3 Discussion Question, 3 Student Responses, 1 short English Assignment

CRJ 410: Corrections

Week 9 | Discussion

Part 1:

"Women in Prison" Please respond to the following:

From the e-Activity and the text, discuss the pros and cons of women raising babies behind bars. Examine whether you believe the benefits outweigh the potential harm to the children growing up behind bars. Next, discuss whether you believe men should have the same child bonding opportunities? Provide a rationale for your response.

Part 2: Student Response

Vanessa Williams

RE: Week 9 | Discussion

Pros:

As the mother has her child with her in prison, it could become an incentive for the mother's behavior to improve, which could lead to being released early.

Allowing infants and young children to stay with their imprisoned mothers may also increase results for the mothers. It has been noted that mothers, who are allowed to take care of their children after birth, actually have a lower recidivism rate.

Bonding with the child will help the baby in many ways. The child could be a motivation for the mother to be and do her best while in prison. She could learn to make better choices as she focuses on following her sentence orders.

Cons:

The baby will be surrounded by other inmates. Some of those inmates may be in prison for harming children.

The Children may not remember the bars, but society will not forget.

Trying to mother behind bars will not allow the mother to receive treatment program's educational needs they need for release.

The child may have hard feelings about the mother when they grow up and find out that they began life in jail.

If the child becomes ill, his or her welfare will not be the main concern of the correctional officers, they are there to manage the mothers, not the babies.

My thought:

There are some strong points to babies being behind bars, however, the benefits pay for themselves down the line and provide incarcerated mothers with better health care, but they will also receive the rehabilitative programs necessary to succeed in society once leaving prison. The benefits do not lessen the possible emotional harm that could do to children being raised behind prison bars. It seems the child is being sentenced to prison for simply coming into the world. The mother behind bars cannot give the child the full benefits of motherhood. The child will learn to be ashamed for something he or she had no control over. Society will even place additional labels on the child which will more than likely lead them back to a life behind bars, which may seem normal to them. I know firsthand that babies need their mothers, however, just like mothers who give birth outside of prisons are unable to care for their babies; those babies should be given to someone who wants and can care for them. I know of a young woman who had two different babies in prison. Both babies were given to her extended family members to care for. She intended to get her babies after being released; however, she did not get her babies. She did not change the way she lived before prison and her children would not have benefited from the life chosen by the mother. The children are fine. I do not agree with babies being raised behind bars!