NYS CoRR Platform

Family Services

Issue Summary.

Entire families suffer from the incarceration of any family member;  restorative justice calls for their further consideration.

Coalition Position.

• Extend the missions of the NYS  Department of Correctional Services and the NYS Office of Children and Family Services, to  partner with family members of incarcerated persons for the preservation and strengthening of family bonds, including, but not limited to the following.
   
• Establish and encourage participation, of incarcerated persons and their families, in responsible parenting programs and the avoidance of domestic violence.
   
• Emphasize job oriented training for incarcerated persons that will enable economic support of family.
   
• Further facilitate family visiting. Assign incarcerated persons to prisons located as close as possible to their families.  Insure respect and support, by all corrections personnel, for visiting family members.
   
• Provide supportive and instructive children’s facilities in all visiting areas.
   
• Provide in-prison Family Reunion Programs at all major correctional facilities.
   
• Facilitate and fund family-connection programs, such as low-cost telephone services, and use of email (as in Federal prisons) for family dialog.
   

• Support professional counseling of families, including children, in distress.
   
• Allow scheduled family counseling, including incarcerated persons, prior to release, with a family-provided clinical psychologist.
   

Rationale.

Tens of thousands of NYS children miss the daily love, instruction, and guidance of a parent who is in a NYS prison, and their development as full citizens is jeopardized.

Children of incarcerated persons are at risk, and have a higher probability of emotional distress, failure in school, and conflict with the law. Counteracting this exposure, investment in preserving strong family bonds can reduce the probabilities of later youth-breakdowns, drug use, crime and incarceration costs.

Strong family ties also encourage rehabilitation and help to reduce recidivism of the parents who are incarcerated.

Communities then benefit from improved public safety, and families are better able to contribute and prosper, when incarcerated persons return to communities with strong family bonds.

It is therefore an obligation to take opportunities to strengthen family bonds, avoid family breakdown and help to save these children.

 

A summary of all 12 planks can be found at Summary

Please indicate your support of this platform by signing the Petition

Help in sending an email to NYS legislators supporting this plank is at Support.

 

 

 

 

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