The perils of pretrial incarceration practices in Oklahoma are spotlighted again in a report that specifically zeroes in on the “devastating” consequences of keeping mothers from their adolescent children.
Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday released a 121-page report on “the lasting harm of jailing mothers before trial in Oklahoma.” The report states that women are the fastest growing correctional population in the U.S., and since the 1990s, Oklahoma has incarcerated more women per capita than any other state.
The majority of women admitted to jails are accused of minor crimes, with pretrial detention that can “snowball into never-ending family separation as mothers navigate court systems,” according to the report. After obtaining release, fines, fees and costs stack up and potentially impede a mother’s ability to regain personal footing and custody of her kids.
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Nationally, nearly 80 percent of women in jails have minor children.
“This report finds that jailed mothers often feel an added, and unique, pressure to plead guilty so that they can return home to parent their children and resume their lives,” the report states. “These mothers face difficulties keeping in touch with their children due to restrictive jail visitation policies and costly telephone and video calls. Some risk losing custody of their children because they are not informed of, or transported to, key custody proceedings.”
Notably at the local level, the report found that more than 400 women in 2016 and 2017 were booked into the Tulsa County jail who ultimately had their cases dismissed. Their average length of stay was 21 days, with a median of nine days.
“Even a few days in jail can lead to someone losing employment, not seeing or speaking to their kids or losing personal belongings,” said Jasmine Sankofa, author of the report.
Sankofa said interviewers spoke with one mom who lost all of her belongings because she had been living out of a motel when she was put in jail.
The situation is difficult for not only moms but also for their offspring.
National studies show children of incarcerated parents are more likely to have poor peer relationships and exhibit emotional and psychological problems, as well as behaviors such as aggression, hostility, eating disorders and self-harm, the report states. School-aged children also often have poorer grades and higher suspension and dropout rates.
And unsurprisingly, Oklahoma’s percentage of kids impacted by parental incarceration is greater than the national average. According to Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center, 12 percent of children in Oklahoma (108,000) have a parent or guardian who has served jail time.
Two social workers in Oklahoma explained what they’ve seen firsthand.
Significant shame transfers to children, and they often don’t understand why their parent is away, according to the report. The instability at home seeps into school, with students who are bullied, unable to focus and feel their parents don’t love them.
Tulsa County stood out in a notable way in the report as having the only jail in the state to allow contact visits between mothers and children as part of its Parenting in Jail program.
Surveyors found out that only six of the 25 county jails questioned have available regularly scheduled in-person visitation. Once a week, the Tulsa County jail allows “full-contact visits” between eligible moms and their kids.
Parenting in Jail works with about 20 women at a time, with 15 new clients every seven weeks, the report states. More than 250 women have participated since it began with a private grant in September 2014.
“The program works collaboratively with incarcerated mothers to meet their goals, which include drug and alcohol recovery, relationship-building with children and families, and coping with trauma,” according to the report. “Most treatment plans include individual counseling.”
The report’s authors conducted 163 in-person or telephone interviews in 25 Oklahoma counties (which account for 79 percent of the state’s population) primarily from October 2017 to July 2018. They also analyzed publicly available data, information, policies and procedures.
In another critical look at incarceration in Oklahoma, the Vera Institute of Justice released a report in August 2017 on Tulsa County’s ballooning jail population in four-plus decades.
The catalyst was determined to be pretrial incarceration, which rose 70 percent from 1999 to 2014. The Vera Institute report has helped spark numerous reforms that are beginning to bear fruit.
A year later, the jail’s average daily population is down 18 percent — or about 300 inmates a day, according to data compiled by Vera Institute.
The Tulsa County jail’s average daily population was 1,698 inmates in the first quarter of 2017. That figure dropped to 1,397 inmates in 2018’s first quarter.
