Inside a unit of the maximum-security Indiana Women’s Prison, not-quite-3-year-old Jensen has picked up the routine.
Attached at his hip, literally, are a set of colorful, plastic keys. He’ll insert the toy into the crack of doors in an attempt to lock them. When they get stuck, he calls out for a sergeant — what officers do when real keys are jammed. He’ll try to snatch them out of the pockets of unsuspecting visitors. He also has a toy radio.
Nobody is a stranger to Jensen; he knows one officer as “Grandma Williams.” When it’s count time — a sort of prison roll call — he helps shoo women out of the day room.
“He’s a little bit institutionalized,” his mother, Ashley Dumas, said.
Between watching Elmo and potty training, this is home for him. Dumas, 33, is in the final weeks of a three-year sentence. Her son is one of the facility’s youngest residents. But he’s also the oldest child to ever stay in the prison’s Breann Leath Maternal Child Health Unit, an area set aside for qualifying pregnant inmates that allows them to keep and live with their child while incarcerated.
The unit, started in 2008, can house up to 26 mother-and-child pairs, its website states. It had 10 babies and moms in early June, according to the Department of Correction, plus some additional pregnant women. Soon, it’ll have its first set of twins.
Not all mothers-to-be are eligible. Some violent or sex crimes can disqualify inmates. They must be pregnant when they come to the prison and typically have a projected release date 30 months or less after their due date.
The program is meant to encourage bonds between mothers and children, who otherwise would have to be separated or given up. It also seeks to prevent participants from returning to prison, with IDOC reporting a low recidivism rate for the program. Dumas credits Jensen for keeping her out of trouble during her time there.
The unit was renamed in 2020 after Breann Leath, a former officer there who was later shot and killed when responding to a domestic disturbance with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.
Leath has many of the hallmarks of a daycare. There’s a nursery. An on-site clinic. A giraffe-shaped height chart. A “Toddler Town.” Food and formula. Baby-proofed outlets. Jensen’s artwork hangs on the wall. The unit collectively goes through about 500 diapers a week, Dumas estimates.
The unit runs on donations. Approved women incarcerated outside Leath serve as nannies. Maternal-child healthcare coordinator Devon Gregory said staff includes a case manager, nurse and, at all hours, an officer.
Many of the women and children inside have gotten close. They often babysit by committee when others are out for work or dinner. Jensen has made several friends who’ll be at his next birthday party — this time, on the outside.
Dumas thought she wouldn’t get to keep Jensen because of her criminal history dealing methamphetamine. She’s spent much of the past 11 years incarcerated, she said, with her current sentence coming after she “cut (her) bracelet and ran” during work release.
Dumas has three other children. Her oldest two live out of state, and she hasn’t seen them since first being incarcerated. After returning to prison, she had to give her third up for adoption.
Even at the hospital, giving birth to Jensen, she worried she’d be made to give him up. She learned she would be behind bars slightly longer than 30 months after Jensen’s birth, but the prison made an exception to allow them to stay since she is set to be released in July.
The boy has spent his life with her in the unit. They share a room where he has toys and a crib. He’s gone on field trips without her to the zoo and museum. He said his first word here — “banana” — and took his first steps. He celebrated birthdays and Christmases.
Dumas has come to see her son as her best friend. “He’s kind of like my other half,” she said.
She’s also learned things about being a mom she wouldn’t have outside the unit because of training through the program, she said.
“There’s this misconception that if you’re in prison you shouldn’t be able to have a child,” Dumas said. “And we’re just like everybody else.”
After they’re released, they’ll live with Jensen’s grandmother, she said. Dumas is preparing Jensen for life on the outside. He doesn’t know a stove is hot. He has no concept of stranger danger and isn’t familiar with large bath tubs.
Dumas has tried to explain to him “there’s not going to be any officers, and no count times, no locked doors,” she said. She’s looking forward to showing him a real kitchen and living room or a Walmart: “normal places.” She also hopes looking back on this part of his life, and his mom’s time in prison, keeps him away from it.
In the moments after he was born, Dumas told nurses one day he’d be an astronaut. He was an astronaut for Halloween one year, and Buzz Lightyear another. A drawing of an astronaut hangs above his crib. This year, Dumas said, he’ll probably be Elmo.
Though when Jensen leaves, Gregory said, the unit plans to get him an officer’s uniform costume and keys.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
