Babies can serve time with their incarcerated moms

[dad2bandm]

Babies can serve time with their incarcerated moms

Babies can serve time with their incarcerated moms, rules B.C. judge | CTV News

Interesting spin on "best interests of the child".

[arabian]

This would be for Provincial jail time. Federal inmates are those who are serving 2 yrs +.

[Rioe]

I thought there was a federal Mother-Child Program as well. I may be out of date.

But why wouldn't it be better for an infant to be raised by an incarcerated mother than by CAS and foster care?

[involveddad75]

What about the father who isn't in jail? Would it not be better to have the child raised by the father.

[involveddad75]

On that note, why don't they have the same program for fathers who are in jail?

[arabian]

Correctional Service of Canada - FORUM on Corrections Research

I think the reason parents can't have babies in prison has alot to do with the logistics involved. Male inmates generally are housed in prisons with general population and pod-type cells. While there are some women's prisons which have houses in the prison compound as well as maximum security pods and general population, it would still be difficult for a female inmate to care for the infant in the traditional sense.

Remember there is a difference between Federal prisons and Provincial jails.

[Rioe]

What about the father who isn't in jail? Would it not be better to have the child raised by the father.

Well, sure, but the kind of woman who gets involved in criminal activity is not usually the kind who knows who the father is, or hangs out with the kind of men who want to be good fathers. In all likelihood, the father in question is probably unknown, out of the picture, or in jail himself.

[MS Mom]

When I was in college we had a guest speaker from Elizabeth Fry society who spoke on this. They used breastfeeding as the reason behind this push. At that time (this was 11+ years ago) they stated they had volunteers that brought pumped breast milk from the jail to the foster home. Their ultimate goal was to allow women to have infants in jail with them.

I was actually noticeably pregnant at the time and the speaker thought I would inherently agree with their mandate. But, I had to admit, the whole thought of it troubled me for a variety of reasons.