According to WLBT, a former Mississippi correctional officer said she was fired after taking care of an inmate’s newborn kid. Roberta Bell had been working at the Louisiana Transitional Center for Women in Tallulah, Louisiana, for more than three years when she discovered that an inmate was looking for someone to care for her infant until she finished her sentence.
Katie Bourgeois, an inmate, was about to give birth in a few months and needed a caregiver. “She was very concerned about Child Protection Services getting the baby and her not knowing where the baby was since she had such a short term to serve,” Bell told WLBT.
Workers began joking about Bell being the child’s guardian, according to Bell, who spent the most of her working hours in the facility’s food hall, and shortly, Bourgeois contacted her and begged her to really consider taking care of her baby.
Bourgeois stated that she didn’t have someone to care for her child and that her mother, on whom she could rely, was also going through a divorce. Bell consented to care for the infant, but she had to first inform her bosses of her decision. When she did, no one responded until Bourgeois delivered, which took about three days. When her employers contacted her, she had already exchanged personal information with Burgeois that would be required at the hospital. According to Bell, the exchange of information with a prisoner cost her her job.
“I said, ‘Major Murray, if the hospital calls me to come get this baby, I’m going to get him.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to terminate you,’” 57-year-old Bell said.
Bourgeois gave birth just days after being dismissed, and Bell is currently at home caring for the infant until Bourgeois is freed in July. Bell, whose aim is to create a recovery center for women who have been released from jail, does not regret her decision to keep Bourgeois’ baby until she is released.
“…There’s no changing. I’m stubborn. Once I do something, that’s it. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to back down. I’ve never been that type of person. I think that God has created me to minister to the women that don’t know him,” Bell said.