#VisitAPrison: The Difference Between Kind and Nice
By Alexia Pitter
The first time I entered prison, I was seven years old. At that age, nothing made sense. I couldn’t understand why my dad was in shackles or why he couldn’t come home. All I knew was that I was excited to finally hug and talk to him for over 20 minutes.
On Monday, March 27, I accompanied three of my colleagues — Adam Bingman, Bryan Widenhouse, and John Norton — to D.C. Jail’s Central Treatment Facility. While visiting prison was a first for many of my colleagues, for me, it was an experience I knew all too well.
During our visit, I met three amazing women. One of the women was just recently incarcerated and has two children, ages 8 and 10. They ask her every day when she will come back home. The second woman had a father who had been incarcerated for over twenty years. She talked about their relationship and how much he had taught her about the difference between being kind and being nice. She was filled with so much knowledge and love — no matter what she was struggling through, she always made sure she was there for the rest of the ladies when they needed her. The last woman I met had two daughters. One was twenty and the other was eighteen. She spent a lot of our conversation discussing how her daughters inspired her, using the word “geniuses” to describe them, and the geniuses they were. While reminiscing about her daughter, she mentioned her aspirations to graduate from Georgetown University with a bachelor’s degree in Biological Physics.
When speaking with these beautiful women, I realized how many similarities we shared. For them, their children were their motivation. For me, my dad was mine. We both strive to make the ones we love happy and cherish our time together. As we sat across from each other, the depth of the conversation began to sink in. They needed to hear that their children would be OK and that the amount of damage was minimal in comparison to a motherly bond. I needed to hear that prison walls were not the barrier between a parent’s relationship with their child. After this conversation, I was reminded of the feeling I felt when the guards took off the handcuffs before my dad entered the room. It was the familiar feeling of freedom.
Reminding her of her daughter, I was approached by one of the women in the prison. There was a moment when we held one another tight and cried. At that moment I felt like one of her children, and what started as a simple discussion turned into a therapy session. It dawned on me that for her, this was more than a chat with visitors, it was a reminder that the bonds we create are stronger than the bars that keep us in cages. It was a reminder that freedom is a mentality and while physical freedom may not be possible now, mental freedom is still the most valuable and attainable.
As I returned to my car, I thought about the difference between being kind and nice. While it is nice to acknowledge problems with justice implementation, it is kind to visit those who are being affected and let them know that they are not alone. Being kind is visiting a prison when you can and getting to know the many mothers and fathers waiting to return home to their children. I hope lawmakers reading this realize the importance of prison visits and are encouraged to visit themselves.
Have your lawmakers visited a prison? Ask them to, and check out our full campaign, on our website.
Alexia Pitter is FAMM’s Family Outreach Associate.
