Kids as prison inmates: Should children be made to pay for their parents’ crimes?
Imagine knowing no other life other than that within a prison. Imagine a living condition where there was no potable water, adequate sewage facilities and the neighbourhood severely overcrowded one. The picture above is the reality some of the Nigerian children, about 60, 000 of them, in the Nigerian Prisons.
Some of these children do not have an idea about what the world outside the prison walls looks like and if the revelations of a relative to an incarcerated mother in Abeokuta said about her first experience with her niece is to be believed, some of these children may be living in more dire situations than most people may have thought of.
The aunt, who gave her name simply as Ramota, narrated to the Nigerian Tribune in her Ijebu Ode home that the first time she visited her sister in prison; she was shocked at what had become of her pregnant sister in the first three months of her incarceration.
“My sister was sentenced to 10 years for a crime we believe she didn’t know anything about. She was two months pregnant at that time. But when I went to visit her three months later, I was shocked at what had become of my sister. She was so thin; I almost did not recognise her. When I asked about her health, she said she was occasionally taken to the health centre, where she was given passable ante-natal attention. But I had to travel for a long time and when I came back, my sister had already put to bed and her baby had started to crawl.
“The sight broke my heart because a prison is not where a child should be born in, let alone grow up in. My niece is sleeping and waking up with over 20 other people who sleep on the floor in a prison cell. She doesn’t have access to good food, sharing the same meal with her mother. When I made an attempt to take the baby’s food to her, the prison wardens told me that I couldn’t leave them behind, so I had to take them home with me. I eventually had to take my niece away from there when she was old enough to be weaned. It is sad that there are children in prison cells who do not have people to cater for them except their mothers,” she submitted, her voice breaking.
Nigerian Tribune’s visit to some of the prisons revealed that most of the prisons, although renovated, were built several decades ago and do not conform to the 21st century provisions about the provision of basic amenities. Although most of the wardens would not give comments to the Nigerian Tribune on the living conditions in the prisons they manage, investigation reveals that there is a decided lack of potable water, health facilities and fresh air in the prisons, as some stink right from the entrance.
One young officer, who expressly asked not to be quoted, said that “we are often constrained with many children in the facility and we find it difficult to feed these prisoners and their children. We depend majorly on the food given by the government and donations from NGOs and private citizens to supplement their feeding.”
Some of the prisoners, especially mothers, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune when it went accompanying relatives to the prisons, complained of their living situations. A mother, who wouldn’t give her name said of her son that he was initially not used to visitors, because for a very long time, no one came visit her from her family, until some NGOs began checking up on her. Sobbing, she said her son was only used to the prison colours, because that was all he grew up to know. The son, according to her, was brought as an infant when no one from her family or that of her husband’s wanted to have anything to do with her.
Although she wouldn’t go into the details of what sent her to prison, she said she was not worried about serving her sentence or the stigmatisation that comes with being an ex-convict, but what the experience would do to her son.
Feeding, living in crowded spaces with poor sanitation and lack of education for her growing son, she said were some of the thoughts that keep her awake at nights, wondering why the society would be decidedly unkind to her innocent child, who may have to bear the brunt of her offence for a very long time.
“Sometimes our babies go without food. We breastfeed them from morning to evening on empty stomachs and we generally live in an unhygienic place not fit for children,” she said with sadness etched in her hollow eyes. She expressed that the way she saw it, it was unfair of the state to have children in prison with their parents as it is today.
From the Nigerian Tribune’s observation, the majority of children in Nigerian prisons are younger than five years of age. The first five years of life, psychologists, educationists and sociologists believe, are the most critical to the child’s development. Over half of these children living in prisons got in at the beginning of their parents’ or mothers’ detention, with the rest being born in there, as co-inmates with their parents. Several among the reasons given by the women interviewed are the absence of other relatives available or willing to keep children, breast feeding, lack of wish to be separated from their children and chief of all , lack of choice.
The United States’ Department on Human Rights Practices had, earlier this year, said Nigerian prisons currently house not less than 60, 000 children. But the Controller General of Prisons, Mr Zakari Ibrahim debunked the claim, claiming only about 69 babies are currently locked up with their mothers in the 234 prisons across the country, while 847 juvenile inmates are also said to be enclosed in the three Borstal Training Institutions located in Kaduna, Abeokuta and Ilorin.
Be that as it may, children psychologists and social welfare officers have raised the concern over the effects this kind of living conditions may have on the children in the prisons which do not conform to the 21st century specifications.
For one, it has been ascertained that adults, whose immune system is fully developed, barely survive living in the prisons, let alone children. Records have shown that nearly every month, about five to six mothers are jailed with their babies, with some of them giving birth in prisons. Some of these mothers are on remand waiting their sentences.
Reverend Father Patrick Ngoyi, the Director of the JDPC, Ogun diocese, spoke on the situations responsible for the presence of children living with their parents in prisons. He blamed “acute backlog” in the prison systems as culprit. “You see the intense case backlog which normally takes months or years, is responsible for many innocent mothers to be detained together with their children for a long time that end up being subjected to hard conditions in prisons.”
A child playing in prison. Photo: ReutersBut what exactly are the consequences of having children live in prison with their children? A United Nations (UN) Quaker research on children incarceration reveals that in future, the victims are most likely to deal with confusion, shame and anger. Also, children in prisons are at risk of tetanus, malnutrition, trauma and tuberculosis from infected inmates. The research also revealed that men, women and malnourished children live daily with 15 people cramped in spaces no bigger than a normal room, and very often without any protection from the weather conditions and floods during the season.
As Father Ngoyi pointed out, lack of food, water, medicine and education, in addition to violating the national law and international conventions on human rights, cause serious damage to health and child development.
Child psychologists have also said the effects of living in prison could cause the children to be traumatised, anti-social or become criminals, in extreme cases. Dr Alice James, a child psychologist in Lagos State, explained that children in prison often witness sexual abuse, assaults, fights, and other acts of violence which are common in a prison setting.
“Imagine seeing that level of violence, which I am fairly certain, is not limited to inmates alone, I mean prison guards have the likelihood of becoming violent, that experience can cause severe trauma on young children. As you know, children who grow up in violent environments have the tendency to become violent also, thus, they’re also navigating toward criminal paths.
“A child who grows up in an environment where his mother or someone else’s mother is being sexually assaulted by prison guards would be traumatised by anxiety, depression and phobias, among other mental health issues. So in my opinion, children have no place in prisons. It is the job of the society to protect these children from such horrible experience, but sadly, most of us fail these children,” she said.
As if to lend credence to Dr James’ point, a foreign organisation, GoodTherapy, which specialises in helping people find therapists and advocating for ethical therapy, submitted that “prisoners are, by definition, cut off from the rest of society, and their access to supportive friends and family may be limited,” but advocated that “support from loved ones can play a critical role in helping people overcome mental challenges, and isolation can increase a person’s risk of mental health issues such as depression and anxiety,” which by proxy, extends to the children also.
In a twist to the problems encountered in prisons, one being inappropriate environment for babies and young children, which health officers have reported often causes long term developmental retardation, some schools of thought are worried that if babies and children are forcibly separated from their mothers, they may suffer permanent emotional and social damage, at least in the view of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
But Dr Kazim Alakija, a child welfare officer in Ibadan, Oyo State, said that in his experience, even in a modern prison system in the developed world, where the government and prison management have made it a point of duty to provide good facilities for children, there is a danger of overestimating the possibilities of creating a child-friendly environment in prison, as in summation, prisons in themselves were not compatible with raising children, at all.
Father Ngoyi also believed that children should not be raised in prisons and as such, families of the inmates would be doing the children a great service in taking them off “that ugly environment.” He also called on the governments in the country to supplement the efforts of NGOs by creating facilities where children of inmates who do not have anywhere else to turn can be placed, raised and catered for in accordance to the “natural laws of raising children.” Concluding, the Father said “the truth of the matter is that, there is an obvious need for facilities within which to keep children of inmates because otherwise, these children’s lives will continue to be a waste to everyone invoved.”
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