Imprisoned 14 hours from my husband and children

Imagine living your life at home as you usually would. You’re cooking, cleaning, putting your children to bed and spending time with your husband. Yet, you know these times won’t last. Soon, your husband is going to drive you to a prison 14 hours away from home where you will spend the next five years serving a sentence for mortgage fraud. How does a person deal with the mental toll this countdown takes?

This is exactly the situation one of my guests on the podcast, Portia Louder, was in. Listening to her share her story touched me deeply. I had many questions for her, like how did she get through that period of time she was allowed to spend at home with her family knowing it was going to be short-lived? How did she cope with only seeing her husband and children five times in five years? And how did she re-integrate back into the family unit after they’d had five years without her there. On her time at home before serving her sentence Portia said,

I remember the last night, I just laid there in bed with our youngest daughter who was seven. I just cried and my husband held me. I remember watching each of my children sleep thinking, ‘how will I make it without you?’

When people talk about the ways in which prison impacted them or their relationships, I’ve heard responses from the public like, ‘they should have thought about this when they committed the crime. They weren’t thinking about their family then’. In my experience every person I’ve interviewed who has been hurt at going to prison has also admitted they understood they committed a crime and are accepting their fate. So, can’t people who have made bad choices still be sad? When they think about leaving their family there is probably, in most cases, also guilt and shame for what they’ve done to their family.

I find the concept of allowing people time at home before starting their prison sentence an unusual one and it’s led me to think recently, what exactly is the purpose of imprisonment? While each criminal justice system will have their own reasons for why prisons exist, the collective main aims of prison in general are to punish by way of loss of liberty, rehabilitate, deter and to protect the public from harm. Though it isn’t clear if prison is designed to do all of these things or is only concerned with doing at least one. Allowing people to spend time at home before starting their sentence suggests imprisonment isn’t to fulfil all aims for all prisoners, and particularly in cases like this, isn’t for public protection. Surely they’d be taken straight to prison to serve their sentence if so? However, prison is supposed to be the last possible option in sentencing. So, who is prison for? People we are scared of or people we are mad at?

There are a number of victims created by imprisonment, namely the family members of the incarcerated individual. These people have often done nothing wrong, yet their lives have also been flipped upside down. Over 5 million children in America have had a parent incarcerated at some point. In Scotland around 20,000 children per year experience parental imprisonment. England and Wales is roughly 192,000 annually and Northern Ireland is thought to be around 2000. Portia’s youngest daughter passed through ages seven to 12 while she was in prison and went through big transitions. She said,

All of the things she went through without her mum. None of her friends had parents in prison. Financially, we were devastated. My husband is living in someone else’s basement trying to rebuild. So [my children] have lost financially. Their mum is gone. And their mum is on the news.

In Wales, there are no prisons for women, so they are imprisoned in England. The average distance from home some women are said to be imprisoned is around 100 miles. While I’ve spoken with family members who have driven these types of distances to see their imprisoned family members, not everybody has the means to do this. Going back to the purpose of prison, if it is supposed to help rehabilitate and prepare people for release, surely imprisoning them close to family should be a priority. Particularly as close ties to family and community is one of the key factors which supports desistance from crime.

While Portia is back home with her family, she has faced challenges re-integrating back into the family unit. Unfortunately, she isn’t alone. Many family relationships are damaged as a result of imprisonment with mothers having to rebuild trust and the bond that was broken. Portia sat her children down and told them it was all her fault. Not the FBI’s, not the judge, but her. She asked them to tell her the ways in which she hurt them. One of her children told her,

“You didn’t raise me. Why would I listen to what you have to say?”

Portia has had challenges trying to rebuild relations with her children. She came home from prison a different person, her children have grown and there was a lot of work to do in re-building trust and their bond. Her biggest piece of advice for anybody in a similar situation? Be patient. Listen to your children about how they feel. They have a right to be heard.

You can listen to the full conversation I had with Portia here.