‘EQUAL’: Married male inmates should be allowed to keep their children, as they might take better care of them than their mothers, a lawmaker said
A law that grants female inmates the right to look after their child while incarcerated should be extended to male inmates, Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said yesterday.
During a legislative hearing, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator John Wu (吳志揚) asked Chiu whether the Ministry of Justice would consider extending female inmates’ right to request that their child be allowed with them in prison to male inmates, calling it a more gender-equal approach to the law.
Upon such a request, the child is allowed to remain with the mother until the age of three, when they must be placed in a welfare institution.
Chiu said he thinks that Article 10 of the Prison Act (監獄行刑法) should be amended toward that end, adding that the ministry’s Agency of Corrections is discussing the matter.
Wu said that the proposed change would apply only to single fathers as opposed to all male inmates regardless of marital status.
However, the proposed change should also cover married men, as they could be more capable of taking care of their child in prison than their wives who are free, Wu said.
Chiu responded by saying that he “will look into it.”
[Taipei Times, 2017-10-31]
