'» i r e e i KO O tS
September 22-28, 201
News
Page 7
Children of
imprisoned
bill of rights
The first state law o f its
kind, Oregon's new
policy is intended to
minimize the trauma
children experience when
a parent is incarcerated
BY A M A N D A WALDROUPE
STAFF W R IT E R
ov. Kate Brown signed a “bill of
rights” for the children of parents
serving prison sentences into law on
Tuesday, Sept. 19, making Oregon the
state in the country to have such a law.
Advocates hope that by establishing a bill
of rights for the children of incarcerated
parents, Oregon’s state agencies - human
services, the criminal justice and foster care
systems, especially - will create policies
that reduce trauma experienced by children
and allow them to maintain stronger ties
with their imprisoned parents.
“We know that a large part of what helps
with reentry is having families that are
intact,” Sen. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland),
a chief sponsor of the legislation, told Street
Roots. “Children of incarcerated parents are
victims, as well, of what happens. Their
needs are rarely taken into consideration by
the courts, by the police.”
The new law requires the Department of
Corrections to develop policies and
procedures that reflect the needs of children
when their parents are imprisoned. The law
asserts that these children have nine
“essential” rights, which include protection
from further trauma and harm after the
arrest of their parents; the right to maintain
a relationship and visit their parents while in
prison, and to be included and considered in
decisions regarding their life, any potential
foster care situation, their parent, and to be
cared for in a way that “prioritizes the
child’s physical, mental and emotional
needs.”
The issue was the subject of the film
“Mothering Inside” by Portland filmmaker
Brian Lindstrom, featuring the work of the
Family Preservation Project. Parents who
were part of the Family Preservation Project
were on hand for the signing.
The Legislature passed the bill of rights
in June along with a package of a half-dozen
bills, also sponsored by Dembrow, related to
prisoners’ re-entry into society.
Three other pieces of legislation passed,
including a bill allowing child support
payments to be suspended while a parent is
imprisoned.
G
BrfH ,n B i U
o f Rights fo r Children o f Incarcerated parents. To the right, Sen. Michael D em b ro w ^(D -P o 7 tla n d ^
supporters o f the bill, along with Sen. Lew Fredrick, (D-Portland) standing fa r left.
' P
first
Another bill allows those on probation or
parole to perform community service
m a n a g e r fo r N o rth w e st Fam ily S e rv ic e s
in ste a d of paying c o u rt fe e s an d o th e r fines.
a n d a c ro ss O re g o n ’s s ta te ag en cies.
“A sy s te m of advocacy t h a t s ta r ts a t th e
C h ild ren o f In c a r c e r a te d P a r e n ts P r o g r a m ,
Yet another created “certificates of good
standing” for people convicted of Class A
misdemeanors and felonies who adhere to
treatment guidelines, perform paid and
unpaid work, meet the expectations of their
probation, and other measures. The hope is
that the certificates will help ex-prisoners as
they apply for housing and jobs.
The number of people who become
imprisoned while parenting a child has
grown a staggering 79 percent between
1991 and 2007, according to national
statistics. During that same period, the
number of children with an incarcerated
mother more than doubled. Nationally, 1 out
of every 14 children experiences the
imprisonment of one, or both, of their
parents.
Nearly 70,000 Oregon children have at
least one parent in prison, estimates
Children First for Oregon, one of the state’s
largest children advocacy organizations. The
imprisonment of parents disproportionately
impacts children of color: 1 in 9 African
American children will experience the
imprisonment of one of their parents. One
out of 8 of these children live in poverty.
Having a parent in prison during
childhood increases the trauma and
instability in a child’s life. In fact, a parent’s
imprisonment is among the 10 adverse
childhood events considered to contribute to
a person’s likelihood in developing
substance abuse disorders and other risky,
unhealthy behaviors and health problems.
Children with imprisoned parents are four
times more likely to become involved in the
juvenile justice system, three times more
likely to not graduate from high school, and
the likelihood of becoming homeless once
exiting the foster care system grows by 65
percent, according to a 2016 policy report
by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
tim e o f a r r e s t” n e e d s to b e d e v e lo p e d , sa id
which works to pair youth with mentors who
provide support while they’re in school or
seeking employment.
Every day, Kersten said, she sees the
traumatic effects of arrest and incarceration
on children.
“These children come to us with an
extraordinary amount of colossal barriers to
success,” she said, including generational
poverty, criminality and homelessness.
“(There’s) just a real lack of support,”
Kersten continued. “And you add on top of
that the shame and stigma of having a
parent in jail.”
A bill of rights for children of incarcerated
parents was first created by the San
Francisco Partnership, an advocacy
organization, in 2003. In March 2012, the
United Nations’ Human Rights Council
passed a resolution on children’s rights. The
Oregon version signed Tuesday includes
some of the provisions from the United
Nations resolution.
While Dembrow, Kersten and others
applaud the signing of the legislation, more
work is to be done for the bill of rights’
provisions to become policy and procedure.
“Sometimes these bills of rights are not
necessarily binding,” said David Rogers, the
executive director of the ACLU of Oregon,
which supported the legislation. “They
demonstrate that there is a vision and
values for Oregonians to do things
differently. We’re not at a place where we
ultimately want to be in terms of being able
to care for and lift up the health and
Wellbeing of children with incarcerated
parents.”
The law also creates the Task Force on
Children of Incarcerated Parents, which is
expected to develop recommendations for
how the rights enshrined in the bill can be
implemented in the criminal justice system
Marianne Kersten is the program
Jessica Katz, the director of Family
Preservation Project, a program of the
YWCA of Greater Portland that operates
four programs inside Coffee Creek
Correctional Facility, Oregon’s only women’s
prison.
That includes training police officers to
ask parents, as they’re being arrested, if
they have children in need of attention. “And
if you ask, ‘do you have kids?’ that’s not
enough,” Katz said. “You have to have a
response when you get a ‘yes.’”
Allowing children to safely visit their
parents while in prison is another priority of
advocates, and Kersten said that increased
communication with children to help them
understand what being in prison means and
what has happened to the one they love is
important to reduce feelings of isolation and
abandonment.
“The barriers for them to see that parent
are just unbelievable,” Kersten said. “People
think that somebody is arrested, lock them
up, and the family is better off. That’s not
the case. Just because their parent is locked
up doesn’t mean they don’t love that
parent.”
Department of Corrections spokesperson
Betty Bernt said that the bill of rights will
serve as a set of guiding principles.
“While we may not be able to remove the
obstacles and traumas faced by children of
incarcerated parents, we can help to create
a system that recognizes their needs and
prioritizes their rights,” she said.
Kersten calls this population of Oregon
children - even though they number one in
10 - “invisible,” a group who demand
attention.
“They’re everywhere,” she said. “They’re
in our midst.”