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Issues in Criminal Justice (JF)
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Mothers and Criminal Justice |
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Page 1 of 3 By Pat Nolan|Published Date: May 06, 2009
As we celebrate Mothers Day, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the pivotal role mothers play in the families of the incarcerated. Whether it is as caretaker for the children of an adult who is incarcerated, as the "breadwinner" who helps support children while their parent is on the inside, or as a loving presence and shoulder to cry on during prison visits, mothers play a vital role in holding families together during incarceration.
 Correctional policies can strengthen the role of families, healing any hurts and reconciling differences so that the family is stronger and prepared to face the challenges of the transition from prison to home. However, prison policies and prison officials' attitudes can also devastate the family during incarceration. Placing an incarcerated parent hundreds of miles from his or her children, charging outrageously high telephone rates, severely restricting visitation hours, or setting aside inadequate space for family visits shred the bonds that have held a prisoner's family through tough times. These destructive policies make it less likely that the family will remain intact to the end of the sentence, thus depriving a returning inmate of the natural support system of the family.
God established the family as the basic unit of our society. While not every family is healthy and functional, the overwhelming majority of families have much strength that a returning offender can draw on. It is worth making a sustained effort to repair and reconcile family members during incarceration so that the offender has a healthy, functioning family to help him or her take the first difficult steps from prison to freedom. Family members are the most likely and the most reliable help for returning prisoners.
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