Considering there’s more than 10 times more men in prison than there are women, it is quite a disservice to 10x the children if the playgrounds are indeed helpful during visits.
Considering that developing a relationship with a child from inside prison seems most of the way impossible already, this strikes me as particularly cruel.
Seems like being denied opportunities to get to know your kid is one less reason to keep hopeful while inside and ultimately one less relationship to rely on once you get out.
I’d think that having a playground would be a great way to encourage families to visit; to encourage dads to interact with kids; to strengthen family bonds for inmates; to give them a positive reason not to reoffend, and the social structure to support them in their return to the outside world.
This is all speculation without research, but at the very least I’d think that it’d bear study.
I think it is blatantly sexist and should be remediated wherever possible. Kids need their fathers even if they happen to be behind bars most of the time. I have known fathers that did hard time and the loss of meaningful contact with their kids was almost as painful as the overall prison experience itself. They may be deeply flawed people with criminal tendencies but most of them really do love their kids in their own way. There is no reason to deprive kids from contact with their fathers unless there is some overriding safety reason for it. The fathers may even be able to help their kids, especially their sons, learn what not to do so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes.
However, I don’t think it should be automatically given. It should be a privilege like many of the others in prison that also takes the safety and security of the kids into account.
This situation is unfair to absolutely everyone. The Dads are hurt, the kids are hurt, the Moms are hurt, society is hurt because a simple tool to help the man want to reintegrate into society is missing. Lose all around.
An often overlooked aspect of America highest incarceration rate in the world: If each of the two million imprisoned Americans has an average of one child, there are two million children in the USA whose daddy (or mommy) is in jail. That’s about one in every school classroom.
Disrespect for the law, the disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the population, and an increase in racial tensions. Keep in mind that a third of the black male population ends up as felons.
To be fair, the alternative is (potentially) two million children with deadbeat dads living at home with them and fathering even more children that he can’t support.
That’s an awful lot of pain you’re associating with the lack of this. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’d just like to hear more about why you think so many people will be hurt. Why a a mom is being treated unfairly because a kid can’t play on a plastic slide in jail with his dad? Why I’m [society] being treated unfairly because mom and auntie cut a visit short because the kid is bored out of his skull after being there for 45 minutes watching them talk.
I understand the reasoning behind them, I can see how they’d be helpful, I just don’t think the lack of them is quite as traumatic to everyone as you’re making it out to be.
I never knew anything about playgrounds in prisons. I always thought, like I see on TV, the visitors hung out with the inmates in a room with a bunch of other people in the “No Touching” room for a little while and that was it.
Now, if the women’s facilities have playgrounds and the men’s don’t, it’s something to be looked at, there’s no question there. Not necessarily why don’t the men have it, but why do the women? Is it used? Do the kids like it? Have the men made any mentions of wanting it? Does it seem like it helps the moms and their kids stay closer while incarcerated and/or resume a normal life afterwards?
In other words, is it worth it or is it just for show?
It does appear that they’re not that expensive. The one I linked to was built on a $50k grant. I have no idea what that covered (just the playground? the area around it? any kind of up keep? etc). That appears to be a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs to run a prison.
Come to think of it, getting grants or fundraisers to build them is probably a great idea. You’d be surprised how much money you can raise doing a corn roast in a parking lot or setting up a booth at a fair. A non-profit that does this kind of thing could get 50k put together from the community in no time.
I was strolling thru my nearby Max security Woman’s prison
when an ominous figure entered my vision
I was taken by surprise by a pair of bloodshot eyes
As she hooted at me with extreme derision*
Just to clarify: do men get less visiting time, or is it just that men have to visit in a sterile room where women get to visit their kids on a playground? How long are the visits in both cases?
If men and women both get 15 minutes with their kids once a month, a playground seems dumb for the women, not a lack for the men. If, on the other hand, the visits are up to three hours but when kids visit the men they tend to leave early because it’s awkward and sterile and boring, but they stay the whole time with the women because they have a place to play, then that’s a big deal.
I don’t think that anyone thinks that putting playgrounds in the mens’ prisons will magically fix all of society’s ills. But it does seem like it’d be a step in the right direction. Why not do it?
Security shouldn’t be an issue: Most prisons already have outdoor rec areas.
I wonder if there’s some vicious circle-ness going on. Maybe there aren’t playgrounds at men’s prisons because men in prison get a lot fewer visits from kids—but maybe part of the reason for that is that it isn’t encouraged by things like building playgrounds.
No idea why men’s prison don’t have the same type of playground. But when I pass a park I don’t see scores of men playing with their little children, I see women.
At a ball field, yeah there are men coaching kids or tossing the ball. But at a playground, nope.
