Incarcerated parents need contact with their children,Oklahoma legislative panel

[Granny B]

Incarcerated parents need contact with their children, Oklahoma legislative panel says
Community-based sentencing should be considered and in-person visits and telephone calls should be allowed between incarcerated parents and their children, a legislative task force said. More than 26,000 Oklahoma children have a parent in a state prison, survey finds.
 
BY MICHAEL MCNUTT mmcnutt@opubco.com    Comment on this article 0
Published: January 5, 2012

Community-based sentencing programs should be increased and relations between state inmates and their children should be encouraged, according to findings released Wednesday by a legislative task force that looked at the issue of children of incarcerated parents.

On any given day, more than 26,000 Oklahoma children have a parent in a state prison, according to the report. That does not include children with parents jailed in county and city jails and federal correctional facilities.

“It is important for us to understand how many children are hurt by having a parent in prison so we can take action to slow the parade of children who would follow their parents' footsteps into prison,” said former Creek County Associate District Judge April Sellers White, who served as chairman of the task force.

A new survey, conducted as part of the 21-member task force's work, surveyed male and female offenders and found that nearly 3 percent of Oklahoma children have a parent in the state prison system. Child advocates and experts report that children of incarcerated parents run a higher risk of going to prison.

About 80 percent of the 26,106 children, or 21,482, have a father in state prison, according to the task force's survey. It found 4,624 had a mother in state prison.

“These are the forgotten victims of crime,” said the Rev. Stan Basler, a task force member who is director of criminal justice and mercy ministries of the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church. “It's not their fault.”

Oklahoma leads the nation in the rate of incarcerating females and is fifth in the rate of men sent to prison, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics.

“It has been our hope to work together in a way to help focus the attention of the good people of this state of Oklahoma on the children who are paying a price when parents are incarcerated and the children did nothing that they should pay for,” White said. “It has not been the position of our group that people should not be punished for their crimes. But the question for us was: What's happening with the children?”

Sheila Harbert, chief community outreach officer for Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma in Tulsa and a task force member, said her agency has taken children to several prisons to be with their mothers.

Read more: http://newsok.com/incarcerated-parents-need-contact-with-their-children-oklahoma-legislative-panel-says/article/3637535#ixzz1mIDhK2gr

I disagree!  Prison is no place for children to visit.

[Angelstorm]

Ohhhh, I don't know about this one.....

I'm not a cold hearted b*tch on this subject by any means - y'all know I have my own kids.  And, I'm certainly no psychologist.  BUT - I understand that kids need their parents - especially their mothers (generally speaking).  But, if the mother commits a crime that lands her in jail (and let's face it, courts are usually fairly leninent on mothers who have dependent children BECAUSE they have children to consider).  So, by the time they land in jail they generally have done something pretty bad. 

Hard as it is on the child - DOES the child really need the influence of that parent & their behaviour during the time they are incarcerated?  And, furthermore - by changing sentencing guidelines to allow these parents to be with their kids - are we not taking away one HUGE incentive for offender rehabilitation??  I mean - you go to jail, and you don't see your kids, is that not a huge incentive to rehabilitate?  If you go to 'jail' or whatever they're planning, and you get to be WITH your kids - what reason do you really have to not reoffend and end up back there?      Especially for mothers.....

And no - I don't think kids should be allowed to visit in jails regularly at all.

I'm not sure about any of the other parents here - but if I did something bad enough to end up incarcerated - apart for wanting to kill myself out of guilt for what I'd done to my kids - a stint in prison without them would be MORE than enough to deter me from criminal activity again.  Ever.  But then, yes - I recognise I am not like a lot of the people who end up in that situation.  What does anyone else think??

[Granny B]

I've seen what Cathy has done to her children, and it is not pretty.  If her youngest daughter had not been allowed to visit her in prison, and had not been influenced by her mother, she may have turned out differently.  Instead she is on drugs and has tried to suicide at least once.

And Cathy still harasses the older one from prison when she knew where the girl and her children lived.  Sending people to try to make her recant her testimony.  The daughter wants her mother dead.  She wrote that she went to see her in prison.  Her mother still admitted no wrongdoing, and all Cathy did was to hurt her more.

No!  Some mothers just should not ever get to see their children again.  Ever!