As a woman, the experience of pregnancy and preparing to bring a new life into this world is, in general, an incredibly exciting time, unless of course, you are one of thousands of women incarcerated in the United States, serving prison time for felony convictions. While most expectant mothers are planning for baby showers, shopping for maternity clothes and preparing the baby’s nursery, the incarcerated mother-to-be has to remain in a constant state of alertness and preparedness for situations that can put her and her unborn baby at risk, in an environment that is both intimidating and routinely violent. (Hutchinson et. al., 2008) In 2012, the total number of inmates incarcerated in the state and federal correctional system for was 1,571,013, of which 108,866 of those inmates were females. In the last two decades, until 2009, women were the fastest growing population within the state and federal correctional institutions. Since 2009, the number of inmates incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities has slowly declined mainly due to public policy changes in both state and federal laws. California accounted for fifty one percent of the decrease in the overall population due to the Public Safety Realignment policy that mandated a decrease in the inmate population to alleviate overcrowding; this led to a 25.5 percent decrease in the female population in California alone. (Carson & Golinelli, 2013) Although the actual number of pregnant women incarcerated in the United States is somewhat unclear, it is estimated that six to ten percent of the females sentenced to prison are pregnant when incarcerated. (Guerino et.al., 2011) The majority of female inmates that are sentenced to prison after felony convictions are s... ... middle of paper ... ..., G. A., Propper, C. B., & Mariaskin, A. (2008). Incarcerated Women’s Psychological Functioning During Pregnancy. Psychology Of Women Quarterly, 32(4), 440-453. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.00457.x International Business Times, (2012, November 21). In Virginia, Pregnant Prisoners Will No Longer Be Shackled During Childbirth. International Business Times. Pregnant and Imprisoned in the United States. (2000). Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, 27(4), 266- 271. Roth, R. (2010). Obstructing Justice; Prisons as Barriers to Medical Care for Pregnant Women. UCLA Women's Law Journal, 18(1), 79-105. Shackling Incarcerated Pregnant Women. (2011). Nursing for Women's Health, 15(6), 549-550. doi:10.1111/j.1751-486X.2011.01691.x Siefert, K., & Pimlott, S. (2001). Improving Pregnancy Outcome during Imprisonment: A Model Residential Care Program. Social Work, 46(2), 125-134.
“The Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison”, written by Amanda Coyne depicts the struggles of parents and family members with the emotional trauma children go through due to the absence of their loved one. The story tugs the heart strings of readers with its descriptive account of Mother’s Day in a minimum security federal prison. Coyne describes the human emotions and truly gives an accurate account of what being in a visitation room is like. “The Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison” makes the reader question the criminal justice system and convinces him or her to adjust their way of thinking towards the definition of criminalization through the logos, pathos, and ethos demonstrated throughout the text.
Across the country the ratio of male inmates to women is huge. According to “Criminal Justice a brief introduction” by Frank Schmalleger It states that the ratio that for every 15 male inmates there is only one female. But that doesn’t mean that the number of female inmates aren’t rapidly increasing. Even though there are similarities within both men and women’s prisons they are still in ways different.
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
Women in Prison. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics Varnam, Steve. Our prisons are a crime (reforming the prison system). Editorial. Christianity Today 21 June 1993
Thompson, P., & Harm, N. (2000). PARENTING FROM PRISON: Helping Children and Mothers. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing , 61-81.
Thomson recognizes that this thought experiment has a very limited application – specifically to those instances where a pregnancy is the result of coercion or violence. In the sec...
Kreager, Derek A., Ross L. Matsueda, and Elena A. Erosheva. 2010. “Motherhood and Criminal Desistance in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods.” Criminology 48:221–58.
The proliferation of prison overcrowding has been a rising concern for the U.S. The growing prison population poses considerable health and safety risks to prison staffs and employees, as well as to inmates themselves. The risks will continue to increase if no immediate actions are taken. Whereas fighting proliferation is fundamentally the duty of the U.S. government, prison overcrowding has exposed that the U.S. government will need to take measures to combat the flaws in the prison and criminal justice system. Restructuring the government to combat the danger of prison overcrowding, specifically in California, thus requires reforms that reestablishes the penal codes, increases the state’s budget, and develops opportunities for paroles to prevent their return to prison. The following context will examine and discuss the different approaches to reduce the population of state prisons in California in order to avoid prison overcrowding.
Glaze, Lauren E and Maruschak, Laura M. “Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children.” BureauofJusticeStatistics.gov, Bureau of Justice Statistics. 8 Aug. 2008: 1. PDF File.
How people mature into grownups is directly affected by the moments they experience as children and young adults. Most of what children learn happens at home through their parents. Estimates indicate that more than 1.3 million children in the United States have mothers who are in jail, prison, or on parole, and most affected children are less than 10 years old (Mumola as cited in; Poehlmann). That information leads into the research question, what are the effects incarcerated mothers have on their children? Do those children develop and mature just as their peers do? I hypothesize that: the offspring of incarcerated mothers are more at risk for intellectual problems than their peers.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001. In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc...
Parental incarceration can affect many aspects of a child’s life, including emotional and behavioral well-being, family stability and financial circumstances. The growing number of children with an incarcerated parent represents one of the most significant collateral consequences of the record prison population in the U.S. Children who have an incarcerated parent require support from local, state, and federal systems to serve their needs. Kids pay both the apparent and hidden costs while their loved one serves out sentences in jail or prison.
There have been many questions raised if the nurseries programs were fair but “the number of women incarcerated in state prisons in the United States (US) has dramatically increased in the past 20 years, and 70% of these women are the mothers of minor children, as of the last Bureau of Justice estimates” (Mumola, 2000). “Allowing women to parent their children within correctional facilities in the US may be “one of the most controversial debates surrounding the imprisonment of women” (Bel...
The United States has the largest population of female prisoners. Roughly four to seven percent of women enter prison pregnant each year. Some of these women don’t know that they are pregnant until two weeks after their incarceration when they are forced to have a mandatory health evaluation, i...
“The Rights of Pregnant Women.” NARAL Pro-Choice America. 24 March 2004. <http://www.naral.org/Issues/pregnantwomen/> {unrestricted; internet publication}