Tuesday afternoon I had jury duty for the Harris County District Court System. Harris county includes the city of Houston and has somewhere on the order of 4 million people in it since it covers the 3rd largest city in the country and then some. I say this because jury duty in these courts means a high possibility of something bad, real bad even and isn't just a traffic court. For me what started out as a "ha ha, hope I don't get picked and will still see you tomorrow at work" thing turned into one of the most emotionally draining weeks of my life. And I know for certain I didn't even get the worst possible things for a trial like murder. I will blog more about what happened probably in several installments later now that it is over and I can freely talk about however much or however little I want as it has been entered in public record.
But first, one of the saddest parts of serving on the jury had nothing specifically to do with my trial. It was the babies and children. Every day for the last three days while I go into or out of the 20 something story criminal courthouse there were lines of people waiting for the metal detectors to get in, the elevators, or just in the hallways. Obviously, this included many people from the lawyers to those that stand accused. But there were way too many (frankly one was too many for me) babies and children there obviously with a parent that is in trouble. It is heartbreaking to see and know that many clearly aren't going to have mom or dad home to help raise them and be there for them. And then at the end of the day today I found out the person I had to put in prison also has a 10 month old, a baby only 3 months younger than my own. I don't even think I need to say that I would never do something to put my baby through anything like this.
13 years ago
2 comments:
so there are some jails (only women's jails which i actually find terribly sexist) that have day cares and allow young children to continue to live with their mom's while they serve out a short prison sentence (only in certain cases) rather than go to foster care. i don't actually know how i feel about this. is a child better off in jail with their parent or better off in a foster home?
I'd personally have to go with the daycare in the jail as being better, best being they stay with other relatives first. There are some great foster families out there I'm sure, but too many that aren't. If the kids are with their moms "in jail" at least they are getting supervision and are around other kids that are in the same situation to bond with.
I actually read a story recently about a women's jail that setup a program for the kids to get headstart pre-school and see their moms. It made a difference both for the child to still have a relationship with their mom AND the prisoners were more likely to do things to improve themselves like finish schooling since they had a reason to do so.
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