By way of the great Piper Kerman, and maybe as a P.S. about universal preschool, a new report on kids with parents in prison got me. Above, a chart showing why kids in prison end up not seeing their parents. Below, a chart about barriers expected to keep prisoners apart from their kids after being released. It's interesting to see that "need to rebuild relationship" and "none" are almost equal.
(PDF: "Children of Incarcerated Parents in New York State," New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services)
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??? What is the point here? Should we incarcerate the kids with their criminal parent? Should we get rid of laws that lock up people for crimes? Once more I am a little baffled by some good meaning people who want to blame everything on the "system".
Do you blame evolution for providing us with a trigger finger? Is Ols or Ford to blame for our ills?
Please enlighten me to the actual point of these charts.
Paul, just wondering: Are you asking me to tell you what you should think?
No. I was hoping for an insight into what you think,I guess.
The way I see it is that any parent that commits a crime that gets them jail time is not very concerned about their kids to begin with.
If we want to reduce this down to a conversation about what constitutes a crime worthy of jail time then I am on board.
My parents saved a newspaper from N.C. with an article showing a public official stealing public funds and his punishment was to pay back the money,no prison time. There next to that report is one where an elderly black man was caught picking veggies in someones garden and he got six months hard labor.
I guess I just like to understand where someone is coming from when they publish something.
Prisoners per 100,000 people:
1. USA 730
2. St. Kitts and Nevis 649
7. Cuba 510
8. Russia 502
29. Iran 333
55. Israel 236
83. China 170
132. Canada 114
207. Pakistan 40
215. India 30
Because American Exceptionalism?
Paul, with respect, I don't see how you can say this:
And then this:
without understanding that the chart shows that same elderly man isn't going to be able to see his family for one of the reasons listed. It's sad. It's also detrimental to rehabilitation for a prisoner to be isolated from his family.
Your own post shows that not all prisoners are equal in their criminality yet all are being punished by isolation the same.
You got me 80's girl. I suggest we would be better off discussing the inequity of the justice system than trying to act like prisons are too prison like.
By the way JS do you have the figures on repeat offenders? Could it be that countries that treat prisoners like criminals encourage them not to return for more?
Could it be that letting crooks have TVs,cell phones,computers and recreation centers removes the incentive to stay clean?
Me, I was just going for part of the problem with the statistics Laura posted, was that we have so many prisoners affected by these issues. Our (often mandatory) sentencing laws are to blame, as well as unenlightened drug laws. And then there's the for-profit prison industry, which lobbies state legislators to send them more 'customers'.
All of that came to mind when I saw the charts in the original post. (Sorry, I don't have anything on recidivism.)
Good points ,thanks.
I live in a rural area of Arkansas and there is a 600 inmate prison in our town. We recently started a program called Storybook Project to help keep the prisoners connected to their families - especially to their children. We purchase children's books and volunteers go to the prison, help the prisoner to select a book their child would enjoy, and have the prisoner read the book into a tape recorder (for cds). Then we mail the book and the recording to the child.
This helps not only keep the child in touch with their parent, but also encourages reading.
If these kids aren't hard-working enough to be born to good parents, F 'em! Ayn Rand says to make them pull themselves up by their own diaper strings!
Paul, for me, it's just that the report got to me. It's painful to think about kids missing their parents, and vice versa, in the short run. That's mostly personal, I guess. In the long run, in terms of policy, it seems important that we understand the effects and side-effects of our criminal justice system.
It angers me even more to see so called social services remove kids from their homes for petty reasons. They take the kids if the parents are not able to provide them with steak and potatoes it seems at times. I was lucky to live in a good home but I wonder if todays society would have removed me from it when pop belted me for screwing up or even if they discovered we had no TV and actually were required to do chores!
The Bureau of Prisons acknowledges significant benefits of visitation both to the inmate and to the families. Inmates who maintain connections with their families and receive regular visits are easier to manage because they do not want that privilege taken away. Children don't feel as abandoned by the missing parent when they know the absence isn't by choice. Reunification after incarceration is easier for children if the missing parent isn't, for all intents and purposes, a stranger to them. Risk of recitivism for the inmate decreases if the person is returning to a stable home life.
My brother is incarcerated in a federal low-security facility about 35 miles away from me. The visitation process is pretty arduous for adult family members, and very difficult for those with small children in tow. There is a lot of boring waiting around time, and the kids can't bring anything into the waiting area--no toys, books, crayons, etc. Definitely no electronic devices. I've never been processed, screened and taken to the visitation room in under an hour, and most of that time you're just sitting and waiting for your group to get called.
There are also limits to how many people may visit with an inmate at one time. On Thanksgiving, an inmate's mother came to visit with another adult female (either his wife or sister) and five young children. The prison only allows 4 visitors at a time, so they had to arrange shifts. It wasn't impossible, and the family probably should have known better, but it definitely made the holiday more stressful for the family and it was a very long day for the kids.
For me the point is that, while the BoP's stated policy is to facilitate visits and encouraging families to remain connected, they designed a system that makes the visit as cumbersome and unpleasant as possible.
Thank you for this letter, Gatorgrad.
This is one of the biggest driving factors in gun violence. There is zero rehabilitation going on in prisons. Rather, it's worse, prisoners learn how to be better criminals. When they get out, they have little economic recourse other than to go back into a life of crime.
Sweden does things differently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4L6-0WRfSA
What do you suggest?Basket weaving class? The left at times seems to get as extremist as far right wingers. I would think the best way to rehabilitate a crook would be to make sure he knows he is in prison. If he loses his TV and his ability to do as he pleases he might actually fear the price of doing the crime. Yet some people want to turn prison into a day care facility with perks. Were you not watching when several reports showed how many criminals are actually running their criminal enterprises from their jail cells? You want to do what with them? Maybe force them to say ten hail Marys before being fed? Early parole if they accept Christ? Two years off for getting a GED?
The incentive to do right is that doing so is its own reward.You either get that or you don't.