Women are the fastest growing population behind bars today and nearly 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers.
-Vera Institue of Justice

There is an overwhelming need to provide for the unique needs of mothers, who typically become justice-involved due to substance abuse, acting out due to trauma responses from sexual assault, or performing survival sex work. Women are also at a financial disadvantage and may be held in prison awaiting trial because they are unable to afford the bail.

Some women who enter prison while they are pregnant, do not receive proper prenatal care or proper nutrition from their food. They face giving birth while shackled to a bed and there is no post-partum support. Promoting healthy pregnancies is a state issue, a reasonable issue to tackle, and one that could prevent inter-generational trauma.

I’m not saying you need, you know, the best prenatal care if you’re a prisoner or whatever, but the baby isn’t a prisoner. I don’t understand, you know, why that the care for the baby would be limited that way.
Tina Torres

Mothers need emotional support, proper care for the pregnancy, increased visitation and communication in order to maintain a relationship with their children. They need therapy and counseling geared towards the unique traumas women and mothers face.

Who suffers when mothers are imprisoned?

Women

Women are more likely than men to have dependent children upon their incarceration and are expected to return to their main caregiver role after their release. Once incarcerated, women must grapple with systems designed primarily for men. As a result, many leave jail with diminished prospects for physical and behavioral health recovery, as well as greater parental stress and financial instability. A study in Iowa, asked mothers if they felt ready to care for their children when they were released:

I’m not fit to take care of children. Because I have kids, I’ll have something to do with them, but I can’t raise them. Mentally, I can’t . . . I will be ready if I can get my mental state under control.
– brittany

Children

“Children whose mothers are incarcerated are more likely to have witnessed their parents’ arrests and to have experienced significant trauma and household disruption as a result of those arrests. Children are likely to be transferred to the care of a non-parental caregiver, like a grandparent or relative; but in about 11 percent of these types of cases, children of incarcerated mothers are placed in the foster care system—often separating them not just from their parents, but also their siblings, other family members, and the only homes and communities they have ever known.“

“What I miss about my mom the most,” says Bella, “[is that] I don’t get to touch her and I don’t get to feel her, and I don’t get to see her with my own eyes. Yeah, I get to hear her voice, but that’s it! I don’t get to see her
breathe. I don’t get to do the things I used to do when she was here. I used to hug my mom and kiss her all the time and now I can’t do that. I only see her every four months.”
bella

Studies show that kids with an incarcerated mother are more likely to drop out of school and have a higher chance of ending up behind bars themselves. But research has also shown that maintaining family bonds can help ease the trauma of separation for children

What supports are available to mothers in prison?

Alternatives to incarceration have recently become a more widespread approach to incarceration. Heralded for their cost-cutting promises and progressive approach to the needs of children with incarcerated parents, mother/child penal facilities have become increasingly popular. However, these programs aren’t available in every state, or are they an option for every justice-involved mother.

Daidre Kimp, holding daughter, Stella, is scheduled to transition to a work release program in the spring. Image by Eman Mohammad for NPR

Some programs have been started to help mothers maintain a bond with their children while they are in prison. In New York City there is a program called Crafting Family Connections which works with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan to allow mothers, who exhibit good behavior, to visit the museum with their children during off-business hours. The program was created to support bonding and ease the trauma of separation. However, they are funding based and run the risk of ending abruptly.

There is no standardized care offered for mothers to help them with the emotional trauma of missing their children.