This Mother's Day, a compassionate plea for the incarcerated: Reader view
It’s a memory that remains quite vivid.
On November 5th, 2017 in the early morning hours, I received a frantic phone call. My sister-in-law was crying hysterically. She shared that my 50-year-old brother had been rushed to the emergency room. Within the next hour, I would discover that my brother had died from a massive heart attack. Just like that, our beloved brother, father, son, husband was gone.
After getting over the initial shock, my next thought was: How can I tell this to my mother?
My mother, Patricia Sullivan, was approximately seven months into a 48-month federal prison sentence for wire fraud. Would she be able to handle this news? Would my mother be allowed to attend the funeral? So many questions raced through my mind.
I rushed home from the hospital and told my husband that we needed to go to Florida to break the news face-to-face. At the time my mother was being held at Federal Correctional Institution Marianna. The drive was more than 360 miles. It was a Sunday. We had to hurry.
On the way, I called the federal prison. I explained what happened and asked if there was a room where I could share this unexpected tragic news. They said no. There were no rooms or accommodations that they could make. I asked if there was a set protocol or procedure, but they had nothing of significance to offer. The chaplain was not on duty.
When my mom saw that we had come to visit, she was so excited. That elation would quickly turn to devastation. Out in the open, with other families visiting their incarcerated family members, I would break the news. I would tell my mother that her oldest son had passed away. That day I heard my mother weep in a way that I had never heard before. My mother who had always been a pillar of strength, broke completely down and wept aloud.
She would get to travel South Carolina for my brother’s funeral. There were numerous prayers sent up on her behalf. She was one of the first, if not the first person, that the warden of the prison allowed to travel on furlough. The furlough only allowed for the service itself, so we would miss my brother’s military burial and instead leave immediately after the service to drive back to Florida.
Now, 18 months later, I’m preparing to visit my mother on Mother’s Day. I have sent her 30 Mother’s Day cards individually packaged from family members and friends. I’m working strategically to build a network of women who will surround her, support her, and assist her with rebuilding her life. One of her goals is to promote prison reform.
There are simple adjustments that can be made to ensure that rehabilitation is a reality and not an elusive complexity. First and foremost, every prison should have an educational and/or career development program for inmates. This should be a basic requirement. Second, there should be an established protocol to provide privacy for families dealing with death and other serious tragedies. Third, protocols and guidelines need to be in place to keep families and next-of-kin aware when impending storms threaten the lives and/or safety of loved ones. My mother was trapped in her prison during Hurricane Michael. And last, prisons should partner with faith-based institutions to offer activities that cultivate an environment of humanization, hope and positivity for the nation’s incarcerated.
Out of all of the money that gets funneled through our nation’s prisons, as a nation we have to do more to restore dignity and hope to the nation’s incarcerated. This is particularly true of incarcerated mothers.
Happy Mother’s Day to them all.
Yasha Jones Becton; Columbia, S.C.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: This Mother's Day, a compassionate plea for the incarcerated: Reader view
