What is mother's day for women in prison?

Happy Mother’s Day. Did you know that over half of women in prison and 80% of women who go to jail each year are mothers? Right now, nearly 150,000 mothers are locked up in the U.S., separated from their children. This report from the Prison Policy Initiative runs through some of the extreme harms caused by family separation by the criminal justice system. How did we get so comfortable destroying families over thefts, drug crimes, and minor assaults (not to mention probation violations)? Here is a pretty damning excerpt from the report:

Keeping parents out of jail and prison is critical to protect children from the known harms of parental incarceration, including:

Traumatic loss marked with feelings of social stigma and shame and trauma-related stress

More mental health problems and elevated levels of anxiety, fear, loneliness, anger, and depression

Less stability and greater likelihood of living with grandparents, family friends, or in foster care

Difficulty meeting basic needs for families with a member in prison or jail

Lower educational achievement, impaired teacher-student relationships, and more problems with behavior, attention deficits, speech and language, and learning disabilities

Problems getting enough sleep and maintaining a healthy diet

More mental and physical health problems later in life

And moreover, in a 50-state survey of state prison systems' healthcare policies, the Prison Policy Initiative found that many states fail to meet even basic standards of care for expectant mothers. 55,000 pregnant women enter jail each year.

What can we do about this? A good place to start is by supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women to organize and build solutions. Check out the National Council organizes incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls. Among other great pieces of work, they are collaborating with Movement for Family Power to change the federal law that terminates parental rights based on incarceration.