“But enhancing the experience of children with incarcerated parents does not require a wholesale restructuring of prisons. Most parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in.”
I have been a better father in prison than I ever was on the outside. That is not because prison officials make it easy to parent from behind bars but, rather because of what I have learned about myself, parenting, and society since being incarcerated.
In the nearly two decades since I was sentenced to 63 years as an accomplice to murder, I have tried to face not just my own mistakes but the corrosive cultural norms that defined my youth. Conservatives and liberals often debate the role of personal responsibility and social forces in shaping our lives. To understand why I am separated from my children, and how I can make amends for that, I have to look at both factors.
My childhood was routinely chaotic and dysfunctional. Estranged from my biological father, I was raised by a stepfather who personified “toxic masculinity.” I also lived in a neighborhood where drugs, gangs, and gun violence left many of us believing those were necessary to survive.
Most of my adult male role models, including my stepdad, spent little time with their children. Instead, they ran the streets—womanizing, abusing drugs, and selling dope. When my first child was born, the 18-year-old Antoine emulated those same behaviors, never considering the effects on others. In an incident I will always regret, my anger and desire for retribution led me to be involved in a man’s murder. Almost immediately, I realized that the street life I had chosen had not only cost a life but would place a burden on my kids, who would grow up with an incarcerated father.
I could not erase those mistakes, but I could learn to be the kind of father I never had. I read books on masculinity, family, and faith by authors such as Eric Mason, Dennis Rainey, and Gene Getz. They inspired me to become a parent who loved and supported my children, even from behind bars.
But I soon discovered that would not be easy. Razor-wire fences and gun towers are not the only barriers to connecting with family from prison. Long-distance drives, expensive phone calls, and extremely low-wage prison jobs make it nearly impossible for some incarcerated individuals to actively participate in their children’s lives.
For example, three months after my sentencing, the Department of Corrections (DOC) placed me at Washington State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison more than 350 miles away from my home. The price of gas and hotel rooms, along with missed work, made the six-hour drive to the facility difficult for my family. I went from visits with my kids every weekend in the county jail to seeing them twice in the following 10 years I spent in that prison.
My experience was not unusual. Approximately 1.25 million people in state prisons are parents to minor children. Nearly two-thirds of them are more than 100 miles away from family, and more than 10% are over 500 miles away, making it harder for children who come from poorer communities to stay physically connected to their parents.
In Washington state, the DOC allows transfers only for “safety, security, and protection needs,” including “medical, mental health and/or program needs.” Supporting parent/child connections is not on the list. That is short-sighted.
Those connections benefit not only prisoners and their families, but also communities. Visitation reduces recidivism and is “linked to better mental health, including reduced depressive symptoms—an important intervention for the isolated, stressful experience of incarceration,” according to a prison-reform advocacy group.
That conclusion is widely shared. A free-market think tank points out that regular, accessible visitation can reduce child anxiety surrounding parental absence. Despite the evidence, “government policies and family circumstances often impede the ability of families to stay connected during incarceration” and eliminating these obstacles would bring “great benefit both to individuals and to society as a whole.”
When distance becomes a deterrence to visitation, many of us rely on prison phones. I have called to help my children with homework, guide them through adversities, or just joke and laugh, simply enjoying one another’s company. Those conversations have improved my children’s performance in school and behavior at home. But those phone calls are outrageously expensive, as much as $3 for a 15-minute call, while prison jobs pay an average of 86 cents per hour.
That means parents in prison either will work long hours to talk even briefly with our children, often sacrificing the purchase of needed hygiene products and food from the prison commissary, or families that already may be struggling financially take on the burden. Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was on target nearly a decade ago: “There is no legitimate reason why anyone else should ever again be forced to make these levels of sacrifices, to stay connected, particularly those—who make up the majority in these cases—who can least afford it.”
Politicians and prison officials should eliminate costly phone calls and long-distance placements, alleviating the burden on loved ones to maintain family ties. But to be fair, new programs to support relationships between children and their incarcerated parents have been created in recent years.
Washington state’s DOC has implemented a “Read to Me Daddy/Mommy” program that allows incarcerated parents to record a 10-minute video reading stories to their children. Some parents read their children’s favorite books and others, myself included, create stories of our own that we perform. The DOC also hosts annual parent/child events in some facilities, creating a space for incarcerated parents and their children to bond in prison visiting rooms—painting, dancing, eating, and vying for raffle prizes.
As an incarcerated father searching for ways to remain involved in my kids’ life, those quality moments with my family were invaluable. I knew my daughter felt the same after I heard her over the phone, enthusiastically telling her 7-year-old friend, “Dez, you gotta go to the prison—it was so fun!” Although I encouraged her not to say those things, I understood what she meant. The quality time she got to spend with her mom and incarcerated father meant the world to her.
But these events only last a few hours, or happen once a year. And many incarcerated parents do not even have that. Routine visits and phone calls are necessary. Five states have recognized this and made calls from prison free. Placing incarcerated individuals as close to home as possible is equally important.
I know some people approach prisons with a punitive mindset, with little concern for people convicted of serious crimes. But even those who support harsh punishment should recognize that restricting prisoners’ connection with their children punishes innocent kids, while at the same time increases risks for communities.
Many people, myself included, believe we need to rethink the current failed approach to crime and punishment. But enhancing the experience of children with incarcerated parents does not require a wholesale restructuring of prisons. Most parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in. We should be able to put aside political differences to do what everyone agrees is necessary—giving all children a chance to thrive.
Antoine E. Davis is an incarcerated journalist in Washington State. He is a licensed pastor for Freedom Church of Seattle, as well as Inside Director of Organizing for Look2Justice, an organization that provides civic education to system-impacted communities and works to pass sentence and policy-reform legislation. His writing has been published by Christianity Today, The Guardian, Plough Magazine, The Appeal, and more. He can be found on X @antoineedavis
