Prison is supposed to be a tough and lonely place. But for incarcerated mothers who lose custody rights to their children, the loss can be more agonizing than even the darkest prison cell.
Women represent the fastest growing prison population in the country, and the majority of them are mothers. The Department of Justice estimates that more than 125,000 children in the United States have moms in prison. Mothers imprisoned longer than 15 months not only lose
their freedom, but they often lose
their children.
To address child custody issues faced by imprisoned mothers, a free public symposium sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics and the UO Women’s Law Forum will be held Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. in Room 175 of the Knight
Law Center.
University law Professor Barbara Aldave, who will speak at the event, said that under the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, state agencies can terminate parental rights of an inmate and put the child
up for adoption if the child has been in foster care for more than 15 months.
Aldave has spent time working to assist mothers in such situations and helped start Project Link-Up, a program to develop educational resources that will help incarcerated mothers learn how to legally fight for the custody of their children.
“The ultimate goal of Project Link-Up is to have law students work directly with women prisoners to inform them of their rights and help them gain knowledge of the law and of custody hearings,” Aldave said.
Carole Pope, another speaker at the symposium and founder of Our New Beginnings, a nonprofit organization that helps women released from prison adjust to their new lives, said most inmate moms are unaware of child custody and adoption laws.
“For incarcerated women, knowledge is power. So if we can give them information on how to participate in the legal process and custody hearings, we can help them be the kind of moms they need to be,” Pope said.
Pope has been fighting for the rights of incarcerated women since her release from prison more than 23 years ago. She is currently working with professors and students at the University Law Center as a Project Link-Up leader.
“Nobody has ever given these women a break or the support they need,” Pope said. “A lot of people think these women are throw-aways, but I understand them.”
Joan Palmateer, superintendent of the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, supports Project Link-Up and thinks that breaking up families may increase the cycle of crime in Oregon communities.
“We have learned that criminality is a generational issue,” Palmateer said. “It is no longer okay to turn inmates into better citizens — we have to send them out to be better parents, otherwise the criminality continues.”
Andrew Black is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.