Hard Time Is Even Harder When Prisoner Is A Mother

The prison time imposed on women felons is only part of their punishment when they are mothers.

“My punishment is that my children are growing up without me,” drug manufacturer Annette Tipton says through her tears.

And officials at the women’s prison in Pocatello agree most women inmates who have children find them to be the greatest inspiration and the greatest source of pain during their incarceration.

“Their children become a focal point,” Warden Bona Miller said. “When things happen to women’s children while they are inside, they tend to try suicide - go off the deep end in one way or another.”

The situation is aggravated because seldom do husbands follow their inmate wives as women tend to move to the area where their husbands are imprisoned. Miller said only one husband has moved to Pocatello to remain near his wife.

“Usually, the men disappear, and the children are sent to family members until the women get out to raise them alone,” the warden said.

Tipton, 32, who has a parole hearing next spring, is relying on her sister and mother to care for her 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. But that does not preclude the behavioral or emotional problems that often develop.

“My son has an anger problem, and he has a right to,” she said. “I keep begging him to stay out of trouble so he is not locked up somewhere when I get out. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I plead. I always cry.”

Prison officials work to help inmates maintain and enhance family relationships. They even offer a variety of classes from parenting to anger management.

Audrey Ann Patrick still has nine years left on her sentence for vehicular manslaughter. A self-described social alcoholic who forfeited a good-paying job and life with her four children ranging from 8 years old to 21, Patrick recognizes that even the youngest will be all but grown up when she is released.

“I accept that I must be punished for what I’ve done, but my children are being punished right along with me and they didn’t do anything wrong,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you never stop caring about your children.”