Should children be allowed to visit or tour prisons?

Yes

1 of 20

by Silva Payne

• 

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

To address the 'tour' part of the question first, very young children do not need to be taken on a tour of a prison. It is far more important for 4 and 5 years olds to be taken to a working farm and learn that milk comes from cows and not bottles, than it is for them to see how we treat the incarcerated. Take them to a power plant, a recycling centre, a sewerage works or anywhere that they can learn to understand about their world as it is, but tours should be fun things at that age and going to prison is not fun and should never be seen as such.

However, for older children, perhaps of 8 and over, a prison tour could be a valuable tool if conducted appropriately. Again, it should never be glamourised: there is nothing good about being incarcerated and as adults it is our responsibility to try and make children understand this. No one has a crystal ball, no one can predict which child may end up in prison in the future, and in some states it is a high possibility that the majority of children now will pass through a prison at some point in their lives. Children need to be aware that bad behaviour has consequences, preferably before they exhibit bad behaviour themselves. Waiting until the act has already happened, or allowing them to believe that only other people get caught and go to prison, in my opinion can be more damaging in the long run than taking a 10 year old to the local jail on a supervised tour and shown how inmates are restricted and processed.

Tours can be fun, even to prisons, but they need to be memorable and the best way to do that is the use of 'props'. Most children will enjoy having their finger prints taken, or being put into handcuffs. Some might find it a little scary to be inside a cell, but that fear is a good thing because it may just be what keeps them from returning to that cell later on.

Visits can be a completely different experience for children if one of their parents is incarcerated. There have recently been new procedures introduced in Texas prisons where everyone over the age of 17 is pat-searched when they enter a prison to visit an inmate. Some guards have expressed concern that if they cannot search under-17s, then under-17s should not be allowed entry. Some have even stated that they do not see why children should be allowed into a prison at all (and some go further and state that inmates should not receive visits from anyone, but these, thankfully, are in the minority). Security issues aside, the benefits of allowing children to visit their incarcerated parents and other family members far outweighs the harm it may do, and there are very few physical risks. Indeed, visiting someone inside a US prison is probably the safest way anyone could spend a couple of hours of their time.

Many inmates and their spouses decide not to have their children at visitation. Many choose to rely on telephone calls and letters, and in many instances where the sentences are of 2 or 3 years, this may be the sensible option. Few prisons are designed to allow children to be children when they visit: few have play areas, and few allow movement around the visitation room. Anyone who has experience of young children knows how difficult it can be to keep them sitting down and quite for an hour when they have nothing to play with. Older children always look thoroughly bored during visitation, and often consume large amounts of sugary food which makes them even less amenable to sitting still. But occasional visits can do wonders for an inmate's mental state, especially those whose sentences are longer than 5 years.

Prisons and Departments of Corrections often have mission statements now that state they encourage families to stay in contact with their incarcerated loved ones. Adults can, and do, cope with limited contact and letters to communicate through, but children need different considerations and prison administrations are very slow to accommodate this. Altering the way visitation is offered is one way that can facilitate young children in a prison setting; most states already allow visitation on several days during the week and not just at weekends, so making one of those days a 'children' day would not take a lot of extra planning or resources. Church groups are often willing to assist with things of this nature, by providing toys, food and extra supervision and transport for families. Having a day where everyone knows children are not just tolerated but actually welcomed would help the parents to be more relaxed (as children pick up parental tensions just as animals do), and it may also limit the numbers of children at regular visitation. Having 'children' days would also go some way to alleviating the fears of some parents that if they take their child to visitation inside a prison, somehow they will fall prey to a child molester. It would allow the Administration to better control who was in the visitation area: those with crimes against children on their records could be denied the privilege of 'children day' visits, thus pacifying the parents and removing the possibility of the offender becoming stimulated and difficult to control.

Children need contact with their parents and their extended families. While they should never be physically forced to go to visitation at a prison, they should be encouraged to go occasionally. It gives them an opportunity to deal with their anger at the situation, which can be more destructive if not expressed, and sometimes children can have more impact on adults than other adults can ever hope to achieve.

Learn more about this author, Silva Payne.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.