Vermont Public: Vermont prisons work to improve visitation experiences for children of incarcerated fathers

Our Managing Director of Justice Initiatives Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia was interviewed for this article for Vermont Public

State corrections officials want to improve child visitation practices at Vermont’s men’s prisons. They’re working with the nonprofit Chicago Beyond to overhaul current practices and prioritize the mental health of kids and their incarcerated parents.

The children of incarcerated parents have to go to jail themselves in order to maintain a physical connection with their mom or dad, and Vermont’s commissioner of corrections says it’s time to make that visitation experience more healthy and humane.

Vermont’s only prison for women has come under fire for having substandard living conditions. But the South Burlington facility’s child visitation program, which includes a special meeting space for kids and their incarcerated mothers, is widely lauded.

“There are toys in that space. There are books,” said Commissioner of Corrections Nick Deml. “Mothers can sit with their children and play games or read or just hang out and lounge around and visit.”

Deml said the equivalent visitation spaces at the five men’s prisons in Vermont do not come close to meeting that standard.

“The visiting spaces are pretty sterile,” he said. “It’s hard floors, hard wooden tables, some of them have a partition.”

Deml said the quality of children’s visits with their fathers suffers as a result, so Vermont is now working with a nonprofit, called Chicago Beyond, to overhaul child visitation practices in ways that will improve the mental health of kids and their incarcerated parents.

Read the full article here