Articles labeled: prison mom

We’re, um, not even sure what to say except is a prison really the right environment to raise a kid? Seems like that baby is off to a bad start, but at least she’ll know at an early age how to shank somebody.

[Lisa Whitford] delivered a healthy baby girl last March and has successfully raised the infant in a provincial remand centre. And now - with the help of a University of B.C. law professor and two caring lawyers - she will become the first woman in B.C. to keep her baby in a federal prison.

Whitford, who will serve a four-year sentence for manslaughter at Fraser Valley Institution, will be the first inmate accepted into a little-used federal program that will allow her to raise 11-month-old Jordyn in a condominium on prison grounds.

“It’s just been an incredible struggle to keep that child with her and give this woman one last chance at her life,” her lawyer, Bruce Kaun, said Thursday.

“She’s doing really well… She’s very clean right now, and very articulate and very focused on raising the child.”

Whitford, who was sentenced on Wednesday, will be moved soon to Fraser Valley Institution, where she and Jordyn will live in a private unit with its own kitchen and a park nearby, but will still be surrounded by fences and monitored by guards.

Wow, they do things a bit differently in Canada, eh?