{"id":7499,"date":"2018-05-13T15:52:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T19:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=7499"},"modified":"2022-05-04T11:46:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:46:26","slug":"mothers-day-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/13\/mothers-day-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Jail will separate 2.3 million mothers from their children this year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"updated\">This report is has been updated with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2022\/05\/04\/mothers_day\/\">a new version for 2022<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Women incarcerated in the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2017women.html\">are disproportionately in jails<\/a> rather than prisons, and even a short jail stay can be devastating, especially when it separates a mother from children who depend on her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"featureimage caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/mothers_in_jail.png\" alt=\"Graph showing number of women jailed each year and percentage who are mothers.\" width=\"700\" height=\"410\" class=\"\"  \/>Estimates have been rounded for this graphic. Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, <a href=\"https:\/\/ucr.fbi.gov\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2016\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016\"> Crime in the United States 2016<\/a> (including supplemental table &#8220;Arrests by Sex, 2016&#8221;); and Vera Institute of Justice, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vera.org\/publications\/overlooked-women-and-jails-report\">Overlooked: Women in Jails in an Era of Reform<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>80% of the women who will go to jail this year are mothers &#8211; including nearly 150,000 women who are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/mpji.pdf\">pregnant<\/a> when they are admitted. Beyond having to leave their children in someone else&#8217;s care, these women will be impacted by the needlessly brutal side effects of going to jail: Aggravation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/22\/mental_health\/\">mental health problems<\/a>, a greater risk of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/04\/bjs_jail_suicide\/\">suicide<\/a>, and a much higher likelihood of ending up homeless or deprived of essential financial benefits.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s time we recognized that when we put women in jail, we inflict potentially irreparable damage to their families. Most women who are incarcerated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/women_overtime.html\">would be better served<\/a> though alternatives in their communities. So would their kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>80% of the women jailed each year are mothers. We&#8217;re inflicting profound damage not only on them, but their children as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,3,1],"tags":[64,59,60],"coauthors":[36,46],"class_list":["post-7499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-briefings","category-shorts","category-uncategorized","tag-collateral-consequences","tag-jails-bail","tag-women-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7499"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13651,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499\/revisions\/13651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7499"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}