I was watching a show about a program at a prison in Indiana that allows pregnant inmates to raise their babies behind bars. In a program they have set up, inmates who give birth while they are in jail, are set up in a special wing that is designed for mothers and babies. They receive free/donated clothing and diapers. There are only 10 spots available at any time, they cannot be violent offenders,and they must have 18 months or less to serve on their sentence from the time they give birth. Do you believe they should be allowed this? Or should they baby be raised by foster families/relatives until the mother is released?

Interesting question :-)

I am going to go with NOTHING being more
important than the mother-child bonding.
And with less that 18 months to serve,
the motivation would be overwhelming.

I thought this was going to be about babies committing crimes.

i take it the father is in the next cell block over? with that in mind, this program may very well be the child's only chance at a family life

Not necessarily, in some cases,yes the father is also in prison, but in some cases no. For two of the women shown, they didn't know who the father was.

I don't think that the child should be "mothered" behind bars in a prison environment. I do think that the child should be given to a family member until the mother's time is served! JMO!

Actually that is a very hard choice to make whether the child should remain or go to family or foster care..

Babies need their mothers for that bonding period as well as it may actually give the women something to live for.... And to make a better life..Regardless the system will take care of the child regardless if behind the prison walls or with foster care...

So actually I would lean more towards the child staying with the mother. And hopefully it would give the women somehthing to look forward to and give their child a life they deserve...

But.......only for those that will only be there for a short time and has a chance to raise their babies...That is if they make that effort to do so...

What we all need to keep in mind is that the U.S. has the HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET!

We incarcerate more of our citizens than anywhere else in the world!

The U.S. has between 3-5% of the worlds total population and 25% of the worlds prision population.

Until we address the fact that the US is NOT the home of the free, rather the home of the FOR PROFIT, PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX...we will continue to have broken families, and babies being born to mothers in prison, fathers incarcerated etc...

We need to wake up and realize that we are by far not FREE! That there is a price on each one of our heads.

We are free till we break the guidelines set before us...

It is up to each of us whether we have the Freedom we have or if we loose that Freedom! We do have a Choice!

The main reason we have the highest population as far as prison is due to our prison system is not as harsh as those in other countries. If in fact we treated prisoners as other countries do, I guarantee you our prisons would not be as full as they are...

And if letting the mothers keep their babies in prison helps turn them around, once they get out then I'm all for it.

Depends. I don't think children should suffer because of the parents. The childs welfare and needs should come first in these situations.

I am not sure where your getting your information from. I am sure it is just opinion based on propoganda and not fact.

It has been proven over and over again that harsher punishment does NOT produce less crime....ie the death penalty does not prevent murder..

We have the highest prison population due directly and solely to the fact that we are not free to choose our own path. We are not free to chose to live how we personally see fit. We are not free to medicate ourselves. We are not free to defend ourselves. We are not free to raise our children the way we see fit. No other contry on the planet incarcerates their children at the rates we do,

Most other countries do not even have the death penalty (we do). We have prisons in our country that keep their prisoners in TENTS! with no airconditioning in 100 degree plus temps...feed them grits every day...I could go on and on. I don't know what prisons you have visited, but they are no walk in the park.

No other country cages their citizens like we do. If you don't believe me, and think I am some leftist whacko, research it.
Solitary confinement for tens of years!

We are a sick and twisted inhumane society, and until we wake up and stop answering every question with "lock um up!" we will continue to be so.

The Prison Industrial Complex cages our citizens for PROFIT. It is beneficial for these PRIVATE prisons to cage our citizens, each empty cage is money being lost, and we cannot build them fast enough!

Who sets these "guidelines" that I am supposed to live by? Those guidelines which are selectively enforced and prosecuted.

We are no better or safer society than we were 40 years ago when the prison boom started. (Again, I implore you to research my statement)...yet we are building prisons at alarming rates.

Well having worked many years ago when halfway house incarceration first got it start I saw some convicts trying to be parents. A few succeeded and did well, some got by, most failed miserably and the children were the biggest loosers with huge preventable problems. Luckily to my experience there was never a fatality a claim Foster Care and extened family placements can't make.

Does that say I am impressed with the alternatives? That the system even close to gets it right for most of these infants? No way. Wheather Foster Care or actually Adoption. The numbers of inmates from out of family placements are a real strong arguement for that being a failed concept as well.

However I do find the psychobabble that is out there about maternal bonding is a two edged sword. If "incarcerated babies" (and I see this as no small risk) are actually bonded with one care giver and not a team of inmates, social workers, volunteers, that pass them around like a bundle of laundry while they deal with the usual multiple problems that got the Mother incarcerated besides her actually paying her debt to society then I doubt it is any real bonding.

It may be years before we know how the child reacts to knowing that society thought it was somehow acceptable to spend infancy in jail but I can't think it will be good. Try explaining that on the school playground.

Personally I think if a Mother is a low enough risk to be consider for a Parenting program she should have her opportunity to do that outside of jail by either deferreing her incarceration to daytime incarceration once the child is situated in daycare an on into school age or extending her probation and parole for reasonable period. Do I like the idea that Mother's get a " chance by childbirth"? A definite, HELL NO, but we are not giving the Mother the chance we are giving it to an innocent child. And I don't think as a crime victim that my justice will be served by inflicting on any child for a New York Minute to be incarcerated.

And this is something that many people get al mushy and over look that seperateing some families by incarceration is the kindest thing that can happen to a child. Some Mother's can not and will not ever be able to have the necessary skills to parent and will only use the child much as they did the sex act for the immediate gratification and nothing more. I am sorry every child in this country deserves a better life than that.

If the Mother is in prison, it's for a reason! Should she receive special privledges for having a baby while incarcerated?....it's questionable!

Although the welfare of the child is most important in this situation, and although there is a "set up" for imprisoned Mothers-to-be..the whole environment itself still would seem unsafe and undesirable to raise a child...IMO

**The MOTHER commited the crime, not the CHILD***

Keep in mind is was only YESTERDAY that the US Supreme Court decided that it is unconstitutional to sentence our YOUTH to LWOP! (Life without Parole)

Look up Sara Kruzan...she has a wonderful video on YouTube.. the rest of the world looks at us in horror when they hear how we incarcerate even our own kids. We are a throw away society. If we don't conform, we are locked away...sometimes forever!

I will not discuss the merits of our prison system, nuch of it is deporable and the grift and profit from them a national disgrace, but so to are the neighborhoods that have to endure the majority of the crimes that the inmates of these prisons create.

Until you live with the fear of being a crime victim, have been a crime victim, or can't get and education or earn a living or get medical care because criminals have more rights than citizens you will change your mind about a lot of this.

I personally would much rather increase the building of hardcore lock down no frills prisons where inmates have two choices either serve your time, if you do your crime, and move forward on your own steam or return to jail. I refuse to reward bad behavior when it is getting harder and harder for people who have committed NO crime to get by. If a person is behind in job skills, education, social skills because of incarceration I say tough. Should have thought about that before you got your self arrested the first to the average of five times or more before someone does time in this country.

Anyone who trys to tell me that they can't make it in the USA after incarceration is ignoreing the resources that are available. You get out of jail you are on the playing field you created by your crime. Is it harder to move up through society? No doubt. But people do it everyday. Ex-cons have all the same resources everyone else has and even more if they choose to work with the highly skilled and well networked probation and parolte system. Is it easy? No. Is there no discrimination? No But hey that is the real world. You make choices you live with them.

I still wish this were about babies committing crimes.

I can tell from your statement you have no idea what you are talking about....You don't know me, where I live or what I "deal" with on a daily basis. So to make a statement that I would change my mind based on what YOU think I have or have NOT experienced shows your true ignorance.

I would strongly suggest you stop watching FOX news, get yourself to a library and read a book, or actually visit a prison. Or a probabtion office. Go to drug court. See who is sitting there..Wealthy white men? Good Luck finding one of them (unless its the judge or a lawyer) then on recess for lunch you can go out and have a few drinks, smoke a few joints before returning to the bench. SMH Its people like YOU that are the cause of this problem we now have. IGNORANCE!

OH PLEEAAZE !!! It is not about not conforming. You can be as non-conformist as you want to be as long as you do not commit a crime.

You want to be a hard head and set your butt in school for thirteen years and learn nothing it is your choice.

If you want to not live with your family and accept the alternatives it is your choice. Kids are made wards of the state every day and housed, educated, provided care often above that of the families they want to abandon or need to leave

While granted children don't always have the rights that adults do pretty much when you are and adult or at least able enough to convince a judge that you are self sutaining, the minimal standard that is you can be emanicapted. For that matter simply run away in most cases. I have never recommended that but kids split and very little is done to find them.

And as an adult if you want to pretty much ignore every norm in society you can as long as you don't commit a crime.

But if your idea of norm is to beg. squat on private or public property, refuse the draft, refuse to pay taxes, lie, cheat, steal, destroy stuff, and affect crimes against a person or animal well sorry sister in this country to that you have to conform.

People who spout this balogne need to set down and see just who really pays for this selfishness. It is not the rich and powerful it is everyday people who for the most part don't do a darn thing to anyone else. Sorry you are taling to someone who has spent a lifetime cleaning up the wake of criminals. Someone who has read rap sheets and seen just how much it takes before our society gives up on most criminals.

Are there excepts yes but we are not talikng about exceptions we are talking about facts that most of these so called non-conformists are self centered, indulged, and often ignored people until infact THEY chose to up the anti and commit crimes.

***REMINDER....PLEASE REMAIN CIVIL TO EACH OTHER IN YOUR RESPONSES..INSULTING OTHER MEMBERS ARE AGAINST OUR TOU***

Thanks for your cooperation

Rose
Mingle2 Moderator

I completely agree. Our legal system is a joke. Why people who commit crimes have ANY rights is beyond me.

As for babies being in the prison with their moms? No way. Give those kids to loving adopting families. These girls who end up in prison do no deserve to be mothers.