In the correction world there is a lot to deal with and one big aspect of it is that there are many women that go into jails or prisons pregnant or already having children. The amount of women in jails or prisons keeps rising over the years. There are better ways then keeping pregnant women in jails. Alternatives for these women are in there best interests.
The numbers of women in jails or prisons have increased greatly over the years. Female prisoner population has more than doubled since 1990. Right now there are over 150,000 women in U.S. prisons and jails. (Sokoloff, Violent Female Offenders in NYS: Myths and Facts, Crime and Justice in NY, A. Karmon, 2000-2001) With this being said 75% of these women are mothers most of them have children under the age of 18 and 25% of them have given birth in prison or to the year prior to there arrest. 9% of women in jail are pregnant and that would be about 12,500 women are currently pregnant. Are there adequate facilities for these women?
For many prisons there facilities arent adequate for the pregnant women that are being held there. In a state survey it was found that less then 50% of facilities have written policies specifically relating to medical care for pregnant women and only 48% offer prenatal services. Only 21% offer prenatal counseling and 15% offer counseling to help mothers find suitable placements for their infants after birth. Women that are in the system do not receive regular pelvic exams or sonograms, that they receive little to no education about prenatal care and nutrition, that they have the inability to alter their diets to suit their changing caloric needs, and that they could be shackled during delivery and can not have labor support from family members. There are many reasons why pregnant women should have alternatives.
There are several things that come into play when it comes to women that are in jail or prison and are having children or have children. For example there women who are in prison or jail and are pregnant are known as high risk population because there can be many issues with pregnant women. For instance women that has her child while in prison are more likely the have children with low birth weight, premature, and there is a high death rate. The mothers can not access the right amount of heath services compared to women who are not incarcerated. Another reason for alternatives is children of incarcerated parents are at increased risk of anxiety, depression, aggression, truancy, attention disorders, and poor scholastic performance. The separation of a child from its mother is always traumatic for them and the trauma can result in poor development while growing up. A large amount of children also go into foster care. 4.5% of children in foster care are due to parental incarceration. Foster care for these children cost about $20,000 a year. If u added that onto the cost of incarcerating there parents its a lots of money. There are many types of alternatives that could help out with this.
Alternatives have been proven to work. They are cost effective and enforceable. Alternatives can be used such as the Moms program The Alameda County Sheriffs Office offers all mothers and pregnant women incarcerated in the county jail an opportunity to participate in the MOMS program. Since the beginning of the MOMS program in September 1999, 546 pregnant and parenting women and 1,164 children have received services. The MOMS program has intensive individual and group training, gender-responsive educational programs, case management, housing assistance, and other services with a range of community-based post-release services including substance abuse treatment, mental health care, and primary services. Incarcerated pregnant women and women with young children can receive intensive, gender-responsive, and culturally appropriate services. These services include community-based case management services, assistance with life planning, and support during incarceration and post release.
Some additional benefits are: opportunity to bond or re-establish bonds with their children through contact visits, housing assistance during and after release, opportunity to improve parenting and critical life skills through educational Training, guidance and advocacy for vocational and educational needs, substance abuse education and access to substance abuse treatment, mental health services, primary care, and other community services, assistance in developing and implementing an Individual Action Plan for attaining self-sufficiency.
The MOMS program is for the belief that incarcerated women can succeed in reversing the there life of poor life choices when they are taught new things to help there life better, also being treated with respect and dignity.
The most important part of this program is its case management. Through case management, participants can address their individual issues and concerns directly. The result is that women can continue to live productive lives. The programs effectiveness is currently being evaluated, so far, they have found that the most successful women are those who have remained in weekly contact with their case managers. The main goal of the MOMS program is to promote the healthy development of children by increasing the capacity of their mothers for self-sufficiency and parent-child bonding.
There are a lot of health risks involved with pregnancies and I believe that keeping pregnant women in jail or prison is a very bad situation for them and there child. When women are pregnant they can get sick easier and need to be in healthy areas and a place where they can get the right nutrition for them and there child. It has been found that children who are separated from there mothers have suffered from many things and go through a great deal of trauma. There are many women that have there children in prison that dont want to lose their children to foster care if they have no other relative to take care of them, and some mothers can loser there children in foster care because after a certain amount of months they can be adopted. I have a strong belief that children should grow up with there mothers or a mother figure. I myself have found it very hard to grow up without a mother around. A Childs life will be totally different if they dont grow up with their mother or if they are taken away from their mother. I believe that alternatives like the MOMs program is a wonderful program that seems to be working very well.