Mothers & Prisoners

Almost 60 percent of all women in prisons and 80 percent of women in jails are mothers. Many times mothers are the primary caretakers or single mothers meaning incarceration will cause a child to be with no support. Often times, women are incarcerated for non-violent, low level offenses, including drug and property offenses stemming from poverty and substance use disorders. Additionally, many women are incarcerated awaiting trial as they are unable to afford bail. The average sentence for women in state prisons is 9 years for a drug conviction and 8 years for theft offenses which is a significant portion of a child's life. When one's mother is incarcerated, contact is very limited and when given the chance to visit, there are a lot of painful, limiting, and confusing laws for children including security scans and having to sit at a distance.

Incarceration punishes more than just individuals, entire families suffer effects even after a sentence is over, as even after release, many formerly incarcerated women face high rates of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. 1.3 million people living in the US have been separated from their mothers before their 18th birthday due to incarceration and 5 million children have a parent incarcerated. A parent, and specifically a mothers imprisonment, can have devastating effects on a child, including a higher chance of entering the criminal justice system themselves. Parental incarceration can have a lot of other effects including trauma related stress, less stability, lower educational achievement, fear, loneliness, depression, and a multitude of other mental and physical health problems. Additionally, it plays a large role in the number of children entering foster care. Black, poor, and rural children are disproportionately affected by maternal imprisonment.

Many women in jail are also expectant mothers. 58,000 people every year are pregnant when they enter local prisons or jails. Being in prison, pregnant women are not provided basic standards of appropriate care. For example, carceral healthcare systems do not provide screening or treatment for high risk pregnancies.