was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of .Ěý

The rise in gas prices happened so quickly, single mom Luna Rosado has barely had time to adjust.

Rosado fills her tank twice a week to commute to her two health care jobs and shuttle her three kids to school, basketball and soccer practice.

This month, as costs have risen after the start of war in Iran, she’s been paying about $40 more a week on gas. That’s $160 less a month for groceries and everything else they need. Rosado has since had to calculate and recalculate her budget, seeing where she can find the room to absorb the changes.

“It felt almost impossible in the beginning because I didn’t know how to approach the situation. Everything’s just getting more expensive,” said Rosado, who lives with her three kids, ages 11, 9 and 7, in Plainville, Connecticut. “I’m like, ‘I can’t keep up.’”

The impact of gas prices is so broad it could . After the United States and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February, leading Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz and cut off a quarter of the world’s oil supply, single moms are one group that feels it all the more acutely as they balance rising costs on one income.

Chastity Lord, the president and CEO of the Jeremiah Program, which works with low-income single mothers, hears stories like Rosado’s nearly daily, she said — the single mom and teacher who is crashing on a friend’s couch to save on gas, or the single moms who are gig workers cutting back their Uber or DoorDash driving hours.

As of this week, the average price of a regular, unleaded gallon of gas is just over — more than $1 higher than what it was a month ago, according to AAA. In some states, like New Mexico, prices are up as much as , according to a New York Times analysis of data from GasBuddy, a gas price finder app.

“Gas cuts through everything,” Lord said. As a single mom, “you’re already underwater, and it’s almost like the gas puts weights on your feet.”

More than , and the majority of those are Black women and Latinas. Their median income is also about $17,000 less than single fathers. And though single moms work at than married mothers, they are also more likely to be paying more to fuel their commute — and spending a larger share of their income at the pump.

The families spending the highest percentage of their income on gas — — are those earning $40,000 to $49,999 a year, according to consumer expenditure data from 2024. That’s the exact bracket where many single moms are concentrated; the median income for single mothers working full-time is about .

Single moms “are going to be the first ones to feel any economic problem going on,” said Sara Estep, an economist with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

“Because there is only one person earning money for the family, that creates a lot of sensitivity to these prices. There is very little room left to pivot at that point,” she said.

Low-income people, Lord said, are also rarely filling up their tanks the whole way, but rather putting in what they can as they go. They have increased visibility into the price jumps because they’re watching them closely day to day. “This is something that is poking you daily as you go put the gas in your car,” she said.

It becomes about tradeoffs — what can you live without? For moms, it means cutting back on going out with their kids to just focus on the basics.

Rosado, the mom in Connecticut, has started shopping at cheaper grocery stores and stopped driving for Uber and Lyft on the weekends because the increased gas prices would cut into her profits too much to make the time worth her while. That means losing supplemental money that was helping pay for her phone bill, child care and groceries.

“I’m a strong person so I roll with the punches, but I’ve had sleepless nights because of this — insomnia,” Rosado said. “It shouldn’t feel this way but it does.”

As a single mom of three teenagers, Heidi Dragneff has felt that weight much of this year. Dragneff said it now costs $60 to fill up her tank, by her calculation an increase of about 80 cents per gallon over the past two weeks, and she’s “terrified of what it’s going to look like” every time she goes to the pump. Her car recently broke down, too, so she’s debating the repair costs and the possibility of having to buy a new vehicle altogether.

On top of that, Dragneff’s rent increased $600 a month last year, her energy bills doubled this month and soon she’s going to lose child support in June for her eldest daughter who just turned 18, which means a cut of $400 a month. Moving is out of the question because she doesn’t have enough in savings to cover first and last months’ rent and security deposits. Recently, she stopped contributing to her 401K to cut back.

“I end up trying to make lists of budgets, like, where is all of my money going? How is it disappearing so quickly? And you go over these numbers over and over and over again, and nothing changes,” said Dragneff, who is a Navy veteran now doing organizing work for other veterans in Virginia Beach.

Single moms, she said, have to figure it out alone.

“From the outside it looks like we are these super strong women that have it all together when we are struggling just as much as anybody else, if not more,” she said. “Our kids are looking to us. It’s our responsibility, [on] our shoulders, to not lose our job, to make sure that we are able to make ends meet, keep the lights on and pay the rent.”

What’s also been challenging over the past few years, single moms told The 19th, is the unpredictability of where the price changes are occuring. A few years ago, the story was all about rising . Now it’s gas, too.

“We don’t even know what’s going to happen day to day just watching the news,” said Taylour Grant, a single mom of four — ages 2, 7, 9 and 14 — in Tampa, Florida.

Grant’s food stamps were cut by nearly $200 a month recently after changes to the eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Florida last month. That means she has even less wiggle room to cut back on other things, like groceries, as gas prices climb.

She blamed the Trump administration for the instability.

“They don’t have the everyday worries that we have. They don’t have to worry about feeding their kids. They don’t have to worry about getting gas,” Grant said. “I’m pretty sure they don’t know how much a gallon of milk costs, so it’s just them not being mindful of us down here.”

With the midterm elections approaching in November, Democrats and Republican strategists have agreed that affordability will top the list of voter concerns this cycle. It’s a topic that has been highly motivational for mothers, who are often the ones . Women, more than men, report more concern about paying their bills , according to a taken in September.

Sondra Goldschein, the executive director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, which backs candidates that support issues like paid parental leave and affordable child care, is knocking on doors this election cycle talking to mothers about cost of living issues. In the organization’s conversations with voters, Goldschein said, they “are seeing people really step forward to voice their strong concerns and looking for various outlets to help make changes, whether it’s who they’re going to vote for or whether they’re going to run for office themselves.”

The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy PAC this year is supporting Democrats in Senate races in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maine and Ohio and in House races in Iowa and Pennsylvania.

Lord is also hearing that the affordability crisis is mobilizing moms. At an early March conference of 600 single mothers, Lord said there was one session that was absolutely packed: “Why Women Don’t Run & Why They Should.”

“Moms are interested in being involved in campaigns, doing door knocking … There’s a deep desire to be involved in reimagining what’s possible for themselves, their family, but also their community,” Lord said. “Yes, there’s incredible stress, there’s incredible fatigue, alarm, vulnerability, but … people are like, ‘What do I need to do? Who do I need to hold accountable? What role do I play in changing what is happening in my local community?’”

“It is political,” said Samantha Shepherd, a child care director in Savannah, Georgia, and a single mom of two girls ages 6 and 7. Recently, one single mother whose children attend her center said she might not be able to take the kids to school because of the gas prices.

“We’re suffering for the drastic decisions that are being made by those who sit in the White House or those who are our legislators,” she said. “It’s important that people understand their voices need to be heard as well. Collectively, we can make a lasting sound, but if we don’t make no noise about it, they’re not even going to hear us.”

was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of .

Dr. Lara Jones still remembers her visceral reaction to the image of Liam Ramos. It wasn’t the most famous one, of with ICE officers behind him. It was one from days later, of Liam while both were in custody in Texas.

“He looked pale, he looked sickly. He looked like a completely different child,” she said. “When I saw that image, my doctor brain turned on. I was like, this kid is sick. He needs medical attention.”

Jones, who is double board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine, can quickly assess a lot based on a child’s appearance.

“I can tell in the first 10 seconds that I look at you from the door, before I even put my hands on you, before I put a stethoscope on your chest — I can look at you, and I can know right away, you are going to be fine, or you are really sick and you need attention,” she added. “He looked very sick.”

Jones couldn’t sleep that night. Liam’s well-being consumed her while at work the next day at a California hospital. After a round of patient visits, she went into a private room and “broke down and cried.” She needed to do something.

Since then, Jones has become part of — all pediatricians, all mothers — in immigration detention out of concern for their health. They warn that the detention of these children is causing severe and lasting harm to their mental and physical health, and say that of kids allegedly facing delayed and inadequate medical care under DHS demands urgency and transparency.

“We are traumatizing children, and we are putting them in dangerous environments,” Jones said.

These doctors are in detention, to help families in need of emergency assistance and to demand accountability so that children who remain in custody receive evidence-based standards of care.

“We are mothers of young children, and we are doing all of this in between shifts, after working night shifts, during nap time,” Jones said. “We are just doing as much as we can, in the time that we have, while we are working full time and being full-time moms.”

Just weeks ago, Jones and the other women — Dr. Ashley Marie Cozzo of Connecticut and Dr. Anita K. Patel of Washington, D.C. — did not know each other personally. Now they’re in contact daily through a group text that pings at all hours of the day. They use the chat to think through advocacy ideas, to troubleshoot potential challenges and to align their priorities.

“We’re trying to figure out every day in our brainstorming, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’” said Cozzo, who is double board-certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. “I love a group project, and this is such a unique situation.”

Patel, who is double board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine, said the quick camaraderie among the women has “reinvigorated” her after years of online campaigns around unrelated advocacy issues.

“You have three critical care doctors for kids, and there are certain qualities inherent in pediatric critical care specialists — we will not stop until we have either saved a kid or we know that there is no chance of saving them,” she said. “We all have that personality, because literally that’s what we do in our jobs.”

Liam’s story propelled their cause. As the image of Liam seemingly in a lethargic state ricocheted across the internet, the women shared their outrage with medical peers. Jones and Cozzo circulated a small online petition calling for Liam to be returned home, and amid the national outcry, . (The Ecuadorian family has an active asylum case, and it’s unclear for now whether they will be able to permanently stay in the United States.)

The doctors then connected with Patel, and the three agreed to work together to bring more awareness to other children in detention. Patel said the power of imagery catapulted Liam’s story.

“If he was an older kid, or even if he was Liam without the bunny hat — the outcry may not have come,” Patel said. “And all I could think was Liam deserved that outcry, and every single kid in detention needs that outcry.”

The trio has fixated on the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the facility near San Antonio that houses families, in part because they are in frequent communication with a journalist, Lidia Terrazas, on people impacted by detention.

When Terrazas highlighted in early February the story of a 2-month-old baby named Juan Nicolás, the case crystallized the doctors’ urgency. The boy had been in respiratory distress while at Dilley, but had allegedly received delayed care as his condition worsened. He was sent by ambulance to a hospital on February 16, according to Patel, after an unresponsive episode where detention officials could not wake him. DHS later deported the baby, his mother and other family members, including a 16-month-old, to Mexico.

Jones was able to connect by text with Mireya López Sánchez, Juan Nicolás’ mother. The postpartum mother said that her milk had dried up while at Dilley. Patel is still nursing her toddler; the parallels — the universal urge a mother has to feed her baby — linger for her.

When Patel nurses her own child, “I think of Mireya, whose milk dried up because she was so stressed and nutritionally deficient that she couldn’t breastfeed, and then when she couldn’t breastfeed, then she couldn’t afford clean water that wasn’t brown or smelled like chlorine to make formula.”

, which has partnered with the doctors to raise money for commissary funds, detainees at Dilley have to spend $40 to buy a four-pack of large water bottles and $35 for a 12-pack of small water bottles.

A spokesperson for DHS did not respond to a request for comment from The 19th, but the agency of malnourished or mistreated children and claims people in detention have access to medical care and adequate food. Emergency crews were called to the facility at least 11 times since September for children with symptoms including bronchitis, respiratory distress and fever, .

CoreCivic, a private company that runs the Dilley facility, deferred questions to DHS but that claims of inadequate medical care are inaccurate and “directly contradicted by the comprehensive, around-the-clock care delivered by our licensed physicians, dentists, advanced practice providers, nurses and mental health professionals.”

Jones doesn’t buy that when it comes to Juan Nicolás, whose mother reportedly told officials that her newborn was having difficulty breathing and was vomiting. Mireya said that instead of being seen by a medical professional, guards at the facility monitored the newborn for two days before he was sent to the hospital in distress.

“I don’t know what they were assessing, but they’re not assessing it through the lens of a pediatric expert,” Jones said. “They’re not doing the appropriate medical workup. So that case alone is proof of delayed care and denied appropriate care, because the appropriate care for a 2-month-old with difficulty breathing and vomiting is to go to the emergency department.”

Cozzo noted that several children died in 2018 and 2019 while in immigration , or . In 2023, — reportedly after her mother repeatedly sought medical care for her.

“We have a precedent of the highest degree of loss: children’s lives,” Cozzo said. “It has happened before, the things that these women are worried about — it’s only going to be a matter of time before we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past and another child dies.”

As the doctors circulated Juan Nicolás’ story online, they connected to help . They also helped secure a hotel room for Juan Nicolás’s family amid their deportation to Mexico. They are now raising money . As they hear of specific cases, including those of and , they try to spring into action by either raising public awareness or funds.

The medical community has long expressed alarm about how children’s health can deteriorate in immigration detention. concluded that children’s mental health suffers and there’s a cascade of ripple effects, including anxiety disorders, depression and developmental regression and delays. The issue has been examined , with similar outcomes.

There are also standards of care for immigrant children in detention, and states that children should not be detained for more than 20 days. But that some children are being held in detention for much longer — weeks or months. The publication estimated at the time that at least 3,800 children under 18 had been booked into ICE since President Donald Trump, who campaigned on mass deportation, returned to office. More than 1,300 children were held last year for longer than 20 days.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has its call for limited exposure of children in DHS facilities. Dr. Sural Shah is chair of AAP’s Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health. She said the council, which was very responsive during the first Trump administration’s family separation policy, has been accelerating its work in recent months.

“We’re always active, always sharing information. But the era that we’re in now — it’s been a heightened sense of need, of urgency, of hey, this is happening, and we need to do something about it,” she said. “We need to figure out how to band together, how to lift up voices, how to gather health care professionals and folks that care about children’s health to stop these practices because they’re so harmful to children.”

Shah added that she’s not surprised that pediatricians are leading organic advocacy efforts.

“It is something that is deeply woven into the fabric of who pediatricians are,” she said. “We have a deep understanding of the range of factors that affect children and their families.”

Over the past few weeks, the trio of doctors began drafting and circulating a letter, which was later signed by thousands of medical professionals, to be sent to DHS officials and several key senators with roles in immigration enforcement oversight. , dated February 26, alleges unsanitary detention conditions and inadequate access to food and clean water. It also expresses concerns of a measles outbreak within the Dilley facility. Infants are typically too young to be vaccinated against measles.

Kristi Noem’s ouster as head of DHS last Wednesday doesn’t alter the demand for accountability, said Cozzo.

“I actually don’t necessarily think that changing the face changes anything, because it’s just a complete system that is broken,” she said.

All three agreed that the letter is a start.

“This letter is day one of a marathon,” said Patel, who was a guest of Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro at the recent State of the Union address, with the goal of elevating the issue. “The point of the letter was to clearly and succinctly as possible, dictate what has been documented as known medical negligence or medical harm or human rights violations.”

They want to grow public pressure while helping as many children and their families as possible. Jones said their advocacy is about the health and well-being of children. She doesn’t see that as political.

“This is an issue about child welfare,” she said. “I feel like if we can continue to stand our ground about the fact that we are causing preventable, measurable, well-studied, predictable harm to children that is not justified. There’s no context in which that is justified, and so I think we just have to continue to get that message across — to the public, to lawmakers. There will be challenges at every step of the way, no doubt, but I think the truth and what’s right is on our side.”

PIERRE — For the past five years, conversations about prisons and how to manage them have played out as one tumultuous bout of realignment and soul-searching after another for South Dakota’s leaders.

Wardens . were exposed. and came and went. Lawmakers over how to spend money they set aside for prisons.

and spiked. When the dust settled, the state had endorsed a new in Rapid City, a new in Sioux Falls, and a .

But something else happened along the way: Prison officials quietly stood up a program they now view as a solid win for some inmates and their families.

Since 2022, qualifying inmate mothers have lived full-time with their children in a house on the campus of the South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre that looks nothing like a prison.

In the three years since its launch, none of the women who’ve left prison after participating in South Dakota’s Mother-Infant Program have returned to state custody.

It’s too early to calculate any long-term impact, but Corrections Secretary Nick Lamb told the Legislature’s budget-setting committee recently that he likes the odds for success.

More than 40% of South Dakota parolees return to prison within three years of their release. In states with similar programs, Lamb said, the repeat offense rate for participating moms “is something like 2%.”

Through fiscal year 2025, which ended on June 30, 17 women had participated, according to the Department of Corrections Annual Statistical Report. Ten had been released at the time the report was issued, and corrections spokesman Michael Winder said none have returned to prison.

Another mother-infant house is nearing completion at the in Rapid City, which is set to open this year. The program in Pierre will continue.

“There’s a beautiful new building out there built just for this,” Lamb told lawmakers.

A new program for an old building

The program began under former Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko.

To be eligible, the mothers must be on minimum custody status, have 30 months or less remaining on their sentence and be serving time for a nonviolent offense.

The women and their children live in two fused-together Governor’s Houses just outside the main prison complex in Pierre. The homes are prefabricated dwellings, built at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield and typically sold to low-income families.

The structure had been there for years.

Until around five years ago, it was known as the “PACT” house, a nod to its use for a less-expansive familial bonding program called Parents and Children Together that was launched by former Gov. Bill Janklow to allow female prisoners weekend-long visits with their kids.

Interest in PACT had waned by the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Warden Aaron Miller told South Dakota Searchlight during a recent tour. The pandemic shuttered it altogether.

Wasko moved to reopen its doors as a full-time home for inmate moms and their kids shortly after her arrival in March of 2022. Colorado, the state where Wasko had worked in corrections previously, has a mother-baby unit for inmate moms.

‘Just learning’

On a recent Friday, the moms were gathered in the shared living area at lunchtime, sitting in a semicircle of couches as an episode of the children’s program “Bluey” played on a flat-screen television.

There were seven women living in the house with their kids that day — four boys and three girls, ranging in age from two months to 18 — but the building can hold up to 10. Women typically stay in the program for 30 months.

One of the moms, Sara Bernie, said it can feel “pretty cramped” with 10 families, but “we make it work.”

Bernie’s daughter, Spiryt, turns 1 this month. They’ve been there since Spiryt’s birth.

“We’re just learning to walk,” Bernie said of her daughter, wearing a fresh-looking pair of Minnie Mouse sneakers and a long-sleeved Minnie Mouse shirt.

Bernie moved from Michigan to Yankton to work at a restaurant. She’d been in South Dakota less than a month when she was charged with drug distribution. She’d been pregnant about a month, too, and spent the start of her sentence in the main women’s prison, transitioning to the mother-infant program when Spiryt was born.

“Coming over here, it is a totally different world,” said Bernie.

Having Spiryt right there, she said, has served to motivate her. Bernie has completed a kitchen management program. The program, run by food service provider Aramark, earned her early discharge credits and put her in a position to make federal minimum wage working in the prison kitchen and save money for her future. Most inmate jobs pay around 50 cents an hour.

With Spiryt at her side as a motivator, Bernie said, “I am 100% focused on going back out.”

Her other two children, ages 6 and 14, are in Michigan. She wants to go back there when her sentence is up in early 2028.

Sometimes, prison staff will clear the adults from the prison’s recreation gym so the littles can take over. Aside from those moments, the children don’t see the inside of the prison. When it’s warm, they play outside.

Sitters fill role for moms, prison system

A babysitter or correctional officer watches Spiryt when Sarah goes to work, leaves for recreation time or goes to church. The babysitters are the only other women in the house most evenings. Overnight, it’s often just the moms and babies.

Bernie is CPR certified, as are all the mothers in the house. That’s also a qualification for the babysitters, who are minimum security inmates interviewed first by the staff, then by the moms.

“We vote on the babysitters,” Bernie said. ” They usually work out pretty well.”

The daytime correctional officer, Karen Boyer, often relies on the babysitters to help manage the chaos of a seven-family house. On some days, Boyer spends a lot of time away from the building, taking babies to doctor visits outside the prison in a Chevrolet Suburban packed with car seats.

“It’s kind of like school,” she said. “When one gets sick, they all get sick.”

The children start to feel like grandkids after a while, she said.

It’s a feeling the babysitters get, too.

“When the kids leave, it’s like they’re losing someone in their family,” Boyer said.

Kay Cain has been a sitter since November. On the outside, Cain was a pediatric nurse, so working with kids came naturally. She typically takes care of Dennis, an 18-month-old with a mop of curly hair who gives fist bumps when asked for “knuckles.”

“You’ve kind of grown on me, haven’t you?” she said to Dennis when asked about her favorite part of the job.

Like Bernie, Dennis’ mother came from out of state, and was living in Yankton when she was arrested. Destiny Hogan said she was pregnant and using fentanyl and methamphetamine at the time.

“If I wouldn’t have gotten arrested, I don’t know if either of us would be here,” Hogan said.

Now, having lived side-by-side with Dennis his whole life, she’s closer to him than she’s been with any of her five other children.

“He’s the only one I’ve been there with from day one,” Hogan said.

Birthdays, holidays

Cameras in the corners, khaki prison-issued pants and the supervising correctional officer’s uniform are the only outward signs that the house doubles as a prison facility.

There are two bathrooms, one with a Peter Pan theme and another with a unicorn theme, on either side of the building. Each bedroom has a theme, as well, and there are hand-painted cartoon images on every wall outside the bedrooms. Every painting was done by an inmate.

Meals are delivered each day for the women and children. Every month or so, everyone will have what Bernie called a “big meal” together.

The children get birthday parties, and Bernie wrote out a wishlist for Spiryt. A little boy got an electric drum kit at the last birthday party.

Christmas gifts come by way of an angel tree, where community members buy the toys listed on tags hanging from a tree.

A lot of the gifts come in a similar fashion, originating with community members or community partners. Others come from prison staff members.

Wasko, the former corrections secretary, took particular pleasure in playing Santa Claus, Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said.

By policy, kids are allowed one bag of gifts at gift-giving time, Winder said.

“You’d never seen a bag so big,” as the ones Wasko would deliver, he said.

Community support

That the PACT house was available at the time of the program’s launch was a big help, allowing the state to avoid building space from scratch or retrofitting areas inside the women’s prison to make them function more like living spaces appropriate for infants.

As with gifts for the kids, a lot of supplies come through community support, said Miller, the warden at the women’s prison.

Churches pitch in for car seats, collapsible cribs, toys or furniture, he said, as do local supporters like the Pierre office of a Canadian nonprofit called Birthright, founded in 1968 to support women with unplanned pregnancies.

Birthright has kept the building stocked with diapers and wipes since the program’s launch.

An organization called Right Turn offers educational programming to the mothers, Head Start offers early childhood educational materials and teaches moms how to bake and cook, CPR training comes from the Sanford Frontier and Rural Medicine (FARM) Project, and the group Disability Rights of South Dakota helps mothers connect with the resources they’ll need on the outside as they prepare for release.

The program costs the Department of Corrections $15,000 a year, a figure folded into the $8.8 million budget for the women’s prison in Pierre.

Building bonds

Spiryt got restless as she sat on her mom’s lap during her conversation with a reporter and prison administrators. The tot’s eye was drawn to the neon cord of the earbuds plugged into Bernie’s inmate-issued tablet. Spiryt flopped to her left and grabbed the cord.

Reflexively, Bernie stretched a hand to her window sill, grabbed an identical but non-functioning pair of earbuds and swapped them into Spiryt’s tiny hands.

“I hide these up here and give them to her when she does this,” Bernie said, smiling down at Spiryt. “That way she still thinks she’s getting away with something.”

That’s precisely the kind of attentive understanding the program wants mothers to develop with their children.

“The premise of the program is that they will be able to bond with their child,” Miller said. “It’s teaching moms how to be moms.”

Miller was around in 1997, when the Pierre women’s prison first opened. At that point, former Gov. Janklow’s move to create a weekend visitation house for inmate mothers was viewed with scrutiny.

The prison houses women at all security levels and has a minimum security unit, but the main building was designed to house maximum-custody inmates.

“At the time, no one could imagine having kids in a maximum security facility,” Miller said, even if the overnight visits took place in a conventional house designed for families outside prison walls.

The women who stayed there through the years tended to do better on the outside, Miller noted, but “when they were only there for the weekend, it was totally different.”

South Dakota is one of at least nine states with prison nursery programs, last month, the oldest of which is in New York. The programs have expanded as the number of women entering prisons has grown, from around 13,000 in 1980 to nearly 86,000 in 2023.

‘Not here to punish inmates’

The program came up as the Legislature’s budget committee got an update last month on construction at the new women’s prison in Rapid City. The mother-infant program building was nearing completion, Lamb told the committee.

One senator, Piedmont Republican John Carley, asked Lamb how the prison keeps the program from feeling like a prize for the participating moms.

“What’s the difference between them truly feeling they’re incarcerated and dealing with the crime maybe they committed versus, ‘hey, this is a lot of wonderful free stuff,’” Carley said.

Lamb told Carley that his job is not to punish inmates. The incarceration is the punishment, he said.

“The ladies that are back there no longer have their freedom,” Lamb said. “So they’re serving their punishment by being with us.”

The low rate of repeat offenses from women who’ve gone through similar programs across the U.S. shows its value as a rehabilitation tool, Lamb told Carley as he invited the senator and anyone else on the committee to visit the shared family space on the Pierre prison campus.

Lamb, a father of seven, also said there’s a moral component at play. Babies, he said, should not be separated from their mothers for a mother’s misdeeds.

“Harming the mother is one thing,” Lamb said. “But separating the child from the mother is something totally different.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.