 |
||
|
||
|
These are ordinary scenes: Mom
fussing with her daughter's hair; Mom hugging and kissing her little
girl on both cheeks; Mom lugging around a daughter too large to lug
around; Mom offering private words of encouragement meant only for
one little girl to hear. But, for some mothers and daughters, these ordinary displays of love don't happen every day. Instead, they happen every other Saturday in a guarded conference room where all of the mothers are dressed in bright-orange jumpsuits. It's Saturday morning at Perryville Prison, and it's time for the regular Girl Scout troop meeting. One of the first stories I ever wrote for PHOENIX magazine was titled Women in Prison: Their Children Do Hard Time, Too. It was nearly 30 years ago, and it was a story about the lack of programs back then to keep women and their children connected while Mom was serving time. It was a very sad story. Three decades later, I had the joyous privilege of riding along in a Girl Scout van that took six lovely young ladies - ages 5 to 9 - to see their moms in prison. They call it Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, and it all started about a decade ago when a Maryland judge became concerned about the generation she saw going through the jail system. A little checking showed that girls were six times more likely to be incarcerated if their mothers also were incarcerated. Shouldn't the justice system be doing something, she wondered? The judge took her concerns to Marilyn Moses of the U.S. Department of Justice, who turned to the Girl Scouts program in Baltimore. Soon after, two women inside the Maricopa County Sheriff's office - Jodel Roe, second in command, and Ellen Kirshbaum, head of programs - suggested the program here. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, to his credit, quickly saw the value, and his jail became the first - and to this day the only - in the nation to allow Girl Scout troop meetings inside. That program recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. But that's the jail, not the prison. When the Girl Scouts approached Department of Corrections Director Terry Stewart about expanding the program into the prisons, he wasn't interested. It wasn't until his successor, Dora Schriro, came to town in 2003 that the program was launched inside a minimum-security unit. "Dora gets it," says Tamara Woodbury, executive director of the Arizona Cactus-Pine Council of the Girl Scouts of America. And so do corrections directors in many other states, sometimes with the help of Arizona Congressman Ed Pastor, who has helped spread the program nationwide. And so does anyone who thinks about it for 10 seconds. You do not need studies and statistics to figure out that the incarceration of a parent - especially a custodial mother - is going to be a trauma. But, of course, the Girl Scouts do have studies and statistics, and they are clear about why Girl Scouts Beyond Bars is so vital. "Children are the innocent victims of their parents' crimes and incarcerations," they note. "It has been determined that children of incarcerated parents have a 60 percent likelihood of becoming negatively involved in the criminal justice system. It is our intent to break this cycle." Even if the children don't end up in jail or prison, they're likely to suffer a wide variety of problems: anxiety, depression, aggression, learning disorders, truancy, teen pregnancy, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder…. "It's very different when mother goes to jail rather than when father does," says Ruby Quintero, the program manager for the Girl Scouts Juvenile Justice programs. "When Mom goes in, who knows where the kids end up." "We learned the first year that some of these mothers don't know how to be parents," Woodbury adds. "But now that they're clean and sober, they have a chance to develop a good relationship with their daughters." For these Girl Scout mothers - there are about 20 of them this year - attending parenting classes and staying squeaky clean is mandatory. An infraction or a "write up" wipes them out of the program. In addition, if they are in prison for drug or alcohol crimes, they have to be in a 12-step program to qualify for the Girl Scouts. "They have to show they're on a path that will not disappoint the girls again," Woodbury notes. "My contact in the prison says you can always tell the women in the Girl Scouts program - they never get in trouble," Quintero says. She's happy to point out that the program has also helped take some of the sting out of having an incarcerated parent. "My favorite story happened at Parada del Sol - we had about 800 girls in their Girl Scout uniforms, and one of our girls got wide-eyed and said, 'All these girls have moms in jail?' I always laugh when I think about that." Every other Saturday, the girls are carpooled to the Santa Maria Unit of Perryville or to the county jail. On the other Saturdays of the month, they meet in a "community troop" with other girls from Central Phoenix at the Grace Lutheran Church on Third Street. And, yes, this troop sells Girl Scout cookies. In fact, those funds help sustain the program, although the board often has to search for additional money to keep it going. Of course, none of this means that the mothers in this program will never repeat crimes and never end up behind bars again, nor that the constant disappointments that most of these children have faced will disappear, but it does provide a way to help those wounds heal. Girl Scouts believe this simple thing: "Stronger girls make stronger women make stronger communities." And you can see the evidence every other Saturday at Perryville. Ruby Quintero is in charge of driving the bus, which has a box full of crafts stashed in the trunk. We stop first to get Miranda, who lives with her "Nana" and little brother. She jumps in with her bag of Cheetos and a report on her cousin's upcoming quincienera. Her grandmother waves goodbye. Nine-year-old Miranda tells me they do all kinds of crafts, but she doesn't really care what they do, "as long as we get to be together - I just like seeing my mom." Next, we collect Chelsea and Mariah, sisters who are seen off by their 7-year-old brother, Gabriel. "Say hi to Mom for me," he instructs as they climb in. Chelsea is two days shy of her ninth birthday; her sister is 5. Other girls will join this van or its companion - Monica, Karissa, Marissa, Selene - and the vans quickly fill up with giggles, singing and choruses of "ooohhh" to punctuate the silliness. This is a regular visitor's day at the prison, so we stand in line, awaiting our turn. Our craft box demands a special screening - every single item is pulled out and logged. After that, every person goes through a metal detector and, finally, through the double-locked doors that lead into the prison grounds. The mothers are standing in a cluster, their arms outstretched, their fingers beckoning. The girls run to them. All except two, whose mothers have to be brought over from another unit. One of those still waiting is Miranda, and by the time we walk the 60 or so steps to the conference room where we'll spend the next two hours, Miranda looks like her world has caved in. You can just feel her anxiety that her mother will never come through that door. Finally, her mother rushes in, finding her daughter pouty and sad. But it doesn't take long for all those kisses and hugs to do their magic, and soon, Miranda and her 25-year-old mother, Pria Patel, are talking and laughing. Around the room, pairs of mothers and daughters are doing all those ordinary things that so many others take for granted in the free world. Karissa curls up on her mother's lap and stays there most of the day. Marissa plays patty-cakes with her mom. Selene is like a Chatty Cathy - her mom can't get a word in edgewise. The meeting starts with the Girl Scout pledge, and then Ruby starts handing out craft supplies. Today, they are decorating wooden candle holders and making beeswax candles. There is also a plastic jar to paint. Each person gets a paintbrush, and they share small pots of color. Chelsea and Mariah dutifully report to their 29-year-old mother, Sandy Abasta, that their brother says hello. (Later in the day, Sandy's eyes fill with delight when she hears about a new prison counseling program that will allow her son to attend contact meetings with her.) Chelsea seems very at ease with her mom, and they laugh a lot. Mariah is more reserved, and it takes most of the two hours before she seems to loosen up. Miranda's mother is trying to convince her not to be mean to her 5-year-old brother, but the big sister has all kinds of indictments against the boy. "But remember, he's a little boy - now listen to me," Pria says as she takes her daughter's hands. "He is trying to be a little man, and you have to help train him." "Like a dog?" Miranda asks, knowing that she got a good one in. "No," her mother says, laughing. "Not like that. I mean, you need to teach him right from wrong." After their joke, Miranda puts her head on her mother's shoulder. "Can I stay here with you?" she asks. "Oh, noo…" her mother recoils. With just a few minutes left, everyone forms a Friendship Circle. They all sing happy birthday to Chelsea, and then Ruby asks the question: What did you learn this week? Monica says she learned to count to 100, while her mom says she learned "to keep the faith." Marissa learned fourth-grade division, while her mom learned "to bite my tongue." There are only three minutes left, and in that time, two week's worth of hugs, kisses and "I love yous" fill the room. Miranda's mom kisses her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, the top of her head, repeating family names with each kiss. Out we go, the same way we came in, each girl clutching the craft she's created this week with her mom. The women hang around outside, catching the last possible glimpse before we go through the double-lock doors. Wendy's hamburgers and chicken nuggets are waiting in the vans for lunch - the prison does not allow any food to be brought in, so the girls eat afterward. Chelsea announces that her mom has promised a big surprise at her school for her birthday on Monday. Miranda's mom has told her she'll be coming home later this year. And, Sandy Abasta did not let Chelsea down - she had her mother deliver a cake and balloons to the school. "They told me she cried... she was so happy," Sandy reports a couple of days later. "This program means a lot to me," she says in a phone interview. "It's brought me and my girls closer today. It's taught me how to speak to my children - I didn't know how to do that before - and it's taught me how to be open. I've seen a lot of improvements in my girls, too." Sandy has been incarcerated on and off since 2003, all due to her meth addiction and the forgeries that supported her habit. She first started the Girl Scout program when she was in Sheriff Joe's jail, and signed up for it the minute she got to Perryville. "I had a bad life, and started using to relieve my stress," she reports. She laughs, noting how ridiculous that is, and pointing out that you don't know stress until you've been locked away. But she's used the time well, taking all the drug-rehab classes the prison offers, and studying to get her GED. She believes that this time, she won't mess up again - that this Girl Scout troop will help her to not repeat her past mistakes. She looks forward to going home to her children and their father when she's released in January. "This has helped me so much," she adds. "My family is proud of me for taking all of these programs, and I have really changed. I was very sad when I first came to prison. But now I look forward to the future." She's come a long way. I have one dominant memory of this woman, and it certainly isn't of her being sad. She had a beautiful smile on her face every single second. "When I get out, I look forward to being involved in scouting with my girls," she says. "I think it will help me to not get in trouble again." To help support the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program, contact the Cactus-Pine Council at 602-253-6359. |
Jana Bommersbach © 2003 - 2008
Email:
jana@janabommersbach.com
web design:
Web-Writer, Inc.