Word: estensorro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...themselves. In Bolivia, South America's poorest country, it's often financially impossible for family members on the outside to take on more mouths to feed. Orphanages aren't feasible, either: "Children live in worse conditions there than in the prisons - and without their moms and dads," says Rene Estensorro, a psychologist at Semilla de Vida (Seed of Life), a non-governmental organization that works with imprisoned mothers and their children. Lopez agrees. Releasing the kids from the prisons, he says, "means [their] direct entryway onto the street...
...equally important question, of course, is what prison time does to the children. Estensorro acknowledges that "we see a lot of repression in the children." Kids inside the Women's Correctional Facility are punished for normal behavior like waking up in the middle of the night - because they end up waking up everyone else inside the cramped sleeping quarters. School age kids leave the prison each day to attend regular schools but nonetheless suffer isolation from their peers. Another problem: the lack of 24-hour medical care inside the prison. Worse, kids must sometimes share mom's punishment...
Either way, even if the world outside Latin America might view the practice as a 21st-century version of a 19th-century evil, making children part of a prison's population has become an integral part of the region's corrections culture. "Kids learn to adapt," says Estensorro. "I believe they really are better off here...
| 1 |