Babies born in prison to mothers serving long jail sentences

Among the inmates at the Santa Martha Acatitla female penitentiary in Mexico D.F. are women serving sentences for murder, drug dealing and kidnapping.

The prison stretches over 7.7 acres and has a capacity of 1,632 inmates.

Santa Martha is also home for 50 children born in the system who live inside the prison with their incarcerated mothers. Following a programme run by the psychologist Elsa Romero Martínez the children spend their morning at school in the Centre for Child Development situated inside the jail.
The mothers take their kids to the school at 8:30 a.m. and pick them up at 2:30 p.m. The children spend the rest of the day in their mothers’ cells or with their mothers in the exercise yards.

Ms Romero and her team believe that for women who keep their children longer, the rate of re-offending falls to about 10%, while for women who don't keep their children it is about 30%.
The warden, Luz Margarita Malo González said the children had a calming effect on the rest of the inmates. The presence of children also inspires the mothers to learn skills or, in many cases, to kick drug habits that landed them in trouble in the first place.

While prison may seem an unacceptable place to raise a child, the Mexican government has decided it will allow babies born behind bars to stay with their mothers until age six, rather than be turned over to foster homes or unprepared relatives. This is an exceptionally long term compared to England or Scotland, where mothers can only keep their babies until they are 18 months old, and then only in exceptional circumstances.

Inside the prison, mothers serving long sentences dread the day when their child has the leave after turning six. At the same time those who lack financial help from relatives struggle to earn enough money in prison to care for a child. Several said they waged a constant struggle to keep their children from getting sick and they often cannot afford to pay 10 pesos for pain killers and between 20 and 500 pesos for antibiotics.