Children in prison

Daniel Mendez Moran *

"I do not know if the laws are just or unjust laws are, all we know we are in prison is that the wall is solid and that every day is like a year, a year of long days?, Oscar Wilde wrote. In an environment like this, some children spend their first three years of life. They have not committed any crime, but convicted. His childhood was reduced to the walls of a prison, parks and gardens are guarded by gates and careers always end in the wall of the prison.

In the Spanish case, the law allows children up to three years of age to be with his mother while she is serving. Then, if the mother is not yet released, the child passes to the family or to a facility supervised by the Administration. This is a legal status and often inevitable. But this carries significant risks for children. Currently living in prisons 175 children in so-called "Units of Mothers?. Are modules where children have special conditions of life. Another 26 children live in "Units Dependent?, Which are for cases where the mother is in semi-liberty regime and can live in an apartment. For these mothers and their children in prisons, in collaboration with NGOs, facilitate the rental of an apartment.

The organization has spread throughout New Future Spanish geography different foster homes for children who come from broken families and Dependent Units of Corrections, where mothers can continue serving his sentence without his children to suffer the lack of freedom.

Prison is no place for children. Although children living in separate modules of prisoners and live in special conditions, living behind bars and play among officials is not the right environment for children.

"My experience with the staff was good. All our children were pending and not missing anything. They have special food and medical care. Our complaint is not humane treatment, but because the prison is not a place where children should grow?, Reporting Maribel, one of the women who lived with her son in jail.

Many of these children crawl for the rest of their lives the mark of the first years in prison. The previous Spanish law allowed the children could be up to 6 years, thus undermining the future of even more children.

"My son was up to two and a half years, so it was left with many memories. Sometimes I question things when we were in another house. They were hard times that affected him negatively. Over the past five months in prison stopped eating to the point that we were proposing to give the bottle back?, Reporting another affected mother.

The children stay in prison is a deterrent to its development and a burden for their education. Since NGOs are trying to improve conditions for children to go closer to the street, has special modules and associations that care for them while their mothers are serving sentences. Open Horizons NGO working in the prison environment with its volunteers, who perform lead workshops and weekends to play these little field. But sometimes, after trying real life, the contrast is unbearable, "I always kept returning mourn and I wanted to shout out again to the street?, Tells Vanessa. But in general, these activities improve their development, as are children whose paternal relation there many times, and who live only between mothers and officials, and where the horizon ends at the walls of the prison. All initiatives designed to prevent such unfortunate childhood scars are necessary.

* Journalist