California Considers Law to Aid Young Parents Living in Prison

California’s legislature recently considered a bill that was at once both straightforward and groundbreaking. A simple adjustment to the state Welfare and Institutions Code would assist incarcerated youth with children of their own in being more effective parents, which would be a huge victory for reproductive justice advocates.  SB 134 would achieve this by expanding the list of approved persons incarcerated young parents may contact regarding their children’s care while they are detained in state and county juvenile facilities.

Current California law allows incarcerated youth to make a minimum of four telephone calls per month to their family members.  While this policy does promote communication between incarcerated youth and their relatives, it fails to recognize that non-relative caregivers may play important roles in the upbringing of their children.  In addition, because the children of incarcerated youth tend to be quite young, telephone calls are not necessarily an effective mode of communication.  SB 134 added social workers, physicians, teachers, the child’s other parent, and other non-relative caregivers to the list of approved persons an incarcerated young parent may call in order to participate more fully in their children’s lives.

State Senator Carol Liu, a Democrat representing the 21st District of California, was the bill’s principal author.  Liu currently chairs the Select Committee for Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System, which seeks solutions that will rehabilitate women prisoners and reunite them with their families.  When asked why she decided to author SB 134, Liu answered, “Advocates informed me that incarcerated young parents were having difficulty contacting their children’s caregivers, which severely impedes their ability to parent while incarcerated and increases the likelihood that children will end up in the child welfare system.”

These advocates included fellows from the Women’s Policy Institute, a program of the Women’s Foundation of California, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and the Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD), the latter three of which were co-sponsors of SB 134. CYWD is a San Francisco-based organization that serves young women in local juvenile detention facilities.  In 2005, a CYWD project called Young Mothers United, along with other organizational partners and the San Francisco Chief Probation Officer for the Juvenile Probation Department successfully implemented the Incarcerated Young Mother’s Bill of Rights.  The Bill of Rights states that incarcerated young women in San Francisco juvenile detention facilities have the right to be informed about their children’s well-being and safety, and the right to see, touch, and speak with their children.  Advocates took these principles one step further when they proposed adding non-relative caregivers to the list of approved persons incarcerated young parents may contact in SB134.

Senator Liu wants to shine a bright light on the unique needs of incarcerated young parents.  She hoped that SB 134 would “ensure that these individuals are able to be active participants in their children’s lives, and protect children from entering the child welfare system.”  The Senator also wanted to prevent recidivism; she stated that “California’s only hope for breaking the cycle of crime and avoiding the costs it imposes on society is to equip offenders with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to lead productive lives, reunify with their families, and stay out of prison.”

National statistics on the number of parenting incarcerated youth are difficult to find.  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that in 2006, close to 93,000 juvenile offenders were held in residential placement facilities nationally, but data indicating how many were parents was not available.  A report released in July 2009 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that in 2004, the pregnancy rate for young women between the ages of 15-19 years was 160.1 per 1,000 population, which is 16 percent.  However, these data do not specify how many adolescent parents are incarcerated on a national level.  The dearth of national data on incarcerated young parents suggests that additional study is needed in order to direct policy initiatives that address their unique issues.

A National Council on Crime and Delinquency study conducted in 2006 gives us an idea of how many incarcerated youth may be parents at the state level.  The study evaluated Florida’s treatment of girls in its juvenile justice system and found that 35 percent of girls living in residential programs surveyed had been pregnant at one time and 10 percent currently were parents.  The report notes a lack of comprehensive services offered to pregnant and parenting young women in Florida juvenile facilities. Though it focuses on just one state and only on incarcerated young women, the 2006 study provides a snapshot of probable demographics in other states.

Unfortunately, SB 134 was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee due to concerns about the cost of the bill.  Senator Liu’s office plans to work with the Department of Juvenile Justice to make the policy change administratively in order to reduce expense to the state during California’s ongoing budget crisis.  Hopefully, this effort will be successful; if the change is made, incarcerated young parents will be one step closer to realizing reproductive justice.  They will be able to call non-relative caregivers like social workers, pediatricians, and friends to check on their children’s health and well-being.  Knowing where their children are and who is caring for them empowers adolescent parents to remain involved in their children’s lives during their incarceration.

As a marginalized population twice over (incarcerated people and youth are two groups that are disenfranchised and thus denied a voice in policy decisions directly affecting them), the reproductive justice lens is a particularly helpful way of examining this issue.  This lens brings into focus the history of reproductive oppression among certain groups of people, including prisoners. Incarcerated people have very little control over their bodies and their relationships due to the extreme power inequities found in prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

Adolescent parents do not automatically give up their parental rights when they are incarcerated.  Instead, incarcerated youth should be provided with tools to help them achieve their full potential as parents.  They need information about their right to contact their children and their children’s caregivers (both family members and non-relatives).  The information they are given should be culturally competent and linguistically appropriate.  Juvenile detention staff should be educated about the rights of incarcerated young parents.  Any change to California policy dealing with incarcerated young parents will be merely an empty promise, however, if reproductive justice advocates do not closely monitor implementation of the policy.  These combined efforts are necessary for reproductive justice to be achieved for incarcerated young parents.