Mass Incarceration and Children Book Review

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Alone in the World -- Neil Bernstein

The book is both a reflection of the damage done and a future roadmap. The author has employed several convincing aspects of narration in expressing her criticism of the policies that govern crime and the management of those convicted of various offences. Policies such as sentencing, arrest, foster care, legacy, visiting and re-entry are cast in the exploration.

Accounts from her interviews with children whose parents are incarcerated help us to not only see the suffering and trauma that such children go through, but also help us to see the lacunae in the system. the police took away Ricky's mother rather quickly, Leaving Ricky alone to fend for his younger brother who was an infant. Ricky had to take up adult responsibilities. He, a child too, cooked and took care of his infant brother for two weeks. Neighbours got concerned and called in Child Protection Services. In another case, Antonia, 5 years old saw her mom picked up by the police, handcuffed and locked in the back of a police patrol car for a prostitution offence. She stayed with her brother aged 10 years for a whole week before their mother returned (Goldstein, 2004).

According to human rights activists on the international front, incarceration of parents remains the greatest threat to the well-being of children in the U.S. (The Osborne Association, 2010). The threat adds to the many negative effects that children encounter apart from the already delimiting poverty, unemployment of their parents, unreliable housing, and the violence they witness as their parents are sent to prison (Drucker 2011). The confluence of risk factors only helps to compound the likelihood of the children developing undesirable behavioral traits as they grow. It is clear that the incarceration only exacerbates the suffering such children already face. These are the potential conditions to entice children to all manner of deviant habits and behavior including drug abuse and other antisocial tendencies (Feig, 2016).

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It is traumatic for children to watch their parent being arrested at gunpoint, handcuffed and pushed violently into a police truck. This is a common trend in poor communities in the USA. Such practice could be corrected by an officer taking the children to another room in the house and asking the parent if there is anyone to take care of them. The action by the police as it stands now, fuels mistrust towards the police and the law by these children. Indeed, an officer reminds the author that when children see the police as enemies, it does not help either police or public safety (Goldstein, 2004).

Bernstein has employed the use of well documented evidence and statistics to argue that prisoners and their children's well-being would be best attained with regular visits by the family, drug treatment and training classes in parenting. the current practice of throwing parents into prison and stage-managing communications between such parents and their children by phone or through a glass wall, or even other common measures such as taking children to foster parents proves to be counter-productive. The prevailing practice seems to satisfy the common thirst for retribution but looking at Bernstein's proposals, it is apparent that they offer lower recidivism rates among the prisoners and reduce the probability of the children following the fault-ridden practices of their parents (Bernstein, 2005).

Some people believe that those convicted do not deserve privileges or fair treatment. However, experience shows that when the system shuts down all means by which a convicted person can seek to correct the wrongs in their lives, it leads to a dead-end and higher recidivism rates. Children commonly celebrate when their parents are released from prison; however, they are soon confronted with the harsh realities of the parent's inability to get gainful employment, struggling with life and other challenges because of the stigma of the criminal past that has been effectively strengthened by the system. The.....

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