November 3, 1994: Vol26n9: Crime begins in the crib, Harris tells UB audience

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
Jean Harris' life is a tale of two starkly contrasting realities. 
	Before 1980, her Saturday evenings likely included posh social
gatherings with some of this country's highest social elite. After
1980, her Saturday evenings were usually spent playing Bingo on the
psychiatric unit of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.
	Her rapid social descent and reemergence has led to her
current calling: becoming one of the country's leading advocates for
the rights of infants born to incarcerated mothers. Harris spoke about
her cause and her celebrated imprisonment during an appearance at UB's
Slee Hall Oct. 25.
	An inmate at Bedford Hills from the spring of 1980 until Gov.
Cuomo granted her clemency in December, 1992, Harris says, "The most
compelling lesson I learned in prison is how connected we all are. The
problems of one of us are the problems of all of us."
	Very low self-esteem is characteristic of women in prison,
says Harris. Hopelessness, ignorance and ill health are also rampant
among women in prison. "Generally, they are poor, they are angry and
they are sick. In Bedford, one in five is HIV positive," she said.
	Many are "mentally damaged," a result of years of being beaten
about the head, according to Harris, but few receive treatment. "For
11 years, I played Bingo on Saturday nights with ladies from the
mental ward," Harris said, "and some of them came in nightgowns that
were so filthy you wouldn't use them to wash your car.
	"Here is something that just blew my mind," said Harris,
pleading for a change in society's attitudes: "up to 76 percent of
women who commit felonies are first arrested for prostitution. What do
we do? We incarcerate them, fine them and throw them back out on the
street." Meaningful intervention after prostitution arrests could
prevent many of the felonies, Harris believes.
	The separation of a mother and her young children due to
imprisonment concerns Harris greatly. She believes that many of these
children will be problem children later in life. "As Irving Harris (a
sociologist) said, 'Infancy is not a rehearsal, it's the main show,'"
said Harris. "When you see a child who learns to laugh when he has
killed someone; that is a tragedy."
	Harris, a teacher by trade, taught parenting classes to other
inmates throughout her internment. Many of her inmate-students lacked
the most basic understanding of how to be a parent, she said. Some had
more than a dozen children, others began having babies when they were
only 12 years old.
	"Not hitting your child in the head is something we talked
about constantly in the parenting classes," said Harris, "because a
'good smack in the head' is the discipline of choice among most of
these people.
	"When I arrived, there were five pregnant inmates," she
said."On the day I left, there were 64. I've written to the Sourcebook
of Criminal Justice Statistics for 12 years asking why there is no
mention of babies in prisons anywhere in their book. I haven't gotten
a response." Best estimates, Harris indicated, are that more than
9,000 babies are born in prisons each year.
	A teacher for 30 years, with a master's degree in education,
Harris was headmistress of the exclusive Madeira School in McLean,
Virginia. In 1980, her 15-year love affair with Dr. Herman Tarnower,
author of the "Scarsdale Diet," ended. She confronted him in his
Westchester County home, allegedly to commit suicide there. When the
evening was over, Tarnower was dead and Harris was charged with his
killing.
	The judge "had tears streaming down his face when he sentenced
me to 15 years," Harris recalled, in the only reference to her crime
during the hour-long speech to more than 350 people. She took the
opportunity to decry mandatory sentencing laws, saying "It is just
cookie-cutter justice. Why have judges if they can't judge?" 
	In December, 1992, Cuomo granted Harris clemency, in
recognition of her work with inmates and their children through her
parenting classes, and because of a heart condition. At 71, Harris
shows no sign of slowing down on her crusade. She has authored three
books about prison life and prison babies. "Babies," explained Harris,
"don't have a lobby in Congress." So she has picked up their mantle. 
	Shortly after her release, Harris and her former warden
testified before a congressional committee considering the federal
crime bill, on the needs of children born in prison and the children
of incarcerated mothers. Ultimately, the $40 million program they
sought was removed from the bill by Rep. Charles Schumer of New York,
who requested "hard proof that this would work" before he would
support it.
	"I thought that was a strange position to take, considering
that it was an experimental program," said Harris.
	"Violence starts in childhood, in the home," she said. "Crime
begins in the crib. It is America's greatest failure. For young
children born to the violence and hopelessness of poverty, crime
becomes a rational occupational choice." Harris noted that 10 percent
of all violent crimes are committed by children between 10 and 17.
"Over one million teenagers are raped, robbed, assaulted, shot,
stabbed, beaten or killed by their peers."
	Harris says building more prisons and incarcerating more women
and mothers than ever before, is not the answer. Pre- and post-natal
care, and public policies that support keeping mothers and children
together, even in prison, are needed, she says. For women already in
prison, Harris has three suggestions to improve their lot: program the
inmates to get to work on time, take part in group parenting classes,
and make federal and state legislators take part in parenting classes
as well.