Exuberant gas prices and increased costs of living are one reason why families who are already struggling to make ends meet—while also caring for an incarcerated loved one—increasingly have to reduce the number of prison visits to their loved ones.
As our community is having to navigate extremely tough economic obstacles due to decisions that have been made above our pay grade, prisoners and families are seeing firsthand the negative effects these increased prices are having on one of the most important factors to one’s survival while doing time: visits.
I’ve been incarcerated for 16 years now. And for the first ten years of my incarceration, I was housed at various facilities throughout the state no less than three and a half hours away from my family’s home in King County. Because I was so far, I was lucky to receive an in-person visit maybe twice a year. And even with those, my family would show up extremely exhausted from having to make the long trip and arrive early enough to make it during visit room check-in times. That was all in addition to travel costs and inflated vending machine prices. Nevertheless, those few short visits kept me going and helped to keep my family together.
Prison has a unique way of trying to keep families apart by ramping up the financial hardships people must endure just to stay connected. Everything has a price tag in prison. Phone calls, emails, stamps, commissary, food packages, property, etc. You name it, and you can bet that the Department of Corrections (DOC) is charging an outrageous fee for it. These everyday costs on basic necessities make coming to visit in person that much harder, especially if your family has to travel hours and hours like most prisoners’ families do.
Luckily for me, and due to circumstances out of my control, I’m now fortunately housed at a facility that’s a lot closer to home than I’m used to. Even then, my wife still has to drive nearly two hours just to get here from Seattle. And with the gas prices these days, the costs add up fast. Factor in the amount spent on the overpriced vending machines, and one can imagine how crazy the math can get. And though my wife and I have been extremely blessed to be in a position where we can navigate these economic obstacles a little smoother than most, and have in-person visits regularly, many families don’t have that luxury.
And that’s a travesty. Because like I mentioned before, visits are one of the most important factors to one’s survival while doing time. But I would also add that they 100% contribute positively to one’s rehabilitation and decrease their chances of recidivism. Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of success stories of people who have walked off their whole sentence without a visit and did just fine. But for the sake of our current conversation, let’s recognize their success and continue to explore the importance of family connections at visits.
Prison sucks. The food is horrible, the guards demeaning, and it stinks! Everything about the day-to-day prison routine is to mold more docile prisoners and erase any sense of personal identity. Whether it’s assigning us DOC numbers or making us all wear the same prison khakis, it’s easy to imagine how someone could get lost in this cycle and conform to what’s around you—negativity.
Visits with loved ones help to remind us of who we are, where we come from, and what should matter most: liberation. No family should be torn apart due to their financial circumstances. No family should be torn apart, period.
If DOC actually cared about rehabilitation and lowering recidivism rates, they would dedicate their energy towards promoting family connections by ensuring that there is equitable access to visitations. It should be mandated that no prisoner be sent to a facility more than 100 miles away from their home/support network unless requested. And if that happens, the state should be responsible for all costs of travel, room, and board for families who want to visit their loved ones. Most importantly, all of this should come with a commitment that no new prisons be built in the first place and that we are striving towards real alternatives to incarceration that center our communities. And while all this is happening, we should be working towards getting people home where they belong. As I’m writing this, I’m missing my family tremendously. I’m counting down the days until I can see them again. Not everybody is fortunate enough to have that, but we can all contribute to making it a little easier as we all navigate this crazy world together.
Free Palestine!
Until next time, keep dreaming!
Felix Sitthivong is an incarcerated storyteller, community organizer, and founding member of the Peoples’ Empowerment Assembly for Collective Equity (PEACE). Sitthivong is also the former president and senior advisor for the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Awareness Group (APICAG). He is currently serving a 66-year sentence at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, WA. Reach him with questions for “On the Fence Line” via Securus (WA #354579) or write to him at Felix Sitthivong #354579, PO BOX 900, Shelton, WA 98584.
