Margarita Rodriguez cannot sit still. Bathed in greenish-gray fluorescent light, she rocks back and forth, hands clasped in front of her. It’s 10 minutes past 9 in the morning. She hasn’t seen her children in seven months, and today they are running late.
The sound of children’s laughter perks her up.
“That’s my little girl,” she giggles, staring at the television screen in front of her. Rodriguez’s children and her mother come into a room and ogle the large television screens before them. The one on the left shows them, four people gathered on blue couches in a sky-colored room on Chicago’s Near West Side. The one on the right shows Rodriguez, sitting at a spare brown desk in Decatur Correctional Center, almost 180 miles away. She is serving a 4-year sentence for selling heroin.
“Oh my God, Michael! Look how big you are,” Rodriguez squeals as her 16-year-old son comes into view.
“Look at you! Ashley, come to the table. Look at your hair. It’s so beautiful,” Rodriguez says. Her daughter obeys, pulling up a chair at a table in front of the couches.
There is no hugging, no kissing, no touching at all. There are only smiles and sobs on closed-circuit television sets. But for some incarcerated women, these videoconferencing sessions, sponsored by the Women’s Treatment Center and the Illinois Department of Corrections, are all the visits they get.
About 80 percent of the roughly 2,800 women locked up in Illinois are mothers. Experts say the more contact parents have with their children while they’re incarcerated, the less likely they are to commit new crimes, and the less likely their kids are to get in trouble.
With this in mind, the Women’s Treatment Center, a non-profit organization that works with women with substance-abuse problems and provides other services, started a videoconferencing program called Parent and Child Together, or PACT, in 2002. Based loosely on the Storybook Project, in which incarcerated mothers read books into cassette recorders and sent the tapes and books to their children, PACT encourages moms to read to their kids too.
About 100 incarcerated women participate in the program each year. To be eligible for the program, mothers must have their parental rights intact and have the permission of their children’s guardians. The visits are limited to 30 minutes as often as scheduling permits, and Brenda Davis-Doss, a social worker who guides the conversation, works with the kids.
There are rules: No profanity, no talking on cell phones, no speaking in a foreign language, and no talk about money.
The program enables the moms to work on their parenting skills while also helping their children deal with the separation, said Lisa Parks-Johnson, director of the Women’s Treatment Center’s parenting program.
“This allows the mothers to interact with their kids without subjecting the kids to prison life,” Johnson said. “It’s a way of keeping mother and child connected.”
Rodriguez’s children talk hesitantly at first, filling the ticking minutes with pleasantries about school, church and family.
But 12-year-old Stefanie has something important to say.
“Mom, I want you to listen,” she says. “There’s nothing you can’t do if you believe in God. All you have to do is pray, Mom. You just have to believe in him.”
Stefanie repeats this several times. When she finishes, Rodriguez claps heartily.
“I believe. I believe!” she says. After a few more minutes of conversation, they stand to close the session in prayer.
“These visits have meant a lot to me. Without this program, I wouldn’t be able to see them,” Rodriguez says later. “I’ve made bad choices in my life. But it doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother. I need to be a part of their lives.”
The sessions aren’t always so upbeat. The separation from their mothers can be tough on the kids, and behavioral problems at home or school are a frequent topic.
Omega Parker’s 12-year-old son, Maximillian Carter, has had a hard time since she left home, first for drug treatment and now to serve an 8-year sentence for selling heroin.
On a recent Saturday, Parker, dressed in a prison-issued white polo shirt and blue pants, stares intently at the television screen before her, watching her son struggle to tell her something.
Maximillian begins to cry. He wipes the tears away with the sleeve of his gray sweatshirt.
“Max, what’s going on that’s got you crying?” Parker asks. “I’m not going to be mad, just tell me.”
After a few minutes, Maximillian says quietly, “It’s my report card.” He tells her he is failing some of his classes.
Parker’s jaw becomes set, and her eyes narrow.
“Max,” Parker says, “you need to stop doing just enough to make the lot. You need to work harder and stretch further. You need to apply yourself. I know you can.”
Later, as she walks along the hospital-like halls of the correctional center to return to her room, Parker reflects on how the relationship she had with her son before prison is hurting him today. She says she spoiled him, gave him anything he wanted, trying to make up for his father’s death and her bouts with heroin, she says.
Now Parker is off drugs, she says, for good. She is trying to instill discipline in Max’s life, and she uses her 30-minute sessions with her son to try to heal the bonds she broke.
“I’m trying to build up some steppingstones here, so that when I come out, I will be that much closer with him,” she says.
In the beginning, inmates in the program were required to go to weekly group meetings with Department of Corrections facilitator Beverly Edwards, who encouraged the women to set goals with their children, discussed problems with their families and the program, and encouraged them to keep journals of the visits.
But budget cuts by the department forced the program to halt in September. Edwards scraped up enough money to start it again in February, but there may be no funding in the next fiscal year. Dreams of expanding the program to other counties and other prisons have so far been put on hold.
And the program is not universally praised.
“I think it’s a vitally important program. But on the other hand, it is no substitute for a real visit,” said Gail Smith, executive director of Chicago Legal Aid to Incarcerated Mothers.
Mothers who are incarcerated, especially those in jail for drug-related and non-violent crimes, would benefit more from being housed in special treatment centers closer to their families, she said.
Until that happens, the mothers who use the program said they’re glad to at least get some time with their children.
On another Saturday visit, Rodriguez has a tougher discussion with her daughter, who wants to go see her father in Florida. Her mother worries about the trip, and they agree to talk about it again another time.
“Even though I’m behind these walls, this is opening doors between me and my family,” Rodriguez says. “This allows us to have one-on-one conversations. I know it’s working.”
Afterward, Rodriguez retreats to her room for time alone to think about her visit, and to cry, she says. It will be another two weeks before she’ll see her family again.
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arozas@tribune.com
