From Jewish Current:
“I wish you could have been there. It was cool.” Those were the words my cellmate shared with me in July after he got back from a “family friendly” event held by the Washington Corrections Center—the prison where we are confined. During the event, prisoners got to spend time with their families. They played games together and ate food; there was a raffle, and families won prizes. For prisoners who attended, this event was a necessary respite from the grind of daily life. For visitors, it was a much-needed change from the distance imposed on those with a loved one in prison.
I wish I could have been there too. But having entered the foster care system as a young adult, I have no family besides the state, so I was not allowed to participate.
Prisons are designed to create and maintain separation, reducing a prisoner’s opportunity to connect with people outside. Exorbitant communication costs make relationships expensive, while the rural locations of most prisons make visits burdensome for those with loved ones inside. “Family friendly events” are rare instances where prisons grudgingly work against their nature by opening up opportunities for connection between prisoners and the outside world—an exception they make for legally-recognized family. This is because carceral institutions are designed to work alongside the institution of the family; where the prison isolates us and keeps us destitute, the family—by sending us resources when we are inside and providing a place for us to land when released—is supposed to mitigate incarceration’s gravest harms. But for people who lack what prisons define as “family,” the world outside can be an ocean too deep to swim in, leaving us marooned on a carceral island. Continue reading >>>
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