real6
19-08-2009, 04:00 PM
http://cphpost.dk/news/national/88-national/46613-jail-babies.html
Babies get a taste of life on ‘the inside’ as prisoners can raise their children behind bars
Some mothers and fathers serving jail time are being given permission to bring their children with them to live at state prisons, reports MetroXpress newspaper.
Up to four children under the age of three are brought into prisons each year to be with their convicted parent, mainly because the Danish Prison and Probation Service believes the negative aspects of a child being without its real parent are greater than having the child inside the prison walls.
‘We allow this possibility in consideration of the child’s needs,’ said Anja Eliassen, spokeswoman for the prison service, who added that it was the social authorities who made the final determination as to whether a jailed parent may have their child with them.
‘But if the mother is a drug addict or otherwise unfit to care for the child, then the application would likely be turned down.’
Experts are split on whether having a child inside a prison is a good thing or not. But children’s rights organisation Børnesagens Fællesråd believes the practice is generally harmful to a child.
‘It would have to be in the child’s absolute best interests to be brought into a prison,’ the organisation’s secretary Inge Marie Nielsen said. ‘And if any child is going to be with its mother in jail, then it would have to be in an open prison.’
Kim Østerbye, head of the Danish Prison Employees Union, believes having a child behind barbed wire fences was a bad idea all around.
‘It creates problems with the child’s development. The child can be exposed to fights, drugs, the use of force and other unpleasant things they shouldn’t have to see.’
The Council on Crime Prevention estimates that there are up to 7,000 children nationwide who have at least one parent behind bars.
Babies get a taste of life on ‘the inside’ as prisoners can raise their children behind bars
Some mothers and fathers serving jail time are being given permission to bring their children with them to live at state prisons, reports MetroXpress newspaper.
Up to four children under the age of three are brought into prisons each year to be with their convicted parent, mainly because the Danish Prison and Probation Service believes the negative aspects of a child being without its real parent are greater than having the child inside the prison walls.
‘We allow this possibility in consideration of the child’s needs,’ said Anja Eliassen, spokeswoman for the prison service, who added that it was the social authorities who made the final determination as to whether a jailed parent may have their child with them.
‘But if the mother is a drug addict or otherwise unfit to care for the child, then the application would likely be turned down.’
Experts are split on whether having a child inside a prison is a good thing or not. But children’s rights organisation Børnesagens Fællesråd believes the practice is generally harmful to a child.
‘It would have to be in the child’s absolute best interests to be brought into a prison,’ the organisation’s secretary Inge Marie Nielsen said. ‘And if any child is going to be with its mother in jail, then it would have to be in an open prison.’
Kim Østerbye, head of the Danish Prison Employees Union, believes having a child behind barbed wire fences was a bad idea all around.
‘It creates problems with the child’s development. The child can be exposed to fights, drugs, the use of force and other unpleasant things they shouldn’t have to see.’
The Council on Crime Prevention estimates that there are up to 7,000 children nationwide who have at least one parent behind bars.