Get on the Bus: Mobilizing Communities across California to Unite Children with Their Parents in Prison
Get on the Bus: Mobilizing Communities across California to Unite Children with Their Parents in Prison
Studies show that regular contact between incarcerated mothers and their children is crucial to the mental health and development of both groups. Yet no programs existed to make this contact possible. Beginning in 1998, Women and Criminal Justice, a group of activists concerned about the plight of women prisoners, worked with prison officials and families to develop a program for bringing children to visit their parents in prison. The first bus left Los Angeles for Chowchilla prison the next year, carrying fifteen children. Today, Get on the Bus fills more than thirty buses with 600 children from all over California to visit their mothers on the Friday before Mother's Day. In 2006, the program also brought children to visit their fathers in prison for Father's Day. Get on the Bus continues to explore ways to bring families together. Thanks to a successful legislative campaign, the organization will be initiating the Chowchilla Family Express, free monthly transportation for children of prisoners and members of their extended families.
Keywords: Women and Criminal Justice, children of prisoners, women prisoners, mental health, Get on the Bus, families, incarcerated mothers, California, Chowchilla Family Express
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