7 Ways to Help Your Loved One in Prison

The response to my 10 Ways to Adapt to Prison was extraordinary, and I was particularly moved by the many comments from readers who have a loved one in prison. Your sentiments inspired me to create the following list of ways you can support an imprisoned friend or loved one. If there’s something I left off, be sure to tell me!

1. Keep us in your life. Contact, even if it’s sporadic or just a card once a year on our birthday, help us remember that we’re more than a prison ID number. If we’re completely cut off from the world, we rely on prison politics for emotional stimulation, and the results aren’t pretty.

2. Don’t hesitate to talk to us about your great and exciting times. You might think that you’re torturing us by describing the wonderful meal you enjoyed while we eat garbage. But we live vicariously through you. Tell me about bacon cheeseburgers and pizza.

3. Share your troubles. We prisoners don’t have a monopoly on suffering, and sometimes we need to be reminded that you’re dealing with bills and work and family obligations and health issues. You might be surprised how compassionate and understanding we can be.

4. Send pictures of home. It’s sometimes hard for us to remember the world beyond these walls. Pictures of you, even in everyday locales (especially everyday locales?), take us on a vacation out of prison.

5. Remember our birthday. Prisoners often say, “My birthday is the same as any other day.” But countless friends have blatantly shown me their ID card, pointing to date of birth (of course, I’m a pretty good cook, and they were hoping for a meal). J One year, my uncle added my name to the birthday cake — I shared a birth month with four family members — took a picture, and sent it to me. I cried when I received that picture.

6. Every now and then, make us feel like a rock star at mail call. If you ever went to camp, you know that getting a bunch of letters makes you the envy of your peers. If you don’t feel like going to the post office, ask us if we can send you stamps — they float around prison as currency, and we can sometimes buy them from each other at discount. Write a bunch of letters, print funny memes, drop a few pictures; put them in separate envelopes, keep them in your car maybe, mail them throughout the week.

7. Engage our brains. The nature of prison is for us to feel powerless and less than. To the system, we are inmates, utterly lacking in knowledge. But you know better, right? We’re inveterate consumers of news, for one. Ask us our take on the issue of the day. Or, try reading a book or article simultaneously, engaging in a small book club throughout the day.

Danner Darcleight is serving a 25 year to life sentence in an American prison. His memoir, “Concrete Carnival” is set for release in this month. If you liked this story, please recommend it and share on social media.

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