From 1987 to 1990 more than five hundred women participated in federally funded parenting programs at the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Niantic, the only women's prison in Connecticut. The major goal of the parenting programs was to maintain and strengthen the bond between incarcerated mothers and their children. Previous research had indicated that 70 percent of women prisoners are mothers of children under eighteen years old and that over 80 percent of the mothers intend to be reunited with their children after release. (See Phyllis Jo Baunach, Mothers in Prison, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988; and Linda Abram Koban, "Parents in Prison: A Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Incarceration on the Families of Men and Women," Research in Law, Deviance, and Social Control 5[1983]: 171-183.) Issues of mothering are central to the lives of women prisoners, and strengthening a woman's self-identity as a mother and her knowledge and skills in parenting has been thought to have a major impact on her chances for success upon release from prison.
Coparenting in Kinship Families with Incarcerated Mothers: A Qualitative Study