There are some children who matter so little that no government agencybothers to count or keep statistical track of them. These are the childrenof prisoners.

Steiny: Life sentence for children of prisoners

By Julia Steiny, Syndicated columnist
GHS
New! Sun Aug 26, 2007, 12:29 AM EDT

http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/x1385105223

There are some children who matter so little that no government agency
bothers to count or keep statistical track of them. These are the
children of prisoners.

Neither the courts nor the corrections departments are interested in the
kids who are suffering under their offending parent's sentence.

What on earth does "corrections" mean if it doesn't involve improving
inmates' behavior and prospects for life when they are back with their
families and communities?

Actually, "corrections" is oxymoronic.

National organizations ask prisoners about their children. There is some
data, but it's hard to verify. Researchers believe that at any given
time, roughly 1.5 million kids in the country have a parent in prison or
jail. About 10 million children now under 18 have had a parent
incarcerated at some point in their lives.

Having a parent imprisoned clearly indicates domestic chaos and
disruption. Children of inmates are statistically very likely to go to
prison themselves. It's a wonder the justice system isn't a little more
interested in them.

In her book of essays "Children of Incarcerated Parents," researcher
Denise Johnson says that a parent's arrest and incarceration are so
traumatic that they can "interfere with the ability of children to
successfully master developmental tasks," meaning that their ability to
learn becomes delayed. And these children have to overcome "the effects
of enduring trauma, parent-child separation and an inadequate quality of
care. The combination of these effects produces serious long-term
outcomes, including intergenerational incarceration."

About 90 percent of these kids are living with the other parent or other
relatives. The remainder go into foster or state care.

Who are these offender parents? Johnson and her partner editor,
Katherine Gabel, write: "Incarcerated parents share the characteristics
of other prisoners. They are low-income persons with limited education,
job skills and employment histories; their lives have typically included
separations from their own parents as children, substance abuse and
exposure to a variety of traumatic experiences, including battering,
molestation, parental alcoholism/addiction, domestic violence and
community violence."

Prison then adds another layer of insult to those injuries.

When inmates are released, often they leave homeless and indigent, with
no job, transportation or medical insurance. Sometimes they have only
the clothes they are wearing. In short, they have fewer resources than
when they went in, and more problems.

Now add kids.

Now add the angry aunt or grandmother who's been taking care of those kids.

And you wonder why our recidivism rates for prisoners are so high.

American justice seems more like retribution, when it could actually be
restorative. But the courts are living proof of the cliche: If all you
have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. With a different
mindset, courts could take the attitude that a first nonviolent crime,
especially one committed by a kid, is less an infraction requiring
punishment than a red flag indicating trouble and a need for help. Ask,
what is the red flag trying to say? Send community workers to find out.

Around the country, here and there, communities are experimenting with
"diversionary" programs designed to keep people out of prison. Community
workers go into the homes of juvenile and nonviolent offenders and work
with family to see what's going on.

Women, for example, tend to go to jail for credit-card fraud, phony
checks, shoplifting and drugs. These are crimes, for certain, but also
more importantly, signs of distress.

Go see if the offender can be turned around with access to job skills,
drug treatment and counseling. Aggressive efforts to save a family are a
far better starting place than banishing a caregiver from a child's home
to a prison that is vastly more expensive and destructive to the family.
The immediate punishment is to forfeit the family's privacy. But the
first priority should be the health of the family, not retribution.

If the situation is salvageable, restore - correct, if you will - the
family. Conversely, if the community workers find that the parents are
hopeless, terminate parental rights and release the kid for adoption as
soon as possible. Prison cruelly delays such determinations, leaving the
kids to bounce around with relatives or worse, in state care.

These diversionary programs get excellent results - and are
jaw-droppingly less expensive to taxpayers than prison. But they remain
small because of our blood lust for retributive justice.

Of course psychopaths must be locked away. But there are respected means
of assessing whether a person, with proper oversight and support, will
be safe for his or her community. If we used these assessments, almost
no women would be in prison. Wouldn't that be a mercy, and significant
cost savings?

There isn't anything remotely corrective about "corrections." Public
policies, made by get-tough politicians and administrators, are actively
locking a portion of the underclass into generational chaos and distress.

They don't even count the kids. Doesn't that tell you where America's
priorities lie?

Julia Steiny, writing for the Providence Journal, is a former member of
the Providence, R.I., school board. She can be reached by e-mail at
.



CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...