The words “prison camp” might conjure up an image of a sterile, regulated environment populated by inmates far away from family. “Summer camp” brings to mind children, crafts and fun. The Hope House Father to Child Summer Camp Behind Bars program integrates both worlds for a unique experience. For a few days a year prison life is less drab as the smiles of children add light to a normally gloomy place.
Based in Washington, D.C., Hope House has brought summer camp programs to prisons in Maryland, Ohio, and North Carolina for the past ten years. This year’s program was different. In July, the camp was located at Long Branch Correctional Institution, the first time it was held at a maximum-security prison.
Hope House attempts to forge a bond between prisoners and their children by providing programs that link them together, despite the fact that razor wire separates them. In addition to the summer camp program, Hope House also sets up face-to-face video calls between father and child, and gives the child an audio tape of his or her father reading a book to them. For female prisoners, Hope House has a Girl Scouts Behind Bars program.
To be eligible for the Summer Camp Behind Bars program, a father must have had clear conduct for at least a year, and maintain good behavior. The father must also take a parenting class. If the father completes all requirements he is allowed to participate in the program every year until his release.
Inmates convicted of a sexual crime against a minor, and those on death row are not allowed to participate.
The camp at Long Branch saw fathers and children laughing, doing craft projects, painting their vision of a future united outside of the walls, and even dancing together in the gym. For five days during that week in July fathers got to play with their children, and to provide counsel. One of the reasons Hope House began this program was so fathers could mentor their children and keep them from following in their footsteps.
After eating lunch together, the fathers go back to their cells and the children are taken by Hope House counselors to an off site camping ground where they continue the camping experience and sleep overnight. Although enjoyable, most of the children look forward to the next morning, and time with their dads.
After the five glorious days of camping with their fathers, most children will not be able to travel the long distance between home and prison, and so will not see their fathers until the following year’s program. The Department of Justice estimates that over half of prisoners are parents, which means 1.7 million children in America, or one in fifty, have a parent in who is incarcerated.
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