Photo story: Born behind bars

A photographic journey inside a prison where babies live with their incarcerated mothers.

BOSTON — Behind the ominous barbed wire fences and concrete walls of the Santa Martha Acatitla prison in Mexico City, you may be surprised to find a cheerful nursery school with colorful walls, a maze of swings and slides and a gaggle of giggling toddlers.

The inmates at the female penitentiary include women serving sentences for murder, drug dealing, and kidnapping. But there are also about 50 children, living inside the prison with their incarcerated mothers.

Photographer Caroline Bennett stepped inside the prison walls to see what life was like within Santa Martha's gates. Here is what she found:

Inside "Cellblock H" where an inmate lives with her 18-month-old child and cellmate. The Mexican government has decided it will allow babies born behind bars to stay with their mothers until age 6, rather than be turned over to foster homes or unprepared relatives. 

A territorial controversy heats up in a classroom while inmates await their teacher. When children are not present, it quickly becomes clear that Santa Martha is indeed a prison where inmates live in extremely close quarters and where tensions can escalate quickly.

Tensions can quickly escalate among women living in such close quarters. The presence of resident children often subdues a scene before conflicts get out of hand.

A group of inmates listen to instructions before a small birthday celebration for a child in the classroom. The women of Santa Martha have formed a very communal, sometimes cliquish way of life, offering one another protection and support. 

Curious children looks out through the bolted gates of Santa Martha's daycare. Often with little  family on the outside, many of the children in the prison know nothing beyond the prison walls until they are cast out upon reaching their 6th birthday.

A prisoner watches the children of other inmates play with their mothers in the prison yard and longs for her own young children who live with their grandmother. As their babies were not born in the system, they are not permitted to live in the prison with their mother.