Iowa should consider prison nurseries

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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One could say innocent people have had to pay for poor choices made by every prison inmate in Iowa.

But it's especially true of the handful of babies born each year to women serving time in prison.

Shortly after giving birth, the new mothers return to prison, their babies turned over to relatives or foster families. It's a tragic situation with no perfect solution.

But Iowa corrections officials should take a hard look at a relatively new approach to the problem: Prison nurseries.

The idea that life in prison might be good for an infant seems counterintuitive at first. But there is compelling evidence that allowing those women to bond with their children would do more than help the babies thrive - it would dramatically reduce the mother's likelihood of reoffending.

Prison nurseries are not very expensive to run, as the figures from one Nebraska program show. That program was started with a $24,000 grant and additional support from state legislators, according to a recent Gazette report. The program's annual cost, which includes other family-themed programming, is just over $100,000.

Even that is offset by the dramatic reduction in recidivism among moms who participate in prison nursery programs. It costs more than $30,000 per year to keep housing an inmate.

One 10-year study found that inmates who give birth and are separated from their newborns are three times as likely to reoffend as women who live with their babies in prison nurseries.

Beyond that, prison nurseries help keep families together.

A nursery program wouldn't have to be large - only a dozen or so babies are born to Iowa inmates each year - but the impact would be felt for generations.

The number of women in Iowa's prisons has grown disproportionately over the past two decades, growing according to the state Department of Corrections, by nearly 200 percent in the 15 years leading up to a 2008 report on the subject.

Corrections officials have tried or considered several strategies for targeting that disparate growth, Still, a prison spokesman told a Gazette reporter that corrections officials haven't explored the idea of prison nurseries, although they've been aware of the concept for years. They should.

Prison nurseries are relatively new. About a dozen states allow babies born to inmates to live with their mothers for up to 24 months. Most programs are open to a limited number of non-violent offenders serving short sentences.

Some require moms to take parenting and other classes in order to participate. That would be a must, we would think.

We know some might balk at the idea of establishing prison nurseries, which could seem to reward women for bad choices. But prison nurseries aren't about punishment or reward - they're about rehabilitation. And that's good for society.