The painful reality of an incarcerated mother

Many of us will celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend by remembering or being present for the women who raised us, or our families. But for the more than 190,000 women locked up in the United States this weekend, there will be no celebration.

Nearly 60 percent of these women serving prison sentences were the primary caregivers of their minor children before sentencing. Too often, a prison sentence tears them away from family ties and contact with their children, while separating their children from a vital source of emotional and financial support. State women’s prisons are often located in rural areas, where transportation options are limited, and families find it difficult to get there.

As a result, families have very few in-person visits and rely on the mail, or pay high prices for phone calls and video contacts. Compounding the lack of connection, women in many state prisons cannot even hold and cherish a card or drawing sent by their children. Many prisons have done away with actual mail and now use vendors to intercept, scan and destroy all mail, delivering poor-quality printouts of the original letter to inmate recipients weeks later for a fee.

In addition to women sentenced to prison, more than 2.4 million women spend at least one day in prison every year, and 80 percent of them are mothers of children under the age of 18. And more than 60 percent of the women in our nation’s prisons are presumed innocent and awaiting trial, imprisoned because of poverty and the inability to purchase their freedom by posting bail.

Children whose mothers are incarcerated in local jails often fare no better than those whose mothers are in state prisons: Some prisons have banned in-person visits entirely to require that all visits be via paid video, not because of COVID, but to improve their bottom line enlarge . A 2015 study found that 74 percent of prisons had banned in-person visits after video visits were introduced. Even when women can visit their children in person, prison visits are often done through a plexiglass barrier. Women cannot hold, hug, touch or kiss their children.

Although there are far more men in prison than women in the US, the number of women in prison has doubled that of men over the past four decades. Although the overall number of people in jails and prisons has declined since 2009, women have fared worse than men in 35 states. Women and families of color are disproportionately affected by this increase. Black and Native American/Alaska Native women are incarcerated at double their share of the female population in the United States.

Women often become entangled in the criminal justice system as they try to cope with poverty, limited access to child care, underemployment or unemployment, unstable housing, and physical and mental health problems. They are thrown into a legal system that criminalizes survival behaviors such as selling drugs or sex work, and a policy that charges and arrests individuals for being present when crimes are committed by others, “aiding and abetting” others, or fighting back against domestic violence . A study in California found that 93 percent of women in state prison for murdering a spouse were abused by the person they killed, and in two-thirds of those cases the murder occurred while they were trying to kill themselves or their children to protect.

Incarcerated women have high levels of histories of physical and sexual abuse, trauma, mental health issues, and substance use. While in prison, women are more likely than incarcerated men to experience sexual abuse or harassment by prison staff, and experience serious psychological distress due to confinement and prison conditions. Treatment in prisons for mental health issues, substance abuse disorders and trauma is often non-existent. Healthcare for physical medical conditions or pregnancy is often limited at best: last year, we learned through our lawsuit that the Arizona Department of Corrections was inducing labor in pregnant incarcerated people against their will. This came after we documented inadequate prenatal and postpartum care for women in Arizona prisons in 2019, including a woman with serious mental illness who gave birth alone, in the toilet of her cell, in a maximum custody facility.

So what can we do to honor incarcerated women and families? First, we can financially support the incredible work of public funds that help free mothers and bring them home to their children and families. Second, we can support criminal justice reform policies to end mass incarceration.

The National Bail Out is a Black-led, Black-focused collective of organizers and advocates working to abolish pretrial detention and mass incarceration. They have collaborated with a variety of other groups, including Southerners on New Ground (SONG), to create the tactical mass rescue operation for #FreeBlackMamas to acknowledge the reality that female incarceration disproportionately affects Black women. They work with partner organizations to arrange bail for incarcerated women throughout the year, but especially before Mother’s Day. This year, in lieu of (or in addition to) sending flowers to your favorite moms, you can donate to National Bail Out or the 18 Black-led organizations they partner with across the country to help #FreeBlackMamas.

We must also address the root causes of women’s incarceration in this country, which is often due to poverty. While drug or property crimes make up about half of the charges for which women are in prison, policies should also focus on reducing the so-called “violent” crimes that women often commit in response to violence and abuse.

When we lock women up, we cause irreparable harm to them, their families and all of our communities.