No More Babies Allowed in BC Jails

It’s so sad. Corrections BC announced last week that the 4- year-old program that allowed women inmates to have their newborns with them while they did their time was being cancelled. Although federal institutions allow mothers to keep their babies in jail with them, British California was the only province that had a similar program.

The reason given for the cancellation was one of safety; corrections staff are simply not trained to deal with newborns and infants, which of course posed a danger to the babies. While this fact wasn’t disputed by those in favour of the program, there was the usual amount of whining about the government’s decision to end allowing mothers to have their babies in jail with them.

Those in favour of the idea point out that having babies around make the jails a gentler and kinder place. There is less swearing, fighting and other bad behaviour when the joint is populated not only by female prisoners but by their offspring as well. Also not unexpectedly, are comments from former and present inmates that if they are allowed to have their babies with them, they will be less likely to return to a life of crime. In other words, give me my baby or I’ll sell drugs again!!!

What is missing from the arguments made about keeping the program are the babies themselves. Although these babies are even viewed by pro-abortionists as human beings, they are viewed in this entire experiment as inanimate objects. It’s all about the women; what’s best for THEM, how having their babies in jail helps THEM. The bring-your-kid-to-jail advocates show virtually no concern about how being raised in a penal institution may affect the babies involved.

If someone develops a serious medical condition that is not obvious to laymen as a life threatening emergency, jail is not the best place to have this happen. Someone who feels that they are in some sort of medical distress can’t simply call an ambulance, get themselves to a hospital or even make a quick doctor’s appointment. That’s not to say that jail staff is unsympathetic to the health of the inmates; delays in medical treatment results from having to seek aid within a bureaucracy that must be tightly controlled. To subject newborns and infants to this type of environment is absurd. But then again, it’s not about the children; it’s about the “residents” of provincial penal institutions. The principle that guides Canadian courts; that decisions must be made that are in the best interests of the child, goes out the window in favour of politically correct feminist ideology.

There also doesn’t seem to be any concern on the effect that being locked up with mommy might have on a child if his or her friends learn that the kid spent much of their early years “in the joint”.  No, the babies don’t seem to matter to those who criticize the province’s decision to end allowing female inmates to play house while in the big house.

Perhaps the worst thing about the policy of allowing babies to be locked up with their mothers is that the policy is sexist. What about fathers? What about the equality sections of our beloved Charter of Rights? If women are allowed to look after their children in jail why can’t men? The behavioral improvements that proponents say happen with women would also be noticed if men were allowed to bring up baby in the slammer. Even more important, perhaps if men were allowed to look after their babies and kids in jail, many of them would keep having contact with their children, at least occasionally, after their release. In that respect it might be more beneficial to have incarcerated fathers care for their children than for mothers. But that type of policy can’t be justified on trendy politically correct grounds; even in a society that has seen maternal leave replaced by parental leave.

The BC government made the right decision in ending this silliness. They had the sense to end this experiment before a tragedy that would inevitably have happened occurred to scuttle the program.

August 19, 2008 - source CFPCrimeWatch

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