Family visiting is a lifeline for mothers

Serving life or life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) means long-term or permanent separation from society, making connections critical for the emotional well-being of the incarcerated and their loved ones.

Overnight family visits allow families to maintain meaningful relationships, reducing the emotional drag of long-term incarceration. Especially for mothers and children.

Family visits take place in an apartment-like space inside the prison and can last up to 40 hours. They allow people to spend more time together than is possible in short visiting room conversations, surrounded by law enforcement and other visitors.

In June 2007, all lifers lost their eligibility for family visits due to an incident that had occurred in one of the family units. That incident was an outlier, not the norm. It took a decade-long fight to restore family visits through a special committee action.

Those years without visits were devastating for many families, like Anita Ford’s, who is serving an LWOP sentence. Ford had visits with her mother and two young children prior to 2007. She remembers that she had a visit scheduled with her children shortly after the repeal.

“I had to tell them that it was cancelled,” Ford said. “Hearing my daughters cry on the phone broke my heart.”

An LWOP resident incarcerated for over 20 years, Stacey Dyer’s kids were ages one and three when she was arrested. All of their memories of her were in prison.

“It was a physical grief I experienced, not being able to hold my small children in an unlimited, unrestrained way,” Dyer said.

Her children were 18 and 20 years old when she was finally approved for overnight visits.

Decades later, they still needed human contact with each other.

Dyer shared that on her first family visit, together they made a pallet in the living room of the family visiting unit and all slept together.

“They were my babies again,” Dyer said, “and they finally had a memory of their mom actually being in a normal human setting with them.”

Latoya Jenkins was sentenced to LWOP when her daughters were only four and six years old. She began building their relationships through letters and phone calls. As they got older, it became harder for her to parent from prison.

“The disconnect between a mother and her child is the worst feeling ever,” Jenkins said. “I felt hopeless and helpless for years.”

Jenkins had not seen her children since the day she was arrested until her daughter turned 18 and they had their first family visit. It was the kind of day mothers inside prison hope for, and only family visiting can make possible.

Jenkins watched her daughter for the first time walk through the gates full of tears, all grown up.

“My heart literally melted,” Jenkins said. “We were so emotional and I was able to hold my baby and cry. That day I became a mother again to my child.”