titantoo
05-01-2005, 01:09 PM
[Thanks to PoopsieNme]
Many prison families never see visiting day
Staying in touch by mail or phone is scant comfort to those who cannot afford travel
By REBEKAH GORDON
Special to the Times Union
First published: Sunday, May 1, 2005
At Cape Vincent Correctional Facility, along the northwestern edge of New York where the St. Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario, John Drake, 66, is serving three to nine years for first-degree manslaughter. Some 225 miles southeast in Albany, Tia Drake, 15, and Naeemah Drake, 14, wish for nothing more than to visit their father.
But that's a luxury they can't afford. They have no car, and their mother, Alberta Chambliss, 49, gets just $375 a month in public assistance while she attends Hudson Valley Community College for her accounting degree. The cost of a Greyhound bus ticket or even a collect call is prohibitive to them.
They make do with mailing letters, which the sisters acknowledge is not enough.
"Letters is not the same as when you're touching and holding," said Naeemah, a freshman at Albany High School.
For many low-income families like the Drakes whose loved ones are incarcerated far from home, simply getting to prison can be a formidable undertaking. Local advocates for prison families have tried to address the issue, but a broader solution, they say, is needed to address it throughout the state's vast corrections system.
"It really seems to be an insurmountable problem," said Judith Brink, host of Voices from the Prison Action Network, a Wednesday morning radio show on WRPI Troy, 91.5 FM.
Alison Coleman, founder and director of Albany-based Prison Families of New York, said she receives two to four phone calls a day from families who say they can't get to prison for a host of reasons, such as high gas prices, visiting-hour restrictions requiring a costly overnight hotel stay or difficulty finding a family willing to carpool. For some, the challenges are overwhelming.
"If (the state's) goal is to make it so difficult for families that families give up, then they're accomplishing their goal," Coleman said.
The Department of Correctional Services, which runs New York's prisons, provides five free buses each month to take families from Albany to prisons in Washington County, the Hudson Valley, and the Buffalo and Rochester area, according to James Flateau, a DOCS spokesman. About 600 people used the service last year. Buses, he said, have empty seats, suggesting that "service is more than adequate."
There are no DOCS buses from Albany to Cape Vincent, where John Drake is held. As of April 2, there were 36 inmates from Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties incarcerated there.
"The state is not obligated to provide free bus service for anyone wanting to visit the 63,544 inmates housed in 70 prisons around the state," Flateau said.
Alternatives, such as private shuttles, come at a price. Operation Prison Gap, for example, provides rides to many remote prisons, including Cape Vincent, but charges $60 a passenger to go there and departs from New York City.
Downstate residents face obstacles, too, said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Manhattan-based Correctional Association of New York. More buses may leave from New York City, but longer travel distances to prisons are tough for families with children.
"Considering where the prisoners are located and the economic and social condition of most of the people who are struggling to arrange for these visits, it's a hardship for residents both of New York City and upstate communities like Albany," Gangi said.
Advocates say the state Legislature needs to look at the issue. They argue that keeping families connected helps them during a person's incarceration and after.
"Prison families are healthier if they're connected," said Linda O'Malley, program director of Neighbors Establishing Support in Troy (NEST), a project of the Troy Larger Presbyterian Parish that provides inexpensive van transportation for Capital Region families to the Coxsackie, Greene and Hudson correctional facilities about 30 miles away.
"If they can visit, if they can work out some of the conflicts of family life while the person's incarcerated, they're more likely to go back home once the period ends and, with the support of family, be able to re-enter society," O'Malley said.
Spokespeople for state Sen. Michael F. Nozzolio, R-Seneca County, and Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry, D-Queens, each of whom chair the corrections committee in their respective legislative bodies, said they did not know of any discussions regarding funding or pending legislation to address the issue.
According to an October 2003 report by the nonpartisan Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington D.C., women nationwide are incarcerated an average 160 miles away from their families, and men an average of 100 miles, serving as a barrier to family visits.
"I've never heard of any consideration being made to that issue, the issue of being close to home," said Elizabeth McBride, one of the report's authors.
Naeemah wishes that somebody would consider placing her father close by, but pleas she made to local legislators and his parole board have gone unacknowledged.
"He's being punished, but why should the kids have to suffer also?" Chambliss asked. "You could write 'I love you' on a piece of paper, but it's not like when you see him and you say 'I love you' and you can hug and kiss, feel and touch. It's a big difference."
Many prison families never see visiting day
Staying in touch by mail or phone is scant comfort to those who cannot afford travel
By REBEKAH GORDON
Special to the Times Union
First published: Sunday, May 1, 2005
At Cape Vincent Correctional Facility, along the northwestern edge of New York where the St. Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario, John Drake, 66, is serving three to nine years for first-degree manslaughter. Some 225 miles southeast in Albany, Tia Drake, 15, and Naeemah Drake, 14, wish for nothing more than to visit their father.
But that's a luxury they can't afford. They have no car, and their mother, Alberta Chambliss, 49, gets just $375 a month in public assistance while she attends Hudson Valley Community College for her accounting degree. The cost of a Greyhound bus ticket or even a collect call is prohibitive to them.
They make do with mailing letters, which the sisters acknowledge is not enough.
"Letters is not the same as when you're touching and holding," said Naeemah, a freshman at Albany High School.
For many low-income families like the Drakes whose loved ones are incarcerated far from home, simply getting to prison can be a formidable undertaking. Local advocates for prison families have tried to address the issue, but a broader solution, they say, is needed to address it throughout the state's vast corrections system.
"It really seems to be an insurmountable problem," said Judith Brink, host of Voices from the Prison Action Network, a Wednesday morning radio show on WRPI Troy, 91.5 FM.
Alison Coleman, founder and director of Albany-based Prison Families of New York, said she receives two to four phone calls a day from families who say they can't get to prison for a host of reasons, such as high gas prices, visiting-hour restrictions requiring a costly overnight hotel stay or difficulty finding a family willing to carpool. For some, the challenges are overwhelming.
"If (the state's) goal is to make it so difficult for families that families give up, then they're accomplishing their goal," Coleman said.
The Department of Correctional Services, which runs New York's prisons, provides five free buses each month to take families from Albany to prisons in Washington County, the Hudson Valley, and the Buffalo and Rochester area, according to James Flateau, a DOCS spokesman. About 600 people used the service last year. Buses, he said, have empty seats, suggesting that "service is more than adequate."
There are no DOCS buses from Albany to Cape Vincent, where John Drake is held. As of April 2, there were 36 inmates from Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties incarcerated there.
"The state is not obligated to provide free bus service for anyone wanting to visit the 63,544 inmates housed in 70 prisons around the state," Flateau said.
Alternatives, such as private shuttles, come at a price. Operation Prison Gap, for example, provides rides to many remote prisons, including Cape Vincent, but charges $60 a passenger to go there and departs from New York City.
Downstate residents face obstacles, too, said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Manhattan-based Correctional Association of New York. More buses may leave from New York City, but longer travel distances to prisons are tough for families with children.
"Considering where the prisoners are located and the economic and social condition of most of the people who are struggling to arrange for these visits, it's a hardship for residents both of New York City and upstate communities like Albany," Gangi said.
Advocates say the state Legislature needs to look at the issue. They argue that keeping families connected helps them during a person's incarceration and after.
"Prison families are healthier if they're connected," said Linda O'Malley, program director of Neighbors Establishing Support in Troy (NEST), a project of the Troy Larger Presbyterian Parish that provides inexpensive van transportation for Capital Region families to the Coxsackie, Greene and Hudson correctional facilities about 30 miles away.
"If they can visit, if they can work out some of the conflicts of family life while the person's incarcerated, they're more likely to go back home once the period ends and, with the support of family, be able to re-enter society," O'Malley said.
Spokespeople for state Sen. Michael F. Nozzolio, R-Seneca County, and Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry, D-Queens, each of whom chair the corrections committee in their respective legislative bodies, said they did not know of any discussions regarding funding or pending legislation to address the issue.
According to an October 2003 report by the nonpartisan Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington D.C., women nationwide are incarcerated an average 160 miles away from their families, and men an average of 100 miles, serving as a barrier to family visits.
"I've never heard of any consideration being made to that issue, the issue of being close to home," said Elizabeth McBride, one of the report's authors.
Naeemah wishes that somebody would consider placing her father close by, but pleas she made to local legislators and his parole board have gone unacknowledged.
"He's being punished, but why should the kids have to suffer also?" Chambliss asked. "You could write 'I love you' on a piece of paper, but it's not like when you see him and you say 'I love you' and you can hug and kiss, feel and touch. It's a big difference."