Jordan Collins-Brown
Social Justice in the City
We must set the incarcerated free! Setting the incarcerated free does not mean to set
convicted felons free, literally, but we must find freedom for their children. Today’s prison
inmate statistics are constantly on the rise, there are more people incarcerated in the U.S. than
there were in the tyrannical times of Stalin, Mao, and Apartheid. Out of all the convicted and the
crimes committed, the toughest sentence hits home, the termination of the bond between parent
and child. Why, are the parental rights of the incarcerated dissolved with their children because
they are in prison? Can our laws deem the convicted unfit to raise their children because of a
criminal record?
A child is ten times more likely to end up in the juvenile correctional and legal system
like their incarcerated parent than go to college when parental rights are terminated. The belief
is that if we take away this fundamental right, we are letting the children wander into the same
cycle of imprisonment. This cycle that leaves children bound by poverty, violence, uncertainty
and deprivation.
A friend of mine had an adopted daughter whose parents were incarcerated. This girl
began to slowly sneak out at nights, ditch school, and not come home at all. The child’s right of
choice was taken away. Her right to choose whether or not she wanted to walk away from her
birth parents she loved was extinguished. This child recently ran away from home and her
adoptive parents lost contact with her. Society terminated the connection between parent and
child and we have consciously stood by and let this happen, while the streets are left to raise our
kids and increase their chances of entering the same cycle of incarceration as their parents.
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We need to push for House Bill 6750, created to support the children of incarcerated
parents. I encourage you to talk with your reps. and churches to support the children of the
incarcerated. We can become the link that brings together a mended home instead of widening
the divide of a broken one. My brothers and sisters I leave you with this question, do we want to
see the bird that sings for its freedom caged?
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