An excerpt from what looks to be a tremendous book about children of incarcerated parents is featured in the San Francisco Chronicle. The story details the struggles of a young man whose mother is in prison; he’s just one of the 2.4 million American children who have an incarcerated parents.
Friday visits were Carl’s favorite. The prison held a “family day” in the yard and he could beat his mother at basketball, and show her his back flips. Sundays “hurt more than fire — knowing I had to leave at a certain time, and she’s not coming with me.” As the visiting hours drew to a close, Carl’s neck would begin to twitch, or he would find himself falling asleep, as if his body wanted to spare him the imminent parting. Often, Gleneisha would have to physically lead her older brother from the visiting room.
Christmas at FCI Dublin was particularly grueling. Each year there was a tree with presents below it, but beneath the bright paper, the boxes were empty. Carl remembers lining up to sit on the lap of the jailhouse Santa, who would ask each child what he wanted for Christmas. Carl would repeat the same answer he’d heard the children in front of him offer — he wanted his mother home. “You shoulda already knew that,” he would scoff as Santa handed him a candy cane, silently adding Santa Claus to the list of authorities who could no longer be trusted.
The United States has one of the highest incarcerations rates in the world, with few rehabilitative options and sentencing guidelines that often limit judges from imposing modified punishments. The “War on Drugs” and archaic drug laws in particular have packed prisons with often nonviolent criminals serving absurdly long sentences. New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws are a prime example of the racism and overzealousness that permeates the drug war; in other parts of the country, this can be seen pretty clearly in drug laws which require tougher penalties for crack cocaine than the powder version, despite the two being the same drug (the racism being that inner-city blacks tend to have higher crack cocaine usage, while more well-to-do whites are more likely to use powder cocaine).
Our incarceration culture has been hurting families for generations, and it’s not getting any better. Throwing drug users and small-time drug deals in jail isn’t helping anyone.
Thanks to Dad for sending me this story.
UPDATE: Sentencing Law and Policy, a great blog that my dad told me about (he’s really on top of it this week, huh?), has more from a recent AP story:
Women are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. prison population, a trend fueled by their growing involvement in drug crimes and by longer sentences in general. But once behind bars, their needs are often overlooked because of tight budgets and the attention given to sex offenders and death-row inmates, advocates say.
Prison and jail officials from around the country are to gather this weekend in Bloomington, Minnesota, to address the rising number of incarcerated women — more than 180,000 in prisons and jails nationwide, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics….
Since 1995, the number of women in state and federal prisons has swelled more than 50 percent, outstripping an increase of about 32 percent for men. Female jail populations are growing even faster.
Most are mothers. Between 66 and 90 percent have children, depending on the type of institution. When a mother is locked up, her children usually end up in foster care or living with a relative other than their father. By contrast, most children with imprisoned fathers stay with their mothers.