcerated depend on correctional staff for their health care, and correctional staffs are legally compelled to meet those needs. These women have a constitutionally protected right to obtain appropriate medical care for themselves and unborn. In New Jersey, there are policies and laws in place for pregnant inmates. Later in the paper you will read about these policies and laws. Some of these

Furthermore, female inmates are another challenge for correctional administrators. For example, an important and alarming issue such as overwhelming pregnancy and abortion related health care factors can become expensive. These inmates need special clear, intensive monitoring and observation. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “200,000 women are living behind prison or jail walls and thousands of these women are pregnant and dependent on the correctional administrators for health care.” (para. 1). Even though correctional administrators are legally obligated to meet their needs, there are guidelines that they must follow. These guidelines are put in place to further assist correctional administrators so that they are not violating the rights and well-being of female inmates who are already pregnant or considering on having a child while incarcerated.