LOCKED OUT: CHILDREN OF MOTHERS IN JAIL
By Nancy Larson of The Vital Voice

When you imprison a woman, you incarcerate a family. That's the grim premise behind When The Bough Breaks, a powerful documentary about the children of women in prison.

"I cried every time they came to see me." 29-year-old Yolanda Davis of St. Louis told me how hard it was for her, and for her children when she was behind bars, in the fall of 1999.

But Yolanda was lucky. Her partner, 20-year-old Leondra Smith took care of her children when Yolanda was in a medium security facility on a drug possession charge. Yolanda has four chil dren and Leondra has three, all ranging in ages from one through fifteen.

"You can't touch them, but you, can talk to them on a phone," Yolanda continued. "She tried to bring them two or three times a week. But I was locked up on Thanksgiving. That was hard." Leondra did the best she could, serving a turkey dinner at a table with an empty chair at the head.

But what happens to the children when there is no one who really wants them? For thousands of children it can mean there is no real place to call home, and no real person to call "Mom."

When The Bough Breaks, produced by St. Louisan Jill Evans Petzall, asks the controversial question, "Should nonviolent, female offenders be kept in prison?" 80% of women in prison are incarcerated for non-violent offenses. Their children are six times more likely to end up in prison, themselves. Would alternative sentences be more productive for the next generation?

The documentary does not pity the women, nor does it request special privileges for inmates simply because they are mothers. Instead, When The Bough Breaks lets the viewer into the lives and the hearts of three Missouri families, and explores the extraordi person to call "Mom."

When The Bough Breaks, produced by St. Louisan Jill Evans Petzall, asks the controversial question, "Should nonviolent, female offenders be kept in prison?" 80% of women in prison are incarcerated for non-violent offenses. Their children are six times more likely to end up in prison, themselves. Would alternative sentences be more productive for the next generation?

The documentary does not pity the women, nor does it request special privileges for inmates simply because they are mothers. Instead, When The Bough Breaks lets the viewer into the lives and the hearts of three Missouri families, and explores the extraordinary sadness on the other side of the prison bars.

Eight-year-old Laura cannot control her temper, and her six-year-old sister, Missy cannot control her tears. When their mom went to prison two years ago, they moved in with their ailing grandparents. The grandmother doesn't really want to raise another family and makes that clear, even to the girls. She refuses to visit her daughter in prison, or to even take her phone calls.

The girls' grandfather is the only one who cares about their daily needs.

But Laura and Missy suffer another loss when their grandfather dies. They move down the street to stay with their aunt, who takes them only because there is no one else.

Other children are shuttled among social workers and foster families. There is no transition time for mothers sentenced to jail time, and no programs to help their children.

Producer Jill Evans Petzall explained, "Ever since I began working with the families, I have been haunted by the question: don't these children with inmate mothers, like the rest of us, deserve rights that protect them?" Petzall added that she feels a responsibility to use the power of television to present social problems with moral implications.

When The Bough Breaks unleashes that power in a dramatic way, with great potential for changing the lives of thousands of children in Missouri, and across the country.

AUDIOVISUAL REVIEW
by Faye A. Chadwell, University of Oregon Library System, Eugene, OR
MC Journal: the Journal of Academic Media Librarianship

The literature on women in prison states the same statistics repeatedly. Roughly eighty percent of the women in prison have been jailed for drug-related or other non-violent offenses. Roughly the same percent of women prisoners are mothers. The children of these women are six times more likely than their peers to eventually be locked up.

While such statistics are sobering, three-time Emmy award-winning video maker Jill Evans Petzall doesn't rely on cold or dry statistics to demonstrate the hard reality facing the children of incarcerated women. Petzall's When the Bough Breaks provides intimate profiles of the children of three women incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Missouri: John, Angie, and Tanya, three of the eight children born by Denise, a drug addict; Roosevelt, Jr., the teenage son of Hortense, who was imprisoned for stealing a suit from Neiman Marcus; and Laurie and Missy, the daughters of Susie, also imprisoned for crimes related to drug abuse. All these children struggle continually with behavioral problems, academic achievement, poverty, neglect, issues of abandonment and belonging, and even some abuse. Because these children are placed into foster homes or into the care of extended family members, When the Bough Breaks also offers powerful insight into the effects on these guardians and their diverse reactions to assuming the parenting responsibilities of others. The grandfather and principal caretaker of Laurie and Missy supplies the essence of this documentary in his simple declaration, "You think you send one person to jail? Unh unh. Affects a lot of people."

They're Doing My Time, a 1987 documentary produced by Patricia Foulkrod, may have offered more information on alternatives to counter the bleak situations that Petzall presents in When The Bough Breaks. But the strength of When the Bough Breaks is derived from Petzall's successfully demonstrating what will continue to happen as long as the imprecise public policies in place govern the fate of these children and their mothers.

When The Bough Breaks is an excellent introduction to the impact that incarceration has on the children of mothers in prison and the families attempting to provide childcare for these kids. Recommended for academic collections focusing on criminal justice administration, social work, or women's studies.

LOCAL FILM MEASURES HARM TO CHILDREN
WHEN MOTHERS GO TO PRISON
By LORRAINE KEE Of the Post-Dispatch, Friday, September 21, 2001

Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree. top. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come baby, cradle and all.

For children with mothers in prison, the fall can be turbulent. That's one message in "When the Bough Breaks," a probing look at the lives of children of imprisoned mothers by award-winning local film producer Jill Evans Petzall and director Deeds Rogers.

Petzall left the children's landing to the imagination in this haunting documentary. Will the youngsters be scarred for life by the actions and absences of their biological mothers and fathers?

The documentary follows them for a year -- no more, no less. No sequel will be shot, Petzall says, because she wants the issues raised in the film to stand an their own and to give the subjects back their privacy.

But Petzall leaves no doubt about which way the windblows on the matter of the children now.

When mothers go to prison, they miss their sons and daughters. Grandmothers and grandfathers miss out on their golden retirement years. And the children miss out on the most -- mothers combing and stroking their hair, making sure they're wearing socks. They miss love and money.

"I miss my mom," Missy, 6, says in the documentary, her face instantly passing from sunshine to clouds before the camera.

Her doting grandfather says, "You think you send one person to jail? Uhuh. Affects a lot of people."

The 57-minute "When the Bough Breaks" and another much shorter Petzall-Rogers work, "Veronica's Story," will be shown at 8 tonight and Saturday in Winifred Moore Auditorium at Webster University as part of the university's annual film series. Panel discussions will follow the screenings.

The five-minute, 40-second "Veronica's Story" is based on the real-life writings of an 11-year-old victim of child abuse. It was produced in 1996 with local actresses Michelle Dichson and Kierra Vaughn.

Petzall spent nearly four years on the "Bough Breaks" documentary, between fund-raising and editing. Editing alone took 18 months, as 80 hours of film was whittled to the final cut.

The documentary was directed by Rogers, edited by Wally Bonham and shot by Doug Hastings. Petzall, Rogers and Bonham are longtime local collaborators. Former state Rep. Ilene Ordower was the executive producer. The documentary debuted in February and is scheduled to air nationally in October on public television.

The children make their own cases in "When the Bough Breaks, " which profiles three St. Louis area families:

The documentary raises such issues as poverty, truancy, drug abuse, domestic violence, teen pregnancy and foster care. One mother talks about how she's better off than her children -- at least, she gets three square meals a day.

The mothers express a desire to do better by their kids, and they know they have something to prove once they get out.

"I'm tired of putting my family through this," one mother laments.

Even though their mothers put them through disappointment after disappointment, the children's spirits bend but don't break. Mostly, that is. They long for a better life once their mothers come home.

"They have hope in the face of circumstances which could discourage them," Petzall said. "I see a hope in them. I see a resiliency them."

But this isn't just a saga of childhood lost. Petzall takes a jab or two at a system that treats poor women differently than it does women who have the financial means to get into a private treatment clinic or hire a good lawyer.

ROOSEVELT JR. HAS LIFE ON TRACK
DESPITE MOTHER'S ABSENCE
by Lorraine Kee of the St. Louis Post Dispatch Friday, September 21, 2001

Little Roosevelt was 15 when the documentary "When the Bough Breaks" was shot.

He's 18 now. He's got a part-time job after school and on the weekends. He's a peer counselor at school. And like most young men his age, he's thinking about his prom, high school graduation and beyond.

Most days, it seems, Roosevelt Jr. is OK with the reality that his mother is in prison. He says matter- of-factly that he doesn't know what he missed with his mother in prison so long. He was about 6 or 7 when she left.

"I haven't spent that much time with her to begin with," he said.

But his journey to adulthood hasn't been without its bumps. Roosevelt Jr. owns up to an anger at his mother's absence that once seethed inside him. His relationship with his father, Roosevelt Sr., has had its ups and downs.

And Roosevelt Jr. had wondered whether he would go down the same troubled legal path as his parents, though his father has turned his life around.

"That's what I used to think," Roosevelt Jr. said. But his stepmother, Ophelia set him straight Now he's thinking about college. He wants to major in graphic design and philosophy.

"She said, 'God, doesn't put anything on you you can't bear,'" said Roosevelt Jr., who will take Ophelia to his prom. He expects his biological mother to be out of prison by graduation. "I know now that I'm responsible for my own actions," he said.