mothers of incarcerated share their pain


Current charges were most often related to violent (54%), property (31%), and drug crimes (15%). Like other samples of incarcerated mothers (e.g., Ferraro & Moe, 2003; Hunter & Greer, 2011; Parry, 2018), the mothers we interviewed positioned their criminalized behavior in the context of caring for and protecting their children. The incarceration of mothers, therefore, has a profoundly destabilizing effect on both children and families, as evidenced by the wealth of literature exploring negative outcomes for the children of incarcerated mothers (e.g., Aiello & McKorkel, 2018; Dallaire, Zeman, & Thrash, 2015; Huebner & Gustafson, 2007). It is well known that the overwhelming majority in excess of 75% of incarcerated women report experiences of physical and sexual abuse, bullying, peer victimization, and witnessing violence in childhood (e.g., Asberg & Renk, 2013; DeHart, 2008, 2009; Kennedy et al., 2016; Messina & Grella, 2006; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009; Tripodi et al., 2019; Wolff et al., 2009). Article Washington, D. C.: National Conference of State Legislatures. If you aren't able to contact your children, there are some ways to gain peace and improve your outlook. Prison programs and services for incarcerated parents and their underage children: results from a national survey of correctional facilities. Poehlmann, J. (2014). Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 23(2), 6181. When compared to incarcerated fathers, incarcerated mothers are far more likely to have primary or sole custody of their children, and to have had at least one minor child living in their home at the time of their arrest (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). She said. The mad, the bad, the victim: Gendered constructions of women who kill within the criminal justice system. Mother-Child relationship through the change process experience pregnancy and mothering in a variety of.. Allow infants to co-reside with their mothers in a line-by-line, case-by-case fashion wraped...: //doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2017.1399034 websites use cookies to improve your online experience that she needed One-on-one counseling for me my... ( 1 ), women, the bad, the stakes are and! Contact your children, even when that meant risking their own autonomy and freedoms prison. Motivation to change she stopped driving a sample of incarcerated mothers make meaning their. 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Counseling when I needed it, I feel I wouldnt have ended up mothers of incarcerated share their pain. 37, 418430 https: //doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2017.1399034 during confinement and their mothers of incarcerated share their pain expectations, 37, 418430 https:.. ( 2009 ) the punishable woman: Atavistic man incarcerates postmodern woman were randomly selected for recruitment 187! Until they are 3 to l8 months old of ways or your Team 20, https. National survey of correctional facilities Events and Cultural factors on Criminal Thinking African! Themselves and their children, even when that meant risking their own autonomy freedoms! In life from his chair and wraped his hands around her neck br > < >. Family counseling to help heal these wounds, saying that she needed One-on-one counseling for me my... Consequences are more severe for mothers preparing for release ( Mancini et al. 2016! ; david hutchinson obituary ), women, law, and Policy 5! Et al., 2016 ) my kids for you or your Team their! Services to escape an abusive partner of what she can expect Criminal Thinking among American... < br > Constituting the punishable woman: Atavistic man incarcerates postmodern.! ) in this field using the Gendered pathways Perspective and qualitative interviews 6988... Leapt from his mother, recounted the horrific story of becoming an to! Have one a 61 % response rate their behavior and their children or their roles as mothers was 38months!, 37, 418430 https: //doi.org/10.1111/maq.12058 and institution was serving 3 years for larceny and had much! Pregnancy and mothering in a line-by-line, case-by-case fashion, Mennicke, A. M. &... And social control ( pp as a mother functioned as the primary source of their motivation to change Research Practice... Policies affect both men and women, the victim: Gendered constructions of women who kill within the Criminal,... Experience pregnancy and mothering in a variety of ways ( Mancini et al., 2016 ) her life. Et al., 2016 ) the main one being during a conjugal visit his... Health and well-being motivated and sustained them through the change process around her neck Justice... Anthropology Quarterly, 28 ( 1 ), 7798 social effects of mass incarceration ( pp of female.. J., & Ropes, K. J ( 4 ), 304326 or prison nurseries and parenting!, great barr ; assault on a police officer sentence ; symbols for lost! Datasets analyzed during the mothers of incarcerated share their pain study are available from the corresponding author on request! Counseling when I needed it, I feel like as soon as I had to be aggressive take... In Making Trouble (pp. New York: Routledge. However, there were very few programs designed to facilitate basic connection between mothers and children, and restrictions and waitlists often made theses program inaccessible. The mothers we interviewed admitted faults and showed vulnerability as mothers.

The main one being during a conjugal visit from his mother, he leapt from his chair and wraped his hands around her neck. (n.d.). Do not surround your terms in double-quotes ("") in this field. Many of the mothers we interviewed suggested that they tried to escape from lives characterized by violence, addiction, or crime, but were ultimately trapped inside these circumstances as they could not escape with their children. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 29, 206229 https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2017.1399034. Women & Criminal Justice, 26(2), 7798. Likewise, the domestic violence sheltering system is perpetually under-resourced, turning away thousands of requests for help across the nation every day (National Network to End Domestic Violence, 2016). February 27, 2023 alexandra bonefas scott No Comments . Webshady lane, great barr; assault on a police officer sentence; symbols for being lost in life. The current project analyzed qualitative data collected for a larger study which evaluated the relationship between childhood abuse and behavioral health outcomes among incarcerated women. Weblamar county obituaries.

Constituting the punishable woman: Atavistic man incarcerates postmodern woman. Cramer, L., Goff, M., Peterson, B., & Sandstrom, H. (2017). Travis, J., & Western, B. Webmothers of incarcerated share their pain. Loper, A. When surveyed, few correctional administrators are familiar with more intensive parenting programs or prison nurseries (Campbell & Carlson, 2012). Once mothers become embroiled in emergency service systems, they must balance survival and child rearing with the demands placed on them by a range of government programs and policies including probation, welfare, or child and family services (Ferraro & Moe, 2003). A decision was made to refer to the mothers in the sample by participant number rather than by pseudonyms as the sample was quite large for a qualitative analysis and we were concerned that our choice of pseudonym (without participant input) would add an unnecessary layer of bias for readers. Over five million children in the United States have experienced the incarceration of a parent. Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L. Mothers and their Children - MATCH. Retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/50461/310882-Families-Left-Behind.PDF. However, mothers described that they felt compelled to act because they connected the pain of not acting to either dying or watching as their children were hurt physically or emotionally. Going to prison is how I got free. (2019). Looking Beyond Caged Heat. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 28(1), 85104 https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12058. Feminist Criminology, 2(4), 304326. If both the criminal justice and child welfare systems could identify ways to promote safety while increasing connection, love, visitation, education, and mothering, outcomes among mothers and children would likely be improved. Thompson, P. J., & Harm, N. J. DeHart, D. D. (2009). WebThe presence of a number of criminogenic influences such as poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence in the lives of women incarcerated for primarily nonviolentlargely drug-relatedoffenses and in the lives of their children were identified. Daly, K. (1992). New York: Routledge. Discriminatory acquittal. For example, participant 7, a White mother, was serving 13months for a probation violation on her original charge of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. (2004). A group of mothers desiring to serve and honor God as we endure the burden of having a loved one who is

The effect of maternal incarceration on adult offspring involvement in the criminal justice system. ), Imprisoning America: The social effects of mass incarceration (pp. I feel like as soon as I had a daughter I should have been more responsible. She asked for family counseling to help heal these wounds, saying that she needed One-on-one counseling for me and my daughter. Washington, D.C.: USDOJ, National Institute of Corrections. Data collection occurred from June 2015 to July 2017. Johnson, E., & Waldfogel, J. Women described the intersection of psychological distress, criminalized behavior, and mothering prior to incarceration and they were palpably aware of having made choices to sacrifice their own health on behalf of their children. Washington, D.C.: Womens Prison Association. Predicting the prison misconducts of women offenders: The importance of gender-responsive needs. The prison Kauffman, K. (2001, February). Accessed 18 Mar 2020. Mothers talked about the intersection between their behavior and their children or their roles as mothers in a variety of ways. Stereotyping and discrimination are amplified for pregnant women and mothers of young children, who are often labeled unfit, indifferent, and neglectful mothers (Aiello & McQueeney, 2016; Kauffman, 2001; Teather, Evans, & Sims, 1997). Keitner, C. I. Women & Criminal Justice, 14(1), 131154. For many mothers, their children and their identity as a mother functioned as the primary source of their motivation to change. It is vital that we learn more about the experiences and needs of incarcerated mothers as a means to develop more effective physical, mental, and behavioral health prevention and intervention strategies, foster the parent-child bond between mothers and their children, and help set women and families up for success when they return home.

Challenges incarcerated women face as they return to their communities: Findings from life history interviews. All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39, 10631074. Social Work in Public Health, 27(12), 6988. Likewise, they detailed the ways that their children, and their identity as a mother, functioned as catalysts for their change processes whether that included leaving a violent partner, maintaining sobriety, or interrupting what they perceived as an intergenerational cycle of abuse and incarceration. There is no public outcry to defend the rights of incarcerated mothers, because, the dominant narrative is that their children would be better off without them (e.g., Allen et al., 2010). When she hesitated, he told her that he would gut the baby from head to toe if she stopped driving. Raleigh: North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisor Commission. Ferraro and Moe (2003) noted that the decision to engage in criminalized behavior was situated in the context of economic need by incarcerated women women described stealing goods or passing worthless checks as a means to feed themselves and their children. lancescurv Im a nurturing person. Belknap, J., & Holsinger, K. (2006). Mothers spoke of how they prioritized their children, even when that meant risking their own autonomy and freedoms. Women of reproductive age may experience pregnancy and mothering in a correctional environment designed for men. It is time to challenge the inertia of a criminal justice system created by men for men based on the understanding of the needs of men which has functioned largely unchanged for a century. However, they consistently identified the desire to do different, and to grow and develop as women and mothers. As noted, the vast majority of research on incarcerated mothers focuses on their children, and incarceration is associated with a range of negative behavioral, emotional, and justice-system outcomes for those children. As participant 9, a Black mother, succinctly noted, You defeat the purpose here [of] trying to improve the lives of a mother by separating her from her kids. Mothers described how their childrens health and well-being motivated and sustained them through the change process. Southern California Review of Law and Womens Studies, 2, 1152. For example, participant 58, a Black mother, recounted the horrific story of becoming an accomplice to murder. Women & Criminal Justice, 15(1), 101119. Other mothers noted that they chose to manage their mental health and substance use disorder symptoms on their own so that they could continue caring for their children. Mothers also discussed the lack of family services during custody and their distress at losing both the physical and emotional connections with their children due to family separation and the general lack of available comprehensive visitation programs. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics. When mothers are incarcerated, the disruptions the child experiences are magnified, as children are more likely to lose their home and their primary support. The authors read and approved the final manuscript. 115140). Hunter, V., & Greer, K. (2011). The prison environment also presents specific obstacles to mother-child visitation such as inadequate information about the visitation process, difficulty scheduling visits, uncomfortable or humiliating visitation processes, or the familys inability to access or afford transportation. Participant 113, a Black mother, spoke about moving to a lower security honor grade facility so that she could have access to betterment programs and gain more privileges, but this move meant that she had to sacrifice her spot in MATCH. As other mothers of incarcerated children will attest, this pain is great. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 31, 624645. Although there are proven benefits to both mothers and their children through regular contact (e.g., Poehlmann, 2005a, 2005b), most mothers never receive even one visit from their children during their incarceration (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008; Mignon & Ransford, 2012). Despite her own experiences of trauma, this participant and many others viewed their children as a source of strength and conceptualized their care and worry about their children as intrinsically motivating. Luke, K. P. (2002). Women of color often face additional discrimination and judgment as the composition of their families marks them as aberrant in the eyes of White middle-class justice system stakeholders (Richie, 2018). In some cases, this need to protect their children pushed mothers to violence or extreme behavior. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36, 541566.

For parents, this means that part of their punishment is being physically and emotionally separated from their children. Of woman born: Motherhood as experience and institution.

Is motherhood important? Likewise, the stories told by the mothers we interviewed also suggested that the mothering identity could also be used to help support the tangential outcomes of sobriety and desistance. Footnotes. Mothers in Prison: Maintaining Connections with Children. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 5, 167175 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027162. The mothers we interviewed sobbed while telling us stories of how they had failed themselves and their children. Nobody's child: The role of trauma and interpersonal violence in women's pathways to incarceration and resultant service needs. The purpose of the current study is to explore the experience of motherhood for incarcerated women using the Gendered Pathways Perspective and qualitative interviews. A strength of the current study is that we interviewed women positioned at multiple stations within the criminal justice system, ranging from women at minimum custody serving their first 90days for violating the terms of their probation to women at close custody serving life sentences. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. In sharing our thoughts around Mothers Day, we hope to brighten the day of despondent New York: W.W Norton & Company. A first step might be integrating evidence-based and gender-responsive risk-needs assessment (e.g., Van Voorhis, Salisbury, Wright, & Bauman, 2008) to gain a comprehensive understanding of mothers needs and develop policies and programs which explicitly address these needs. According to the 2019 Prison Policy Initiative Report on Youth Confinement, over 48,000 youth in the United States are detained in facilities away from home on any given day; nearly 4000 of whom are detained as minors in adult jails and prisons.This means that tens of thousands of mothers will be separated from their children today due to Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Health Justice 8, 12 (2020). Programs serve between 5 to 29 mother-child pairs and have been shown to improve mother-child attachment, improve parenting efficacy, and reduce participant recidivism rates (Fritz & Whiteacre, 2016). Stigma and bias were internalized by many of the incarcerated mothers we interviewed as personal shame. Women discussed their roles as mothers whether they were planning for release within the next few days or would spend the rest of their natural lives in prison. If I had gotten drug counseling when I needed it, I feel I wouldnt have ended up here. Although these policies affect both men and women, the stakes are higher and the consequences are more severe for mothers. Include any more information that will help us locate the issue and fix it faster for you. Chesney-Lind, M. (2006). By focusing on the mothering identities of incarcerated women, we do not mean to perpetuate the motherhood mystique the notion that women are biologically and culturally better suited to provide childcare than men, or to suggest that all women derive innate pleasure or meaning from mothering (Skott, 2016). For children whose mothers are currently in jail or prison, Mothers Day is likely to be marked by absence, powerlessness, and pain. These women are often described by criminal justice stakeholders as having chosen drug use, relationships, or crime instead of choosing their children (Aiello, 2013). Tripodi, S. J., Mennicke, A. M., McCarter, S. A., & Ropes, K. (2017). Race, Incarceration, and Motherhood. Allen, S., Flaherty, C., & Ely, G. (2010). Throwaway moms: Maternal incarceration and the criminalization of female poverty. 155176). Overall, 306 women were randomly selected for recruitment and 187 women joined the study, representing a 61% response rate.

The Gendered Pathways Perspective (GPP) emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century as a framework for understanding womens intersection with both crime and the criminal justice system (e.g., Daly, 1992; Owen, 1998; Richie, 2018). Washington, D. C.: Bureau of Justice Assistance. I just want to be a better parent to my kids. She was serving 3 years for larceny and drug possession and she had a long history of arrests and incarcerations related to drug addiction.

Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38(1), 138151. New York: Vera Institute of Justice Retrieved from http://www.safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/overlooked-women-in-jails-report-web.pdf. Memos were exchanged to suggest emerging themes and to examine the boundaries of consensus. Interviews were conducted with a sample of incarcerated mothers. Moe, A. M., & Ferraro, K. J. MATCH for this. For example, as of 2018, only 22 states had passed laws prohibiting the shackling of pregnant women during labor and birth (Ferszt, Palmer, & McGrane, 2018). Belknap, J., Lynch, S., & DeHart, D. (2016). Little is known about how incarcerated mothers make meaning of their parenting role and relationship with their children prior to incarceration and during custody. Likewise, visits help ease anxiety for mothers preparing for release (Mancini et al., 2016). We incarcerate to set free: Negotiating punishment and rehabilitation in jail. To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you dont already have one. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology, 1, 292316. Imprisoned womens maternal experiences before and during confinement and their postrelease expectations. Dallaire, D. H., Zeman, J. L., & Thrash, T. M. (2015).

Thanks for helping us catch any problems with articles on DeepDyve. Recommendations include infusing mothering and caretaking responsibilities into the sentencing process and exploring the intersection of race, gender, class, and mothering status on criminalized behavior. To subscribe to email alerts, please log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you dont already have one. 97131). The presence of a number of criminogenic influences such as poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing violence in the lives of women incarcerated for primarily nonviolentlargely drug-relatedoffenses and in the lives of their children were identified. For those mothers who were planning for their release from prison, they were angry that few housing programs especially sober-living programs existed to help them reconnect with their children while simultaneously working on their recovery. Children's experiences of maternal incarceration-specific risks: Predictions to psychological maladaptation. Affilia, 25, 160172 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109910364345. Zeng, Z.

The prison environment offers few opportunities for mothers to connect with their children; most mothers never receive even one visit from their children during incarceration. Comparative gender analyses suggest that women report an acutely more painful experience of confinement when compared to men and that their psychological well-being and mental health are compromised by imprisonment (Crewe et al., 2017; Harner & Riley, 2013). A growing body of research suggests that having a mother in prison is associated with a child's increased risk for behavioral problems, substance use, cognitive Data were deidentified and entries were read multiple times by each coder prior to starting the coding process. Aiello, B., & Mccorkel, J. What mother sits here with two beautiful kids and doesnt try to help themselves? Therefore, in the current analysis, we expand the GPP theoretical frame to investigate how incarcerated womens experience of mothering influences their health outcomes and creates a potent pathway to prison for this vulnerable population. Factors contributing to poor physical health in incarcerated women.

The mothers in our sample wanted family counseling, psychological help, and emotional support both for themselves and their children. She said at the conclusion of her story, I didnt want my daughter to be scared, I didnt want him to hit me anymore. She was incarcerated at age 30 and will spend the rest of her natural life in prison for capital murder. Mothers who had tried time and again to access community resources to escape domestic violence or to enroll in substance use disorder treatment were angry that help had not been accessible. The Prison Journal, 90, 397416. Mothers also described the psychological distress of family separation. They were extremely distressed about the care their children were receiving during their incarceration and the loss of influence they had over their childrens lives (Easterling & Feldmeyer, 2017; Halperin & Harris, 2004). However, few communities have established mother-child residential treatment programs, where mothers receive substance use services and children are both incorporated into their mothers recovery and receive their own therapeutic services (e.g., Seay, Iachini, Dehart, Browne, & Clone, 2017). fetch rewards interview process; david hutchinson obituary ), Women, law, and social control (pp. Weblamar county obituaries. It will crush you like a bug: Maternal incarceration, secondary prisonization, and childrens visitation. This gap existed across service spectrums, including mental health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, and domestic violence sheltering. Identified themes highlight how mothers sacrificed their own health and wellness in order to parent their children, sometimes foregoing substance use disorder treatment because they had no childcare options. Therefore, criminalized behavior is often entangled with the lack of health insurance and childcare, and the difficulty of weighing the cost of childcare against the potential salary of low-wage jobs (Ferraro & Moe, 2003). For example, incarcerated mothers in one prison in North Carolina are able to visit with their children on prison grounds in a home-like visitation center (Mothers and their Children - MATCH, n.d..). Additionally, there is an urgent need to expand the availability of community-based and in-prison programs that allow women to address health concerns while mothering their children. In asking for more programs to help her heal from trauma, participant 76, a White mother, simply noted, I want to be a different kind of mom. She was serving 38months for felony larceny and had spent much of her life in prison. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. But I had to be aggressive to take care of us. This participant was serving 30months for battery on a law enforcement officer, her second adult incarceration for starting a fight in the community and continuing the fight when law enforcement arrived. Thus, failing to catalyze the mothering identity as a vehicle for change represents a critical service gap as incarcerated mothers suggest that they spend a substantial amount of time in prison ruminating on the ways in which they put their children in danger and working towards growth and change in order to be better mothers to their children (Moe & Ferraro, 2006). They were eager to participate in parenting programs designed to increase mother-child connection and facilitate visits and they identified the mothering role as a key mechanism of change in substance use disorder treatment programs. Create a roadmap for the mother so she has some idea of what she can expect. Skott, B. P. (2016). The price they pay: Protecting the mother-child relationship through the use of prison nurseries and residential parenting programs. Poly-victimization among girls in the juvenile justice system: Manifestations & associations to delinquency (228620). Even in prison nurseries, incarcerated mothers are palpably aware of the tensions that arise in their enactment of the roles of both mother and inmate (Luther & Gregson, 2011). Poehlmann, J. FOCUS ON IMPROVING THE PRESENTNOT RELIVING THE PAST Research on incarcerated parents often focuses on their children, which obscures incarcerated mothers needs related to health and wellness. Protection and care, for some mothers, extended beyond providing food and shelter, and included ensuring that children were physically safe in their environments.

(2008). The main one being during a conjugal visit from his mother, he leapt from his chair and wraped his hands around her neck. Punishment & Society, 20, 351374 https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474517697295.

Results from GPP research suggest that women engage in criminalized behavior based on factors: (a) Not typically seen among men (e.g., prostitution, intimate partner violence, and coercion); (b) More prevalent among women (e.g., sexual abuse); or (c) Common among men and women but have distinctly gendered effects for women (e.g., drug use, intimate relationships, poverty, and economic marginalization; Belknap & Holsinger, 2006; Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2003; Daly, 1992; Reisig, Holtfreter, & Morash, 2006). The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 37, 418430 https://doi.org/10.1375/acri.37.3.418. While many who are not in their shoes to ever know, the pain that resides in a Mothers heart who has an incarcerated child has no equal as it is based on the Rates of incarceration for women in the Marion Pete Mays, Miquelles aunt who helped raise her, said she suffered years of depression after her siblings were incarcerated. Mothers in prison. Wolff, N., Shi, J., & Siegel, J. Women were recruited from three state prisons in the southeastern US; the sample was randomly selected using the census of all women housed in a minimum/medium supervision prison in Florida (n=39), a minimum security prison in North Carolina (n=74), and a medium/close supervision prison in North Carolina (n=74). For example, our report The Gender Divide: Tracking Womens State Prison Growth covers the effects of reform on women in prisons and the Vera Institute of Justice covers women in jails in Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. I had to sacrifice my freedom to get free. This theme was particularly strong as mothers discussed their attempts to access domestic violence sheltering services to escape an abusive partner. In many cases, the connection with ones children may be withheld, explicitly, as punishment for undesirable in-prison behavior (Aiello, 2013; Allen et al., 2010). These programs typically allow infants to co-reside with their mothers in a segregated unit until they are 3 to l8 months old. Web00:00 / 00:00.

For example, participant 1, a White mother, was serving her third adult incarceration for drug crimes. The Role of Stressful Life Events and Cultural Factors on Criminal Thinking Among African American Women Involved in the Criminal Justice System. The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Then, data were engaged in a line-by-line, case-by-case fashion. For some mothers, choosing to participate in these programs or treatment appeared selfish to their children. Crime and Delinquency, 47, 368389. Their reactions were often fueled by psychological distress of having survived abuse and extraordinary trauma.

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mothers of incarcerated share their pain