Mothers of Bedford at Tufts

Directed by Jenifer McShane
March 16, 2017 from 7:00 - 9:00pm
Tufts Women’s Center

Women are the fastest-growing U.S. prison population today. Eighty percent are mothers of school-age children. Jenifer McShane's absorbing documentary gives human dimensions to these rarely reported statistics, taking us inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison north of New York City. Shot over four years, Mothers of Bedford follows five women - of diverse backgrounds and incarcerated for different reasons- in dual struggles to be engaged in their children's lives and become their better selves. It shows how long-term sentences affect mother-child relationships and how Bedford's innovative Children's Center helps women maintain and improve bonds with children and adult relatives awaiting their return. Whether it be parenting's normal frustrations to celebrating a special day, from both inside and out of the prison walls, this moving film provides unprecedented access to a little known, rarely shown, community of women.

Film to be followed by Q&A discussion with Sabina Vaught, Associate Professor and Chair of Education and Director of WGSS, Tufts University and Deirdre Judge, MA student in Educational Studies, Tufts University

This film is co-sponsored by the Tufts Women's Center.