Serving time with Mom in prison: cruel sentence, or a child's right?
| San Jos茅, Costa Rica
From the pint-sized toilets to the colorful bedrooms and backyard filled with overturned tricycles, there鈥檚 no question children live here.
What鈥檚 less obvious is that the 38 babies and toddlers bunking with their mothers at the Vilma Curling Rivera Institutional Service Center are in prison.
Their mothers are serving time for crimes from fraud, to drug dealing, to robbery 鈥� but also devoting time to nap schedules and potty training.听As one mother makes funny faces to a scrum of giggling toddlers in the common area, another, Magela (who asked to withhold her full name for her family鈥檚 privacy), is putting her young daughter down for a nap. The walls of the bedroom are almost entirely covered by tapestries depicting children鈥檚 movie characters, like Elsa from 鈥淔rozen.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to be here with my daughter, but amid all the bad, she gives me hope,鈥� says Magela. She鈥檚 been here for six weeks with her 1-year-old daughter while awaiting sentencing on human trafficking charges.
Across Latin America and much of the world, it鈥檚 increasingly common to find mothers and their children together behind bars. Although rare in the United States, the practice stems from the perspective that young children are better off bonding with their mothers (and in some prisons, like in Bolivia, with their fathers), even if they have committed a crime. But it raises tough questions about safety, justice, and sacrifice. Should children have to "serve" a parent鈥檚 sentence, for example? Is a motherless childhood better than one in prison? And does spending time in prison at a young age encourage cycles of crime or poverty, or break them?听
Increasingly, the practice is viewed through a human rights lens 鈥� with the focus on the rights of the children.
鈥淚n prison, the presence of a child is the child鈥檚 right 鈥� to be with his mother, to breastfeed, to meet essential development needs,鈥� says Kenly Garza, assistant director of the Vilma Curling Rivera prison.
In Costa Rica, children are allowed to live with their mothers for the first three years of their lives. In Mexico, children can stay with their mothers until they are 6 years old. In Afghanistan, a child can famously languish in prison with her mother . Roughly half the countries in the world allow mothers serving a sentence to live with their children, if only for a few months, according to .
鈥淭here are some who think this is a good thing, and some who see it as bad,鈥� says Ms. Garza. 鈥淏ut in most cases, opinions are based on stereotypes. If you鈥檙e in prison, you鈥檙e automatically [labeled] a bad mother.鈥�
'I'd go crazy without her'
A young boy scrambles on the orange-tile floor, grabbing for his paper airplane, on a recent morning at Vilma Curling Rivera. Above him an eager playmate lets out a shriek trying to wiggle his way out of his high chair. Mothers and children sit along the periphery of the common area, sharing food and soft drinks, rocking babies in strollers, and some eyeing news of snow in Europe on the flat-screen TV.
Under Costa Rican law, children don鈥檛 spend their entire day in prison; they鈥檙e sent to off-site day care for several hours. Nongovernmental organizations teach mothers parenting skills and work on personal goal-setting and development.
Lady, who also asked not to use her surname, was pregnant when she was sent to prison five months ago on fraud charges. That meant living with the general prison population, who sleep in tightly squeezed rows of bunk beds. She had 50 roommates at the time. Once her now four-month-old daughter was born, she was moved into a private room with a crib, and neighbors who instantly had something in common: motherhood.
鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely nicer here,鈥� she says of the children鈥檚 area, its own building in the low-slung prison complex. 鈥淚 think I鈥檇 go crazy without her,鈥� she says of her daughter. 鈥淚 think I benefit most from having her here.鈥�
Critics say perks like a private room or the constant companionship of a child will incentivize more inmates to get pregnant. Garza says evidence doesn鈥檛 back that up 鈥� the population of mothers with children has remained steady over the past several years. Others argue prison becomes less of a punishment when family is permitted to join those serving time, that committing a crime punishable by prison makes a mother unfit,听or that it鈥檚 an inherently harmful place to grow up.
鈥淭he children might be exposed to bad language, sometimes there鈥檚 aggressive behavior [among inmates],鈥� says Isabel G谩mez P谩ez, who runs programming for women in prison in Costa Rica鈥檚 Ministry of Justice. She argues prisons need to be redesigned overall to better accommodate the unique needs of women, including motherhood.
But the reality is that children are often better cared for in prison 鈥� where meals are guaranteed and an adult is always present 鈥� than on the outside, Garza says.听
The majority of women in prison in Costa Rica are there for drug-related crimes, like small-scale trafficking, an offense that research听suggests is frequently motivated by听a lack of employment opportunities, poverty, or coercion by family or romantic partners. A 2010 study found that 95 percent of women in jail for bringing drugs into prisons in Costa Rica were single mothers. Often, when women go to prison their dependents are put at risk of falling deeper into poverty, or taking part in criminal acts as well, experts say.
Improving the system
For cases where children do end up behind bars with their mothers, there are best that could be applied elsewhere, experts argue. In Norway, for example, children aren鈥檛 allowed to live in jail, but they can visit three times a week and call at any time. They also have modular homes, outside of the prison, where incarcerated mothers can visit with their kids.
Alternative sentencing for non-violent crimes and low-level drug violations could also balance the tension between serving justice and the needs of a minor,听, a researcher at the Mexican think tank CIDAC, in a 2017 opinion for news site Animal Politico.
That鈥檚 a听relatively new process in Costa Rica, where women who have trafficked drugs into prisons and who come from vulnerable backgrounds 鈥� like caring for dependents alone 鈥� have the chance to go to rehab and serve community service instead of going to jail.
鈥淎 mother is a figure you can鈥檛 substitute in the life of a child,鈥� says Magela, her young daughter crawling cautiously under an empty high chair. 鈥淭hey are tiny. Being here as an infant isn鈥檛 so traumatic. The separation would be far worse.鈥� She has experience with that as well: her 5-year-old daughter isn鈥檛 living with her here, though she can visit frequently.
鈥淩ight now I鈥檓 vague [when telling my older daughter] about where I am. But when a child is old enough, you have to tell her the truth: Your mother made a mistake.鈥�
