STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's prison service may allow babies to live in prison with their fathers, putting men on an equal footing with women in prison parenting, a prison service official said Thursday.
"It would be a possibility for men, but only in rare cases where social services find it is in the child's best interests," prison official Elisabeth Lager told Reuters. "It would not become their right, just a possibility."
Only nine or 10 women prisoners a year are given custody of their babies inside Swedish jails, said Lager, and making this possible for men was not a question of gender equality but of minimalizing the effects on babies of their parents' imprisonment.
Once over a year old, children are not permitted to live behind bars.
Like jailed mothers, the fathers would live with their babies in open prisons, not in cells in high-security jails.
Other recommendations the service is making to the Justice Ministry include more prisons having apartments available for children to visit jailed parents in more congenial surroundings.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051027/od_nm/sweden_prison_dc
"It would be a possibility for men, but only in rare cases where social services find it is in the child's best interests," prison official Elisabeth Lager told Reuters. "It would not become their right, just a possibility."
Only nine or 10 women prisoners a year are given custody of their babies inside Swedish jails, said Lager, and making this possible for men was not a question of gender equality but of minimalizing the effects on babies of their parents' imprisonment.
Once over a year old, children are not permitted to live behind bars.
Like jailed mothers, the fathers would live with their babies in open prisons, not in cells in high-security jails.
Other recommendations the service is making to the Justice Ministry include more prisons having apartments available for children to visit jailed parents in more congenial surroundings.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051027/od_nm/sweden_prison_dc
