The Long Good-Bye: Mother's Day In Federal Prison Course Work

Question 1

Just as Coyne explains, it becomes very hard for incarcerated women to relate well with their children. Women locked in prison do not get a good time and even opportunity to raise their children like other parents. It is very hard to explain to the children the reason why they are locked up and it is harder to convince them that some of them are there for petty issues, which do not deserve imprisonment for such a long time. Most women become so stressed on seeing that their children have bad behaviors and yet they have no power to mould, as they would wish to.

Question 2

Some of the questions that Coyne used to collect information for writing the essay include;

- Why do most women end up in maximum prisons?
- How do women in maximum prisons celebrate the mother’s day?
- Do children of the women locked up in prison understand why their mothers are in jail?
- What are some of the experiences that women in prison go through?
- Why is it that some children of the women in prison result to become unruly and disobedient to their parents?
- What are the reactions of the children and their families when the time to leave begins to roll around?

Some of the observations that the author saw is that some women end up serving a long time jail term even for petty mistakes. Even though such women may appear to be well dressed before their families during mother’s day, there are very bad experiences they go through behind bars. The children also do not understand why their mothers are locked up and others end up being unruly due to lack of mother’s guidance. There are different reactions of both prisoners and family members when time for leaving the prisons nears.

Question 3

The instance that the author plays spectator role is when one of the women joins them telling them the bad conditions that women go through. She says “A woman joined us and began to describe to us the horrible conditions that women are subjected to in maximum prisons”. Here Coyne sits back and listens to the women as she shares her experiences in the maximum prisons.

Works Cited

Comley, Nancy R. Fields of Readings: Motives for Writing. Princeton, N.J: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2007. Print.