Mother Infant Care program

Alternatives to imprisonment that remove incarcerated mothers from the correctional setting and place them with their children in a supportive community setting, are effective because these programs provide needed services to mothers and children and have been shown to reduce recidivism.

In 1978, legislation creating the Mother-Infant Care Program (MIC) was enacted. Unlike prison nursery programs, MIC represents an actual alternative to incarceration in that eligible women can serve the remainder of their sentences in a supportive community halfway house environment with their young children. This alternative to incarceration is open only to eligible women sentenced to a California state prison facility. A woman currently in a county jail must wait until she is placed in a State Correctional Facility before she can apply to the program.

MIC was not effectively implemented when the first community facility opened its doors. Seven years after MIC was begun, less than fifteen women were participating. Many women only heard about the program through other prisoners. Some women had to wait over two years after submitting their applications before they were notified of their application status. Delays were often the result of applications being lost or incorrectly processed.

In 1985, LSPC filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections (CDC) to reform and expand the MIC program. The case, Rios v. Rowland, was settled in 1990. As part of the settlement, the CDC must let the women know about MIC within one week of their being taken into custody and accept applications from pregnant prisoners before delivery.

In 1988 additional regulations were passed and CDC rules implemented establishing that pregnant women could be placed directly into the program before delivery, that women convicted of manslaughter may be considered if they committed the crime in response to a physically abusive male partner, and that the CDC may consider mitigating circumstances to approve an otherwise ineligible applicant.