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Editorial
They have been described as invisible – the families of prisoners. This newsletter seeks to give visibility to these forgotten victims and to encourage the Anglican Church and other Christians to further develop ministries to prisoners and their families. Partners and children, parents and relatives, are often stigmatised and placed in situations of great hardship through no fault of their own. They should not be forgotten. A recent UK Church report on prisons* underlined the lack of support for prisoners’ families and asked the question “Is the Church the first or last place to which a family in trouble will turn?” Apart from the religious imperative to care for the less fortunate, families of prisoners need to be viewed as a positive resource, given the link between family ties and the reduced risk of prisoners reoffending. This would not only lessen the families’ vulnerability, but would give the prisoner an improved chance of leading a law-abiding life on release.
Introduction
What is it like to have your loved one, your family member incarcerated? It is an ultimate humiliation… it starts with an arrest, which often follows a violent act, sometimes known to the family, more often not known to them. A phone call in the night, a police officer at the door, a friend bringing bad news, thrusts the family into an unwanted relationship with the judicial system. And regardless of the relationship with the accused, the family is most often treated as if they were as guilty as the one detained.
Time passes very slowly for families of those in jail...visiting is severely limited, and usually takes place in a small booth, separated by a glass wall, using a telephone to talk. There is no privacy, and no place for the children to stay who cling to your lap, cry and want attention. Your family member is often asking for financial help to buy treats or necessities in jail, money you don’t have.
In time a court appointed attorney gives you little information, and makes you wait for appointments. If your family member is released awaiting trial there are many meetings to attend, conferences with the attorney, so that jobs are disrupted, and money is tighter than usual.
All these negatives are magnified when the convicted family member goes to prison. Usually rejected and scorned by friends, the isolation is overwhelming. There’s no one to talk to, no one who understands, and no one to give you reliable information about what is going on.
Assignment to a prison is not made in consideration of the location or needs of the family, it is at the convenience and meets the needs of the system. Further feelings of isolation, increased costs of communication and often breakdown of the relationship result in the early period of incarceration. Even the strongest marriages and relationships are strained to an unbelievable point, while many others result in alienation, separation, or divorce.
To a great extent, inmates adapt to life in prison in direct proportion to the success their families and loved ones are meeting on the ‘outside’. And since families rarely can meet success on their own, this crisis time in their lives is a perfect time for loving and compassionate support.
Many church communities have learned about this special ministry, and adopted programmes of outreach, education and advocacy. People do not have to walk this terrible time in their lives alone. Their needs are many: their coping skills inadequate, their finances in disarray, and friendships broken, yet they can and do respond to an out-reach which does not judge them, which provides help for their basic needs, and gives information (particularly about the prison and its many regulations) and support.
Across the world, desperate families are throwing food to loved ones over the fence of the prison (and risking their own freedom in the process), rocking crying children to sleep when they can’t understand what happened to Daddy, and coping with angry youth, who often end up incarcerated themselves because there was no one there to help.
In Matthew’s Gospel, our Lord commanded us to ‘visit those in prison’ and indeed while we visit them, we must also reach out to their families.
Practical Help: Symon of Cyrene Society
Matthew House of Hospitality and the Family Bus Service are two of the outreach programmes of the Simon of Cyrene Society, based in Monroe, Washington. The Society is dedicated to serving the families, friends and loved ones of those incarcerated, primarily in Washington State. The House offers childcare in the afternoons during visiting hours at the four Corrections facilities nearby. There is a clothing closet for women and children, an emergency food pantry and the progamme also offers short-term overnight accommodation for visitors travelling a distance to visit.
*"Prisoners’ Families, The Forgotten Victims" Lucy Gampell and Janet Harber, Prisons; a Study in Vulnerability, (Board for Social Responsibility, Church House Publishing 1999)
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