California kids visit imprisoned moms for Mother's Day

[Jazzy]

FOLSOM, Calif. - "Hi, baby," Catherine La France cooed as she swept granddaughter Arianna into her arms and danced around the prison yard with the 3-year-old.

She pulled her two daughters into a bear hug, and the girls burst into tears. La France hadn't seen Arianna's mother, 18-year-old Samantha La France, in six months, and she last saw Summer La France, 14, nearly three years ago.

They soon dropped into easy banter as barbed concertina wire high above them glinted in the sun and guards armed with pepper spray discreetly patrolled nearby.

"This is my birthday present and Mother's Day at the same time," Catherine La France said at the stark, concrete-block-walled prison for low-risk offenders where she has been locked up for nearly two years. La France, who has prior residential burglary convictions, turned 39 two days earlier and won't be released for three more years, when she completes a sentence for repeatedly using a bogus credit card to defraud businesses.

Get on the Bus appears to be unique in providing free transportation to children around the two holidays and in offering counseling and other support, said Ann Adalist-Estrin, director of the National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated at Rutgers University, Camden. A handful of programs in other states, including Florida and New York, provide transportation to kids as part of a larger mission to help prisoners and their families.

"We have kids every year that are meeting their moms or dads for the first time," California program organizer Hilary Carson said, while others have not seen their parent in years. The organization's survey of participants, who average 8 years old, shows that more than half wouldn't otherwise be able to see their imprisoned parent without the program.

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How do you feel about children visiting imprisoned parents? Is it a good idea, bad idea?

 

[Nebulous]

How do you feel about children visiting imprisoned parents? Is it a good idea, bad idea?

While a parent being in prison might not be the most desirable scenario, a child should still be able to see their parent once in a while. Maybe it will give the child more motivation to stay on the right path and not end up there one day themselves.

 

[Jazzy]

I would think people in prison would lose all parental rights. To me, this causes more harm than good to children. How many of these children get back on that bus and cry because mommy can't go home with them. Why even subject children to this in the first place? This program seems more put in place to keep the prisoners happy than it is to reunite children with absent parents.

 

[Ashley]

I would think people in prison would lose all parental rights. To me, this causes more harm than good to children. How many of these children get back on that bus and cry because mommy can't go home with them. Why even subject children to this in the first place? This program seems more put in place to keep the prisoners happy than it is to reunite children with absent parents.

Honestly, if I were in those kids' shoes, this would spell "anxiety attack" in a heartbeat, especially when it came time to leave. I don't think I could ever handle something like that. However, like other people have said, this could also serve as a wake-up call for these kids as well, because it would show them, if only briefly, the kind of live they'd have to live if they were ever arrested one day. Seeing how their parents live, no matter how many years they were given, would definitely serve as a rude awakening, and for kids who cause trouble a lot, this could open their eyes to the point where they think, "I had better not do what Mommy or Daddy did if I don't want to get in trouble".

However, as for seeing parents for the first time in their lives, then that would probably be a different story.

 

[Bluezone777]

The one question I have is who are we to deny a child the right to have a relationship with their parents? If they are to not have their parents in their lives then it should be up to them and them alone to make that choice. Letting a child live with the question " What if...?" is no way to live and by making a choice of whether they can have contact with their parents for them is essentially leaving them with that question and it isn't fair of us to do that. Besides, a child might be the thing that inspires someone to change and give them hope that there is someone that is going to be waiting for them when they get released.

 

[JetWing34]

NOBODY denies the childrens' freedoms to see their imprisoned parents, no matter what. Why you may ask? It is because children are considered as visitors to the prison camp.