25 3 / 2013
Robert Wood Johnson releases second in a series on strategies to improve the mental health needs of children.
11 3 / 2013
Senator Montgmery Continues Support of Needs of Children of Incarcerated Parents
http://m.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S2341-2013
Pending NYS legislation sponsored by longtime supporter Senator Montgomery, addresses the impact of placing incarcerated family members in upstate correctional facilities, where maintaining family ties is an ongoing barrier because of traveling distances.
Citing the critical need for children to have regular and routine contact with their incarcerated parents, the pending legislation suggests sentencing guidelines for placing parents in correctional facilities closer to places of original residence:
“It is important that children maintain and increase their access to their parent(s) who are in prison. The criteria for deciding where individuals are housed, including decisions about transfers between facilities, should include proximity to children (after security,mental health, and medical needs)”
28 12 / 2012
Bonding Through Bars
Vancouver International Roundtable - Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children
05 10 / 2012
The children getting on the van are sleepy and may have already traveled some way before their forty-five mile trip upstate to Bedford Hills, NY.
Arriving in the Taconic Correctional Facility parking lot the van must park behind the sawhorse barricading the pathway leading to the locked Front Gate building.
On hot summer days and in the upcoming cooler and colder days this extra effort is just one more barrier added - another is the standing waiting in line to get in, at least one half hour or more.
When at last the Front Gate building door is buzzed open the officer has a form that must be completed, then begins the “security” check that includes shoes off, belts off, baby bottles emptied, maybe a body pat down for drugs.
Beginning October all visitors must be photographed.
A second officer seated in a room behind a grill then motions for approval to pass through another locked door buzzed open.
Continuing up the walkway towards the visiting room, once inside, an officer seated at a desk buzzes the visiting room door open for the children to enter.
They are directed to tables where they begin their wait.
The mothers are called to come to the visiting room where the children have been waiting. Before allowed into the visiting room the mothers are subjected to a full body pat down in a room adjacent to the visiting area.
The waiting ends when mothers walk through the door and then the smiles begin.
Prison walls may serve to protect the public safety.
After fifteen years of working behind those walls, I rarely saw women leaving totally prepared by “rehabilitation” programs to assist their return to their communities. What I did witness, time after time, was the bond between the mothers and their children that prison walls could not destroy no matter the barriers both mothers and their children endured during a woman’s incarceration.
These bonds have been proven successful, if maintained while incarcerated, towards successful reentry and reunification with families after release from prison.
Despite this positive influence of maintaining family ties, New York State discounted years of evidence about the importance of maintaining family ties, and eliminated the budget that provided statewide transportation for families to NYS correctional facilities.
The decision stands. The NYS General Assembly could reverse the budget cut and restore transportation. Now that the assembly year is ready to resume it is time to do just that.
29 8 / 2012
Protecting Formerly Incarcerated Minors who are Deemed Destitute Children
For some time minors incarcerated in New York State Correctional Facilities has been a hidden population with exact numbers known only to NYS DOCCS/NYS Department of Parole.
An incarcerated minor’s identity is not available on the “inmate lookup” section of the NYSDOCCS website, unless they come of legal age while incarcerated.
Their post release availability of appropriate services have been virtually non-existent, except for the practice of The NYS Department of Parole, who has been routinely and regularly releasing minor incarcerated persons into the custody of either The Administration of Children’s Services (ACS) in New York City or NYS county Departments of Social Services.
This post release practice includes a lack of direct services for those “minors” who are parents while incarcerated. Re-entry options for such circumstances are in need of review and revision.
The same practice in other states, if occurring, would be worthy of a research study.
Re-institutionalized minors, without parole status resources, post release caregivers, or other supportive services organizations, may or may not be a known population in need, other than under the NYS Family Court definition of “destitute child,” which has allowed for formerly incarcerated minors to become “foster children.”
Under amended NYS Family Court legislation:
(http://m.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S6116-2011), followed by anticipated HHS Administration for Children and Youth Services legislative amendments, the changed legal definition for “destitute child” will allow for flexibility and hopefully, a discontinuation of the current practice of dual and continued dependency on institutionalizing formerly incarcerated minors.
The practice is being monitored by NYS agencies that will address the future legislative changes at their upcoming quarterly inter-agency meeting in October in Albany.
The NYC Council passed a resolution, (Res 1066-2011), in October 2011, for NYC inter-agency coordination on issues impacting children of incarcerated parents. Minors incarcerated in adult correctional facilities, or in NYC jails, with children, should also be of concern to the NYC Council in light of their resolution.
Any NYS state or federal legislative changes will open opportunities for advocates and other agencies to monitor and to pursue post release options for formerly incarcerated minors and their children.
Mainstreaming formerly incarcerated minors back into society as foster children, and those who are parents of children, is a practice that must be addressed and changed.
16 8 / 2012
New York State is “home to an estimated 105,000 children”* with an incarcerated parent.
Despite these daunting statistics throughout the summer NYC organizations have just completed their summer program of transporting children for visits with their children to correctional facilities throughout New York State.
These same organizations will continue such programs on weekends and other visiting days throughout the rest of 2012.
Some children traveled a distance of forty-five miles from greater NYC boroughs. Some traveled over eight hours to upstate facilities where host families extended overnight or longer hospitality housing to allow children to have extended visits with their parents.
The families are well known to the NYC organizations as many of them have been committed to being “host families” because they recognize the need for children of incarcerated parents to have family ties.
Regardless of the need, of community support, and continued direct service programs, the regular and routine availability of transportation to correctional facilities has been severely curtailed by 100% NYS budget cuts of formerly funded bus transportation to correctional facilities.
The children who did not and do not have access to routine visits with their parents, because the numbers of them cannot be served by limited resources, must wonder why NYS made such a decision.
Advocates pressing for restoring the funds want legislators to know it’s about more than funds. The previous success of the NYS DOCCS bust transportation program is well documented. The positive impact on families is well researched and documented, and similar to other positive family visiting programs in other states.
The negative result of eliminating such a program is not a study anyone wants to associate with New York State, where family support has been the hallmark of the NYS Department of Corrections.
When the General Assembly reconvenes they should restore funding for bus transportation for children and families of incarcerated.
The agencies currently providing such transportation have worked to obtain funding for the limited numbers of children they are able to serve. When the NYS bus transportation program stopped, they didn’t. Neither did supporting summer host families.
Bring the buses back, NYS! It’s the right thing to do.
*A Call to Action: Safeguarding New York’s Children of Incarcerated Parents. A Report of The NY Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents.
13 8 / 2012
04 8 / 2012
Senate Support Continues for Funding Mentoring Programs.
04 8 / 2012
Testimony that tells the story of Incarcerated Parents and Their Children
post-gazette.com/stories/local/…
