The men have failed
By Brandon Astor Jones
All over the world in ever increasing numbers, women are going to prison. In Australia, over 40% of the women in or about to go to prison are single parents of small children. Of the 300 women now in NSW's jails, no fewer than 10 will soon be required to give up their newborn babies within seven days of their births. Those women will not even get a chance to bond with their babies thus producing often very subtle emotional traumas for both mother and infant that may come back to haunt society in the future.
Last year 72 women entered the prison system in Georgia (a south-eastern US state) while they were pregnant; 45 of them gave birth to their babies in prison. New York is the only US state that has in- prison nurseries, but there are only three such facilities, and the babies are allowed to stay in them only for one year. The mother has little or no control over what happens to the child thereafter.
Why does this happen? That's a question more than a few good people are asking these days. At a recent US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, a former prisoner, Jean Harris, made a very good point when she said, "Babies don't know they are in prison. They're not aware they can't go any place else. They know they are with their mothers, and that's where they want to be."
The NSW commissioner for corrective services has ordered yet another statistical analysis to determine how many prisoners are mothers. I'm in a cell on Georgia's death row, and I know how many women there are in Australia's prisons and jails who are single parents of small children, so how come the commissioner doesn't know?
It is this kind of know-nothing, do-nothing attitude that has made NSW's Mulawa jail the violent place it is today, second only to Long Bay. Yet Mulawa is where most of those new mothers with babies will be going despite the fact that 95% of them have no history of violent behaviour. Dr Patricia Easteal, of the Australian Institute of Criminology, said of the jail, "It is very archaic ... the atmosphere in Mulawa tends to promote violence."
Georgia's newly appointed deputy commissioner of corrections, Cassandra Newkirk, said, "It's hard to teach parenting skills if the children are not there to practise with". I completely agree. Moreover, Newkirk supports the establishment of community-based settings wherein non-violent mothers would be able to bond with their babies while attending parenting skills classes and substance abuse and vocational development instruction.
Having spent 14 years in Georgia's prison system, it's my opinion that Harris, Easteal and Newkirk are sending the right message to the men who have been operating the world's prisons, especially those holding women who have babies and children. Their message is: men have failed miserably in the business of prison operations and prisoner rehabilitation. Let women with real vision run these hell holes for a much needed change. They sure couldn't make them any worse!
One more thing: Many men in prison are single parents too. I hope that will be recognised — soon.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]