Five incarcerated women at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center in Vandalia were chosen to act as caretakers at a nursery that opened on the prison grounds in January. Tara Carroll (second from right) said the nursery is “very peaceful” and “very serene,” a stark contrast from what she experienced after delivering her daughter while incarcerated nearly three years ago (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent).
VANDALIA — Tara Carroll gave birth to her daughter in 2022 while serving a 22-year sentence in the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center. Shortly after she finished laboring in the hospital, the baby was sent home with her husband while she returned to her prison cell.
She didn’t leave her bed for a week. Back in an environment where she felt she always had to be strong, she wrestled with postpartum depression.
Now, nearly three years later, Carroll is helping to care for other pregnant incarcerated women through a prison nursery program — the 10th of its kind in the country — unveiled last week in Vandalia by the Missouri Department of Corrections.
“This program is going to give women the building blocks to live a better life,” said Carroll, who is among five caregivers selected by DOC staff among the prison population. “And then that is going to overflow into their children, and then their children’s children.”
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The first women are expected to move into the program next week.
The inside of the nursery, which is on prison grounds but separate from the main prison community, is starkly different from the rest of the facility.
The floors are soft, made for tiny feet learning to walk, and colorful artwork on the walls is meant for little eyes. These thoughtful touches gained the admiration of Maggie Burke, a former warden at the Illinois Department of Corrections who worked in that state’s prison nursery and who helped advocate for the nursery in Missouri.
Burke, who is now with the Keyway Center for Diversion and Reentry in St. Louis, hopes to see the Missouri program continue to expand. Right now, only women with fewer than 18 months left on their prison sentence are eligible. Illinois’ program began with similar restrictions, but later expanded to serve women with longer sentences who were eligible to live with their young children in transitional housing.
As Burke spoke, Liza Weiss, founding director of Missouri Appleseed, stood quietly nearby, taking in the space that many credit her for bringing to life.
Weiss started advocating for the prison nursery in late summer 2021. A bill with her idea, sponsored by then-state Rep. Bruce DeGroot, a Chesterfield Republican, passed the following spring.
The legislation had rare and overwhelming bipartisan support, receiving only one vote in opposition among the state’s 163 representatives and 34 senators.
“Everyone was excited to help Missouri families and keep moms and babies together,” Weiss said, adding that nursery programs elsewhere in the country have produced research pointing to less depression and anxiety in children born to incarcerated mothers who were able to remain with their mother.
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Sam Lee, a long-time anti-abortion lobbyist, said the legislation was one of the most satisfying he’s ever worked on. While he didn’t help draft the language, he did go from office to office asking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to support it.
“For most people, they just think everyone’s fighting all the time,” Lee said.. “And it appears that way, but lawmakers and lobbyists and various groups do get together on occasion and work seamlessly together.”
Jeff Smith, a former Democratic lawmaker and lobbyist for groups like the ACLU, said his work alongside Lee on the bill garnered attention.
“We got more than one double take when we’d walk together into a Senate office,” said Smith as he stood beside Lee again on Thursday in the nursery’s hallway.
Smith said in his two decades in Missouri politics, he’s never seen a state agency start to work toward a bill’s implementation before it even passed. But before the spring of 2022, the department of corrections was already sending staff to states with prison nurseries to start evaluating best practices.
The program’s funding is currently set to be evaluated on an annual basis. For the 2026 fiscal year, the department of corrections is asking for $837,000 in appropriations.
During a budget committee hearing Thursday morning, Missouri Department of Corrections Director Trevor Foley answered questions about the nursery, relaying that on average, between 25 and 30 women give birth in the state’s custody each year. About half of those women, he said, are in custody as part of a 120-day institutional treatment program unique to Missouri.
“We already housed pregnant women,” he told lawmakers. “The only distinction now is that when they go to the hospital, go through labor and delivery, they get to take their baby back.”
A few hours later, Kim Perkins, the nursery program manager, told those gathered in Vandalia that she’s unsure what appropriations will look like next year.
“Right now, we’re great,” she said, emphasizing that continued financial support from the state is critical. “Diapers are expensive. .. formula is $52 a can.”
But she’s hopeful the support will continue.
Plus, she’s already had three other states reach out — North Dakota, Idaho and Arkansas — inquiring about starting similar programs at their own correctional facilities.
“There’s more common ground than I think a lot of people know of,” said state Rep. Stephanie Boykin, a Democrat from Florissant, who joined Thursday’s nursery tour. “This is a perfect example of things that we can definitely agree on.”
Boykin, who spent about a decade on the state’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Corrections prior to being elected a representative this past fall, said in her many visits to corrections facilities across the state beginning in the 1990s, she’d always wondered what happened to pregnant women. The latest development left her hopeful for the future of Missouri families.
On her way into Vandalia, a town of about 3,000 people situated about 75 miles northeast of Jefferson City, Boykin loaded her vehicle up with diapers from Costco, eager to add to the nursery’s growing stash.
The program includes a year of support after the woman is released from prison, including help with baby supplies, job preparation, housing and child care.
Not everyone is eligible for the nursery. The women cannot have a history of violent sexual crimes or crimes against children. They also cannot have more than 18 months left on their prison sentence. If they match the criteria, they can move into one of the rooms in the nursery ward as soon as they learn they’re pregnant.
Once they deliver their baby in the hospital, they return to one of the nursery’s seven bedrooms, which can each hold up to two women and two babies, allowing space for up to 14 mothers and their children at a time.
This is a huge change from what was in practice until that point: After delivering at a hospital, women would be taken back to the prison and their baby would be passed off to a family member or taken into state custody.
“It always hurt my heart when a mother would deliver her baby and have to give it up at the hospital,” said Angela Mesmer, who has served as the prison’s warden for about 15 years. “There’s no bonding.”
On Thursday, Briana Johnson, 40, sat on a couch in the nursery wing’s community room as dozens of lawmakers, community members and lobbyists gathered around bookshelves and beside inspirational signage, including one that read: “Be brave and go on an adventure.”
She said an ongoing struggle with substance abuse landed her in prison again, separated from her three children.
Johnson learned she was pregnant with her second daughter while incarcerated. She was released about 60 days before giving birth.
“But it was close,” she said. “I know that fear. I know what it feels like to wonder whether or not you’ll have to give your baby away or if you’re going to be able to take care of it.”
Johnson said being enlisted as one of the five caregivers in the program is already helping her heal. The five women, all of whom are incarcerated, live in the nursery wing and help the new mothers navigate pregnancy and postpartum. That could mean assisting with feedings at 2 a.m. or teaching them how to do a load of laundry.
“I can give these mothers maybe a little bit of advice and a little bit of insight into their future if they don’t choose something different for themselves,” she said. “And this facility, this program affords them that opportunity that I was never given.”
The Independent’s Rudi Keller contributed to this report.
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This post was originally authored and published by Anna Spoerre from Missouri Independent via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
