State Hopes to Extend Its Mother-Child Inmate Plan

Despite problems with a program that allows female state prisoners to live with their children under 7, state officials said Tuesday that they hope to extend the program to young mothers held by the California Youth Authority.

In its final day of hearings in Norco, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations was told that women prisoners are still having a difficult time getting into the mother-infant program and that the program has had a low success rate and a high escape rate.

“We do not want you to go away thinking everything is great about this program,” said Walter Ellison, an administrator in the Department of Corrections’ parole division.

Nine Escapes

Only 42% of the 61 women participating in the mother-infant program since 1983 have completed their terms successfully, Ellison said. Serious disciplinary problems and nine escapes have prompted corrections officers to return 25 of the women to prison.

Eight women completed their sentences in the program but violated terms of their parole afterward, he said.

Rebecca Jurado, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, questioned the significance of those numbers, saying that women prisoners statewide have a 40% rate of recidivism, and that prison officials consider even a brief “walk away” from a community facility an escape.

The mother-infant program allows female prisoners with a probable release or parole date within six years to live in community facilities with their children who are age 6 or younger.

A pending lawsuit claims the Corrections Department has illegally denied women access to the program by failing to tell them about it, delaying applications and using improper criteria to reject applicants.

Between 500 and 600 of the state’s 2,700 female inmates may be eligible for the program, Jurado said Tuesday. But the three sites in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose where private companies run the mother-infant program have a combined capacity of only 30 women and their children, Ellison said.

All 30 openings are filled. The Corrections Department is working to establish another facility to house 10 prisoners and their children in San Francisco, Ellison said.

“It’s difficult to place those (facilities), just like it’s difficult to place prisons,” said Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside), chairman of the joint committee.

Despite the program’s problems, CYA officials said Tuesday that they would like to create similar opportunities for prisoners up to 25 years old.

So far this year, 11 of the 300 females in CYA custody have given birth, said Roslyn Harris, supervising parole agent.

The mother-infant program is “an even more viable program for a younger population” because it can provide young mothers a more structured environment and a better education in parenting and child development, said Ellen M. Barry, director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children.

Bringing mothers and children together in the program, Barry said, benefits not only them but the state, which avoids the costs of foster or institutional care for the children and the social costs of broken families.

Barry’s and Jurado’s groups, along with the ACLU of Northern California, filed the lawsuit over the program. Zondra Wooley, an inmate at the California Institution for Women, gave birth to a daughter last Saturday “and is in the critical process of losing (her) bonding with that child,” Barry said.

Wooley, testifying Tuesday, said she applied months ago for admission to the mother-infant program but has received no answer from prison officials. Her baby, she said, is living in a foster home because she has no relatives who can care for the child.

Wooley, who expects to be in custody until November, 1986, “should have gone into the program from (the) birth (of her child),” Barry said.

Corrections officials attending the hearing will look into her case, Sen. Presley told Wooley on Tuesday.