Would you be willing to loose your teeth to be with your baby even if it meant you probably couldn't get a job in the future because employers don't like to hire people with missing teeth?

Do you think there is no way this can be a choice we are asking women to make? Think again.

Every day in California we are asking women in jail to make these choices. To gain access to a host of vocational-training and drug-rehabilitation programs for non-violent offenders - including a course that teaches them parenting skills while living with their children in special housing - they must be cleared of any pre-existing health problems.

One badly damaged tooth can cause them to be disqualified from these programs because, according to the State, there are no dental or medical personnel at the smaller sites where these programs are located. So women are choosing to have their teeth extracted so they can enter the programs. About 9,000 teeth are pulled each year in California's three female institutions, according to prison system records. More than 12,000 women are housed in those prisons.

Next hard to believe fact - moving the women into these programs saves the State more than $20 a day ($99 vs $121). But no one has bothered to figure out if contracting these medical and dental services out might still save money for the State.

But then, frankly, nothing to do with the prison system in California makes any sense at all. 170,000 prisoners at $121 a day. I think that's $7B+ a year. Want to trade some of that money for schools, drug rehabilitation, jobs?

Check out the full story in the Mercury News.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen