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| Wyoming church group pushes for prison nursery |
| By billingsgazette.com - JOAN BARRON Casper Star-Tribune |
| Published: 12/30/2011 |
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Wyoming Association of Churches will once again lead the push for a nursery at the Wyoming women’s prison at Lusk. Chesie Lee, executive director of the organization of churches, said the nursery should have been approved by the Wyoming Legislature last session. “The program has many positive benefits and is an idea long overdue,” Lee said in a release. The program would allow certain pregnant inmates to keep their infants with them for up to 18 months while serving their prison sentences. It also would allow other inmates who meet certain criteria to have day and overnight visits with their older children. The Wyoming Department of Corrections and the State Building Commission recommended a $1.2 million state general fund appropriation to fix up a vacant building at the prison site in Lusk for the nursery. The building that would be renovated is the former intensive care unit located outside the main fenced area of the prison. Gov. Matt Mead denied the request, citing it as one of the difficult choices he had to make in building his budget for 2013-1014. Lee’s group is hoping the Joint Appropriations Committee will approve the department’s request when it begins its budget hearings next month. Last year the proposal, which had the support of former Gov. Dave Freudenthal, failed in the Joint Appropriations Committee by one vote. Efforts on the floor to put it back in the budget failed. But the Legislature authorized a study of the construction project by Tobin and Associates. The report said the project is feasible. Other states with the mother-child prison program include California, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia. “These programs have demonstrated to reduce recidivism among female prison populations,” the Tobin study said. The New York Department of Corrections reported that the recidivism rate in that state among women who were allowed to keep their babies in prison was less than half the rate of the general population. Wyoming Womens’ Center Warden Phil Myer, a strong supporter of the Wyoming plan, participated in Nebraska’s program when he worked for the Nebraska women’s prison before coming to Wyoming. Nebraska’s program, begun in 1994, recently produced research that recidivism was reduced by 33.2 percent when comparing women who went through the child program with those who did not, the Tobin study said. Read More. |
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