A Look At The Prison Programs Where Incarcerated Mothers Are Allowed To Live With Their Children

Holmes’s two children (she has an older child born in 2021) likely won’t be with their mother for a significant portion of their formative years – even though two years have already been shaved off her sentence. Other incarcerated mothers aren’t as lucky, and often face alienation from their children as a result of being separated or even termination of their parental rights. 

But a relatively new program for incarcerated moms advocates for their parenting to continue behind bars, which is far from the norm for women serving out prison sentences. These programs, which exist at women’s prisons throughout the U.S. and Canada, are for non-violent offenders who don’t pose significant risks to themselves, their children, or other inmates. Here’s a look at the prison programs where incarcerated mothers are allowed to live with their children.

Mother and Child Share a Sentence

Since 1980, the number of women in prison has risen drastically, about 700%. In 1980, that number sat at around 26,000 inmates – now, there are over 200,000 serving sentences. Many anti-incarceration campaigns and lobbying groups note that the number of incarcerated women lessened during the Covid-19 pandemic. But that doesn’t indicate that the number of women who commit crimes decreased, only that they were less likely to serve time.

Women commit less violent crimes than men do, and their crimes often fall under the property or drug offense category. For some, a drug offense or robbery as a teenager doesn’t necessarily mean the start of a laundry list of crimes that will eventually force them to do significant time. But it’s apparent by the sheer number of women serving time – a number which has only increased – that, for many, this isn’t their first or last offense.

Approximately 58% of incarcerated women have children under the age of 18. 

Approximately 58% of inmates, over half the number of incarcerated women, have children under the age of 18. Thousands more are on parole and face potential reentry into the prison system if they reoffend. For those children whose parents are convicted criminals, that means sharing their sentences with them and having their futures tied to the possibility of their mother reoffending.

Some may be fortunate enough to have their fathers or other relatives like grandparents nearby to raise them while their mother serves time. But for others, their father is also in prison or is uninvolved in their life, and that means the foster care system, which they may not get to leave even after their mother is released.

It’s an extremely bleak situation for young children who have one or even both parents incarcerated. These children are more likely to develop behavioral issues and face potential mental health problems, at a higher rate than those who are children of divorce. Though our focus is often on the incarcerated inmate, there’s an unseen impact and a toll that is taken on the children whose future well-being hangs in the balance of their mother’s potential recidivism.

Are Residential Parenting Programs Making a Difference?

Some mothers are able to serve their sentence at one of eight prisons in the U.S. that have what are called residential parenting programs, or RPPs. These programs are open to only a certain number of women who fit specific criteria. Many of those criteria have to do with the individual’s specific offense and their sentence – ideally, the inmate is able to have her child and be with that child for the first 30 months of their life, and then mother and baby are able to leave the prison together.

It sounds a little insane to let babies live in a prison, but for these inmates, they’re not subject to the traditional cell we probably think of. At the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) in Gig Harbor, Washington, inmates who are part of the RPP have their own rooms, which they can decorate, and are able to keep toys for their kids. They have rooms with doors that lock and communal kitchens where they cook meals together. The women at WCCW still follow a strict inmate routine. After waking up and cooking breakfast for their babies, they take their children to the in-prison daycare, and then go to assigned tasks, such as adult education programs where they can learn trade skills to use once they’re released. 

Inmates in RPPs are living a different reality than most. But their privileges are subject to strict rules and guidelines, which means many inmates don’t qualify for the program even if they’re pregnant. Their applications depend on things like their security risk, mental health records, good behavior, drug testing, and the length of their sentence. Many RPPs are ideally designed to keep both mom and baby together for as long as she’s incarcerated, which lowers the chance that the child will be sent outside the prison to live with relatives or sent to foster care.

These programs, on a bare minimum, enable mom and baby to stay connected through the newborn age to toddlerhood, and furthermore, they encourage the mothers to develop their parenting skills by maintaining the responsibilities of parenthood. Moms are able to breastfeed for longer, and they serve out their sentence while still being able to care for their children. An estimated 3-5% of women serve time in jail while pregnant, and thousands more are at some stage of pregnancy when they come into prison.

There isn’t a lot of research or hard numbers on the success of these programs, but the numbers we do have are hopeful. One study found that the children born into RPPs had similar attachment styles compared to children their age raised outside of prison. For inmates who participated in the RPP at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York state – a program which was created for inmates in 1901 – they were 13% less likely than the general inmate population to reoffend. 

Being able to raise their child while serving out their sentence gives inmates a tangible idea of what they’re fighting for. 

Advocates of RPPs say that an inmate being able to raise their child while serving out their sentence gives them a tangible idea of what they’re fighting for. It allows them to prioritize their children while paying their debt to society, and ideally sets them up for success to re-enter their communities once they’re released.

But critics say RPPs are a drain on the taxpayer, and even unfair and unconstitutional to the children. The Bedford Hills RPP, for example, requires an additional $176,000 to operate their daycare, which adds to the cost of housing inmates. There are also concerns as to the health and safety of the baby, who has a more delicate immune system compared to an adult. One law professor argues that it’s cruel and inhumane for the baby to form a bond with a mother who isn’t a “good long-term prospect” as a parent.

For social workers and female incarceration awareness groups, any potential disadvantages aren’t on par with the obvious advantages. “A baby doesn’t know it’s in prison,” says one spokesperson. “A baby knows it’s with its mother.”

The Future of Incarceration

Ask the average young adult who self-identifies as progressive about their feelings about incarceration, and they’re likely to say that we should abolish the system altogether. In recent years specifically, there has been a larger dialogue about integrating more socially-focused, mental health services for men and women who commit crimes. 

But there’s still the question of how we hold people accountable for their crimes. A kumbaya utopia that will likely never exist isn’t the answer to this question. Upholding the rule of law and a pre-civilizational responsibility to our fellow man in society means that we punish people for their offenses, however uncomfortable we may be with that.

But these residential parenting programs could definitely be a step in the right direction. There are genuine criticisms, to be sure, but immediately severing the mother-baby bond once he or she has been delivered isn’t the answer. When we insist on this separation and give no assistance whatsoever to mother or child, we’re setting them both up for failure and disappointment.

An ancient theologian once said that the love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together, and if this is true, we have to regard the bond between mother and child as no less important. But in our society’s rejection of marriage and fatherhood and the acceptance of a “tolerant” age, we’re faced with the cultural catastrophe currently staring us in the face: entire generations of individuals with absent parents, leading to poor formation of identity, trouble bonding, and terrible relationships that thrive on transactional means.

These programs aren’t for every inmate or for every family, but when we bring back an acknowledgment of the fundamental strength of the family and the responsibility parents have to their children, we ideally set up our kids to become fully-formed, healthier individuals.

Closing Thoughts

Vulnerable, precious children don’t deserve to pay for the crimes of their parents, and when that payment means severing the maternal bond in place of less favorable alternatives, that punishment becomes needlessly harsh and unjust. Residential parenting programs aren’t perfect, and they don’t outright prevent women from reoffending or from their children growing up to offend, but they’re a viable option that should be explored if our society really wants to undertake an overhaul of the criminal justice system.

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