The springtime sun blazes over East Arrow Highway in Pomona, California, and the glare off the whitish-gray concrete walkways forces everyone to squint. Regina Dotson moves busily in and out of her office on the second floor of a residential structure built in the style of a standard Southern California roadside motel. Dotson is middle-aged and stylish; a cross embellished with a verse from Corinthians—"love is patient, love is kind"—stands on one of her filing cabinets. Prince plays softly on the radio as a series of young children run in from the balcony to ask for a piece of candy and a hug. Dotson reminds them to say "please" and "thank you."
It's hard to believe we're inside a prison.
"I love it here," Dotson says. "You come to work and you love on babies, and you get to be a part of a program that gives women an opportunity to change their lives. My husband says that I'm one of the few people that he knows that really likes their job."
Dotson is the sole correctional counselor assigned to oversee inmates at Prototypes, the only Community Prisoner Mother Program (CPMP) left in California. To get one of the 24 beds here, inmates must pass a comprehensive screening process, which takes into account the nature of their crime, their history of violence or lack thereof, and their mental, physical, and dental health. Hopeful applicants have been known to have all of their teeth pulled in an effort to meet dental health requirements—that's how badly prisoners covet these spots, which give them one of the rarest opportunities in the American incarceration system: the chance to be with their young children while they serve their time.
[For more of this story, written by Lauren Lee White, go to http://www.vice.com/read/how-a...-with-their-children]
Comments (0)