A superintendent of a women s prison in New York offers some insight into the personal histories of female inmates in the June 1995 issue of The Prison Journal. An important element missing from most of these personal histories is a positive role model. Children that are given love, nurturance, and education have so much more opportunity to succeed. But the grandmother died when Sue was 8 years old, so she went to live with her aunt, who was shot one night with Sue sleeping beside her. Most of these women have children of their own, who are farmed out to foster care, relatives, or institutional care while their mother is in prison.
Statistics suggest that when one person goes to prison, three others go on welfare.
In a recent letter to the editor of The Tennessean, a reader complained, What s ridiculous is to concern ourselves with the welfare of a criminal s family. Yet if we don t get involved, the intergenerational cycle of crime will continue. Differences dissolve in shared conversation. As they work through the curriculum together, volunteers discover places within themselves where they are imprisoned. Inmates learn that someone cares, and listens without judgment, and as trust builds they are able to look within themselves and find a place where they can be free.