We are witnessing premeditated cruelty by the U.S. government as 2,342 children were torn away from their mothers and fathers.
Our outrage and protests at hearing the sobs of children and their mothers have caused even President Donald Trump to end the separation of parents from children.
Unfortunately, there is no outrage when every day, children are taken from their incarcerated mothers, even when a newborn baby is taken from their mother at birth. The New York Times (“Family Separation: It’s a Problem for U.S. Citizens, Too,”June 22) reported, “A quarter of a million American children are estimated to have a single mother in jail, where most detainees are awaiting trial or committed a minor offense, according to the most recent data from the mid-2000s.”
To translate the previous sentence: in this instance, the “detainees” are women who are incarcerated because they are unable to make bail, often less than $500. These children are no more culpable than the children of the women seeking asylum on the border.
They too experience the trauma of separation. They too may end up in foster care. They too may be separated for months, years or even a lifetime.
Many of the children of incarcerated mothers experience behavioral and mental health challenges, homelessness, low school performance and future interactions with the criminal justice system. Despite all the odds, some children succeed even with everything stacked against them.
In Massachusetts, an alternative to jail for primary caretakers of dependent children was incorporated into the recently passed “omnibus criminal justice” law. This allows judges to determine when to sentence a primary caretaker to community-based alternatives where they can care for their family, advance their lives and deal with the consequences of their conviction.
For this to become a reality, prosecutors, judges and criminal defense attorneys must work together to implement this new law and begin to end the costly and damaging separation of mothers from their children.
Lois Ahrens
Northampton
The writer is the founding director of The Real Cost of Prisons Project, a national organization based in Northampton.