State prison systems across the United States have begun
allowing visitors for the first time since the pandemic started, presenting
challenges for facilities that want to balance much-needed contact between
inmates and their families with the need to limit the spread of COVID-19 in one
of the nation’s hardest-hit populations.
اضافة اعلان
California, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Delaware and Louisiana
have either resumed allowing visits in the past few days or plan to restart them
in the next few weeks.
Even when most were closed to visitors, the nation’s
correctional institutions suffered many major coronavirus outbreaks, with
almost 660,000 cases and nearly 3,000 deaths in all, according to a New York
Times database.
The facilities are preparing for the resumption of visits
with extra safety protocols, including social distancing and temperature
screenings. There will also probably be a good deal of awkwardness and long,
silent gazes, prisoners, relatives and experts said.
Family visits keep prisoners “motivated, not to mention
sane,” said Craig Haney, a psychology professor and expert on prison isolation
at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
“There will be socially awkward interactions and even more
than a little initial social anxiety,” Haney said about the resumption of
visits. “And some relationships will have changed. Children are one year older,
and have grown up without the limited face-to-face contact they were once
afforded with their incarcerated parent. The relationships will have to be
reestablished on a somewhat different footing.”
After California resumes allowing in-person visits on April
10, Michelle Tran plans to visit her husband, Thai Tran, at Avenal State Prison
for the first time since March 8, 2020.
“I’m going to be there,” Tran said she told her husband. “I
need to see that you’re still real — you know, I know that sounds crazy, to see
you’re not virtual, you’re real. I need to see your face. And that’s what I
need. I need to see my husband.”
Lamont Heard, 43, who is incarcerated at Lakeland
Correctional Facility in Michigan, said he has struggled with his mental health
because he hasn’t seen his family.
“I’m not evolving,” Heard wrote in an email. “Having the
feelings of being ignored, rejected, left out and cut off. It makes me feel
like I’m by myself, and I go into a deep depression. But a visit takes all of
that away.”
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