Jay Coleman, who served 25 years in prison, talks about how he felt as he watched his children grow up from behind his prison cell:

In a previous piece, Coleman discusses how he helped raise his children by using a telephone. He also describes how he went from being a crime-loving man to a family man.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: Did you send your spouse or partner in prison pictures of your children? How did you feel experiencing your children grow through photographs alone?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

click for slideshow

Over the course of several perfectly sunny Saturday afternoons, I gathered a group of teenagers and young adults who have in some way been affected by having an incarcerated parent. We met at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, where I planned to teach them how to use video to document how their parents’ incarceration has affected their lives. (more…)

The New York Times had this piece and is related to my previous post: Vietnam veteran’s Posttraumatic Stress Disorder rips family apart.

This piece is about Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith, who was “profoundly shaken by his experiences in Iraq.” He returned from Iraq, and “disintegrated psychologically and ultimately killed his girlfriend and the mother of his twin children.”

Read the article here.

This is part of a series about of articles and multimedia “about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.”

Part I: Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles.

Part II: An Iraq Veteran’s Descent; a Prosecutor’s Choice

Flash |QuickTime

Every corner of Jenny Carrasquillo’s home bears the memory of her husband, Jose, who is serving a 32-year sentence for sexual assault. There is a large framed picture of Jose, 45, in a prison uniform posing with Jenny in front of a poster of a waterfall. His clothes still hang neatly in her bedroom closet, as if ready to be worn.

But despite Jenny’s efforts to downplay Jose’s absence , his incarceration has hit her hard. For the past six years, since he was convicted, Jenny, 41, has struggled to make ends meet to support her three children and to pay for Jose’s legal expenses.

“When he was sentenced, I lost everything,” says Jenny, whose children were 14, 11, and 10 when Jose was imprisoned. “I feel like this is a dream and I want to wake up from this nightmare.”
Jose’s own children from a previous relationship in the Dominican Republic have been bearing the brunt of his inability to earn money.

To ease their money troubles, Jose’s mother, Bibiana, 68, along with other family members, had to step in with financial help. They also regularly contribute to his commissary account to cover basic necessities, such as shampoo and deodorant, inside the prison.

click image for slideshow

However, the greatest difficulty for Jenny, Bibiana and their family has been paying for Jose’s defense attorneys, who charge thousands of dollars to take on complex criminal cases such as Jose’s.

From the beginning of his case, they have felt that private attorneys can do a better job of defending him and securing his freedom. They were distraught when, after paying for the best defense services their money could buy, Jose ended up losing at trial in early 2001.

Now, the family is once again pooling together their scant earnings from cleaning jobs, working at factories and babysitting to pay for a private attorney to re-examine his case. They are steadfast in their belief that he is innocent, and are doing all they can to put an end to what they consider a gross injustice.

Jose’s case is a recurring topic of conversation between Jenny and Bibiana, as is the pain of physical ailments that became manifest after Jose was arrested, and which they attribute to the stress of his entanglement with the law.

Flash |QuickTime

Bibiana suffers from nosebleeds and high blood pressure. She has come to depend on pills to calm her down before going to visit her son in prison. Jenny has developed diabetes and suffered through the shock of her youngest son’s suicide attempt shortly after Jose’s incarceration.

Though her children have learned to deal with their stepfather’s imprisonment, Jenny does not think they are okay and is saddened that they grew up without him. He raised them since they were small, she says, and they consider him their real father. They visit and speak on the phone with him occasionally, but continue to lament his absence.

The slideshow and videos in this entry show how different members of the same family are coping with a loved one’s incarceration. Jose’s mother, wife, and stepsons talk about what life has been like since he was imprisoned, and how they have are getting through such a difficult time as a family.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: How has the incarceration of a family member impacted your pocketbook?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

Ana Maria Toro, a graduate student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, has joined Lives in Focus as a multimedia reporter for the summer. I would like to thank the school for allowing her to meet the internship requirement by working for the “Family Life Behind Bars” project.

Ana will be reporting and producing pieces using audio, video, photographs and text to help broaden the coverage.

Ana has been a student of mine for the past two semesters and independently of this project has been covering the criminal justice system. She is a determined reporter who has some experience working for the Spanish language press in New York. (Click here for her bio.)

The summer always winds up flying so I plan to keep her very busy. I know she is going to get a lot out of this experience. But more than that, Ana is also actually getting paid by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (as are other students at non-paying internships) so there is no exploitation involved!

Ana’s first piece will be posted later today.

Help spread the word about this project by linking to it from your site. You just have to copy the code below and paste it into the HTML section of your website or blog. Once you publish the code on your site, you will see the above promotional graphic appear on your Website.

Please let us know if you do place this promotional link on your site by emailing your URL to info@livesinfocus.org.

If you have any trouble getting this to work, just send an email to the same address.

Thanks for helping Lives in Focus inform others about this important topic.

Here is the code (it only looks scary).

Lives in Focus plans to cover an event at Rutgers that has a similar ring to it: “Behind Bars: The Impact of Incarceration on Women and Their Families”

While our work is based on journalism-style interviews, photographs, audio and video, this conference convenes a group of academics and practitioners to explore the impact and legal implications of incarceration on women and their families at the 2007 symposium of the Women’s Rights Law Reporter at Rutgers School of Law–Newark.

I urge those interested in the topic to attend. The conference will take place from 12:30 – 4 pm on Wednesday, March 7, in the law school’s Baker Trial Courtroom. More info on their website.

Professor Brenda V. Smith of Washington College of Law, American University, will be the keynote speaker for the first panel, which will focus on women’s issues while incarcerated.

Professor Philip Genty of Columbia Law School will keynote the second panel. This panel will consider the impact of a woman’s imprisonment on her family.

click image for audio slideshow

When a lover is freed from jail after many years, the anticipation of the reunion can hold more pleasure than the reality. Take the case of Dannette Giglio, a 56-year-old woman, who waited faithfully for Orlando, her fiance, after he was incarcerated for six years for possession of stolen property and endangerment.

Just months after his release last year, their relationship turned into a grim shadow of what Dannette had expected. Orlando, 44, had trouble adjusting to freedom, says Dannette. His job search led no where. The couple began to argue and fight. In December, when we went to interview Dannette, Orlando had just stormed out of her apartment. She said she had called the police because he had threatened to kill her.

Orlando moved to Virginia, says Dannette, where he lives with his mother. Despite the turmoil, she clings to the hope that it had been worth waiting for him for six years. She said she plans to visit him in Virginia to patch up their relationship.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: What keeps you standing by your loved one when he or she is released from prison? Where would you draw the line for supporting him or her?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

This project examines the impact on family relations and dynamics when one or more member of a family is incarcerated. How do some families overcome the separation, financial strain, social stigma and guilt while others crumble? Why is there a greater likelihood that a child of someone who is in prison will also end up in jail at some point? How do society, politics or special interests help or hinder family relations?

For example, many states currently allow telephone companies to penalize inmates and their families by charging a staggering connection surcharge (about $3) and higher per minute rates (upto 16 cents) for collect phone calls–—a regressive toll in an age of unlimited local and long distance calling. This at a time when research and experience shows that inmates who stay in touch with their families are likelier to have a smooth transition back to civil society when released.How do such obstacles impact the relationship between a parent and child (both the parent who remains at home and the one in prison)? Between husband and wife? Between siblings? How are family relations re-established when a prisoner is released? What are the unforeseen consequences of being released? What efforts do inmates make to stay in touch from within prison walls?

Lives in Focus is NOT questioning the guilty verdict that sent people to prison. We also recognize that many crimes upset the lives of others–in extreme cases even depriving families of their own loved ones. We do believe, however, that it is important to document and be aware of the repercussions that imprisonment has on an inmate’s family, a large and growing population in America.