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57 Fed. Probation 41 (1993)
Visitors to Women's Prisons in California: An Exploratory Study

handle is hein.journals/fedpro57 and id is 319 raw text is: Visitors to Women's Prisons in California: An Exploratory Study By LISA G. FULLER* T HE STATISTICS describing female involvement in the criminal justice system have staggering consequences for families and society as a whole. Women accounted for 12 percent of the nearly 4.1 million adults in the care or custody of corrections agencies at the end of 1989 (Bureau of Justice Statis- tics, 1991). The total growth of the female prison popu- lation between 1980 and 1989 was 27,136, an increase of 202 percent. Because more than 76 percent of women in prison are mothers (BJS, 1991), the devas- tating impact on families and particularly children must be of immediate concern to policymakers in the criminal justice and social welfare fields. Literature on families of offenders points to the sig- nificant and unique role that the family can play in the rehabilitation of the offender. A review of empirical findings on the subject suggests that strong family ties can result in several benefits including decreased re- cidivism rates, improved mental health of inmates and other family members, and an increased probability that families will reunite following the inmates' release (Hairston, 1988; Kiser, 1991; Jorgensen, Hernandez, & Warren, 1986; Holt & Miller, 1972). As Hairston states: Families provide concrete resources such as money and cloth- ing to the prisoner, influence his or her help-seeking behavior ... and provide him or her with information about life outside the walls and family activities. The ongoing maintenance of these networks mitigates the effects of the institution, sustains the prisoner during imprisonment, and supports the transition from prison to community. .. (1988, p. 50). While acting as a crucial source of support for the prisoner, the family member suffers the physical and emotional loss of the prisoner, once present partner, sibling, daughter, or friend. One study documenting family hardships found that, [flor most inmates who face a prison term, their families will also begin a sentence of physical, social and psychological hardship (Jorgensen, Hernandez, & Warren, 1986, p. 42). In addition, prisoners' families are often penalized by society, perceived as having brought the problem on themselves. The personal loss in conjunction with the stigma attached to having a relative in prison is a burden many of these families bear. Children who lose a parent to prison suffer multiple problems associated with that loss. Disruption of at- *Ms. Fuller is a human services consultant. She wishes to thank Peter Breen and the staff of Centerforce, Inc., and Eileen Gambrill of the University of California at Berkeley for their support in this project. She also wishes to acknow- ledge that this study was completed with the cooperation of the California Department of Corrections. tachment bonds is particularly dangerous between the ages of 6 months and 4 years (Black, 1992). McGowan and Blumenthal (1978) found that children of female prisoners have emotional, psychological, and physical problems. Behavioral problems include a decline in school performance and aggressive and antisocial act- ing out (Black, 1992; Jorgensen, Hernandez, & War- ren, 1986). According to Dr. Denise Johnston at the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, these problems are actually adaptive and normative be- havior responses to the trauma sustained by these children (Johnston, 1992). The trauma is magnified when a child loses his or her mother to prison because disruptions are more likely to occur in all aspects of the child's life. These changes jolt the foundations of the child's life: the child's primary caretaker, place of residence, and school (Black, 1992). Why Punish the Children, a national study that was originally conducted in 1978 and recently dupli- cated in 1992, looked specifically at the impact of the child welfare and criminal justice systems on children of incarcerated women. Both studies found that be- cause the mother is the target of the systems' efforts, the children are ignored and inadvertently punished. With regard to corrections, one major systemic problem is aptly summarized: Every component of the correc- tional system is oriented toward the punishment, cor- rection, and rehabilitation of offenders as individuals, not as persons with familial roles and responsibilities (McGowan & Blumenthal, 1978, p. 2). This narrow approach to corrections minimizes and in some cases extinguishes the role of children in the imprisoned women's lives. For various reasons including budget constraints, child welfare agencies have not helped this population and have, at times, penalized children through multiple placements and sibling separation (McGowan & Blumenthal, 1978; Bloom & Steinhart, 1992). The breach created by a mother's incarceration is difficult to cross considering the multiple obstacles that a potential visitor must contend with in his or her effort to bring a child for a visit. Most prisons are located in remote areas that are inaccessible by public transporta- tion (Jorgensen, Hernandez, & Warren, 1986). The distance makes it impossible for many low income families to afford the trip's cost in both time and financial expense. Because adults rightly hesitate to take children on long trips, the mother/child relation- ship is particularly affected by proximity of home Vol. 57, No. 4

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