BISMARCK — A North Dakota bill could allow children to temporarily live with their mothers in prison.

The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has requested legislation that would let children reside at the Heart River Correctional Center in Mandan with their mothers.

Senate Bill 2115

would let the DOCR hire staff and develop policy to achieve that goal.

The bill also would prevent the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its staff from being held liable for any injuries to the children unless “the injury is affirmatively caused by the negligent act of a state employee.”

Mothers would be responsible for their children, including medical expenses, DOCR Director Colby Braun told The Forum. Medical care would have to be sought outside the facility, he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to work on the bill — a hearing for SB 2115 is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15.

The legislation is focused on mothers who come to Heart River while pregnant, Braun said. If a woman births her child while in custody, SB 2115 would allow the mother and baby to stay together for some time after birth, he said, adding that doing so provides better outcomes for families.

“What we’re trying to do is really support the goal of … making sure that we’re keeping good contact with mom and their children prior to them leaving prison,” he said.

The bill doesn’t limit the age of a child who could live with their mother in prison. That could allow children to spend time with their mothers over a short time period, such as a weekend, shortly before a woman is released from prison, Braun said.

The legislation would give children the opportunity to reconnect with mothers as they prepare to leave prison and return to their families, he said.

The bill doesn’t say how long a child could live in the prison. It’s unclear how much the change could cost the state, according to a fiscal note attached to the bill.

The DOCR is still working on the policy that would detail the logistics of allowing children to live in Heart River. For now, the bill only addresses liability and creates the authority to allow mothers to have their children with them in the prison.

Parental separation due to incarceration can have extreme effects on children, said Wanda Bertram, communication strategist for the

Prison Policy Initiative.

That includes lower educational performance in school, a higher likelihood that children end up in the foster care system and termination of parental rights, the nonprofit said.

“This is all documented to lead to a host of different negative factors in the child’s life,” Bertram told The Forum. “So, anything that can be done to mitigate that is a step in the right direction.”

The nonprofit that researches criminal justice reform has advocated for releasing incarcerated parents of young children, Bertram said. At least a dozen states have made laws addressing family separation.

Sometimes called a nursery prison program, a small number of states allow children to temporarily live with their mothers in prisons.

South Dakota

allows incarcerated mothers to bond with their children for 30 months after the child’s birth.

Some states and the federal government have proximity laws, which set a maximum distance between the facility where a parent is incarcerated and where their children live.

Minnesota

allows mothers who have been sentenced to prison to live at home with their children for up to a year after birth.

The DOCR hasn’t discussed releasing mothers from custody so they could care for children outside of prisons, Braun said.

States have been slow to adopt a program like North Dakota could because they don’t have the facilities to do so, Bertram said.

“Something like a prison nursery program involves a lot of investment in new infrastructure,” she said, noting increasing funds for the prison system can move slowly.

States also typically incarcerate a small number of women, she said. Of the 2,033 inmates who are incarcerated in North Dakota, 260, or 13%, are women, according to data from the DOCR.

“When you’re talking about programs that involve building new infrastructure or allocating resources to new programs, and something that’s going to impact a quite small number of people, it’s understandable why movement on that would be slow,” Bertram said.

Allowing incarcerated mothers to keep their babies with them in North Dakota has been a topic of discussion for “a long time,” Braun said. North Dakota previously didn’t have the space to do it, he said.

“As we’re looking at a new women’s facility, … one of the goals that we had is being able to have a unit where mom and baby could be together,” he said.

Heart River and the Dakota Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Center in New England are North Dakota’s only female prisons. Until recently, the New England facility was the state’s only prison for women.

North Dakota plans to

build a 260-bed women’s prison at Heart River

to replace the New England facility. The $161.2 million project was approved in 2023 and is expected to take three years to complete.