The buses and mini vans are always full. Some parents make the trip on both days, Fridays and Saturdays, so that all children get to see their parent, since some prisons have a limit on the number of visitors per visit. An estimated 2.7 million American children have a parent in prison. Every Friday and Saturday night hundreds of New Yorkers, mostly women, many with children, get on private buses and mini vans to drive all night in order to spend a few hours the next day with their husbands, brothers, mothers and fathers, who have been placed in prisons at the Northern end of New York state.

The Big Apple to the Big House, and Back

Every Friday evening, in New York City, women and children board buses headed for upstate prisons to see their families. For six weekends between February and May 2014, photographer Jacobia Dahm rode along and documented, through the night, the distances people go to see their incarcerated loved ones.

The intense strain on family ties that occurs when a loved one is imprisoned has previously been depicted in various ways. Photographers have focused on sibling love; artists have focused on family portraits, and documentarians have tracked the impact of mass incarceration across multiple generations. Often, the daily trials of family with loved ones inside are invisible, un-photographable, psychological and persistent—they are open ended and not easy to visualize.

One of the many strengths of Jacobia Dahm’s project In Transit: The Prison Buses is that it very literally describes a time (every weekend), a duration (8 or 10 hour bus ride), a beginning and an end, and a purpose (to get inside a prison visiting room). It’s a literal example of a photographer taking us there.

Camryn, 1, being held by her mother as they get off the bus outside the visitor center of the Wyoming Correctional Facility in the early morning hours on March 15, 2014, 340 miles northwest of the city.

Dahm’s method is so simple it is surprising no other documentary photographer I can think of has told the same story this way. Dahm told me recently, that since the New York Times featured In Transit in November 2014, the interest and gratitude has been non-stop. I echo those sentiments of appreciation.

It is not easy to travel great distances at relatively large cost repeatedly, but families do. As a result, they take care of the emotional health of their loved ones — who, don’t forget are our prisoners — and society is a safer place because of it.

“Honestly, I don’t know why they place them so far away,” says one of Dahm’s subjects in an accompanying short film.

In the following Q&A I ask Dahm how she went about finding and photographing the story.

Buses pick up passengers in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx and people need to reserve well in advance to get a good seat or make it onto the more comfortable buses at all instead of the much smaller mini vans. With 2.3 million people in prison the United States has the largest prison population in the world. An estimated 2.7 million American children have a parent in prison. Every Friday and Saturday night hundreds of New Yorkers, mostly women, many with children, get on private buses and mini vans to drive all night in order to spend a few hours the next day with their husbands, brothers, mothers and fathers, who have been placed in prisons at the Northern end of New York state. March 7, 2014.

Left: Camryn, 1, and her mother Candis, 31. Right: Diandra, 26, on her way to upstate. April 18, 2014

People getting on the bus in midtown at 34th Street and 7th Avenue. Visitors to the prisons in the northern and northwestern part of NY state take 24-hour overnight trips as many prisons are located hundreds of miles from the city. March 8, 2014.

Prison Photography (PP): Where did the idea come from?

Jacobia Dahm (JD): In the fall of 2013, I began studying Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. When the time came to choose a long-term project, I realized I had been captivated for a long time by the criminal justice system here in the U.S., where I had lived for the past decade. Frequently the severity of the sentences did not seem to make any sense, and the verdicts seemed to lack compassion and an understanding of the structural disadvantages that poor people — who make up the majority of prisoners — face. In short, sentencing did not seem to take human nature into account.

My sense of justice was disturbed by all of this. I was shaken when Trayvon Martin was killed and his killer walked free. Or when shortly after, Marissa Alexander, a woman who had just given birth, was given a 20-year sentence for sending a warning shot into the roof of the garage when cornered by her former abusive partner. Her sentence has since been reduced dramatically. But it’s complex: Where does a society’s urge to punish rather than help and rehabilitate come from? In both cases there was a loud public outcry. What’s remarkable is that there are frequent public outcries against the US justice system, because the system simply does not feel just.

Private buses and mini vans pick up passengers in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx on Friday and Saturday nights. People need to reserve well in advance to get a good seat or make it onto the more comfortable buses at all instead of the much less comfortable mini vans.

JD: So I decided to do some work in this area. But how do you even begin to photograph injustice?

My original plan was to take on one of the most worrisome aspects of US criminal justice: I wanted to photograph the families of people who were incarcerated for life without parole for non-violent offenses. But New York State does not incarcerate in that category and, as I had classes to attend, travel to further locations would have meant trickier access and less time with the subjects.

In conversation with one of my teachers Andrew Lichtenstein, who had done a good amount of work on prisons, he mentioned the weekend buses that take visitors to the prisons upstate. And once I had that image in my head — of a child on these buses that ride all night to the farthest points of New York State to see their incarcerated parent — I wanted to go and find that image.

A rest stop at night in Pennsylvania. April 26, 2014.

Left: Catana, 43, coming back from visiting her husband in a facility upstate. He has since been released and Catana, who is a construction worker, is helping him get settled on the outside. People “reentering” society often have little support. Many states withhold food stamps and housing support, so families and partners become a lifeline for those leaving prison. Right: Families have to find a way to occupy the children traveling on the buses. The journey is hard on everyone.

The drive to the prisons can take anywhere between 8–10 hours, including stops, and everyone is trying to get as much sleep as they can to be refreshed for the visit. Especially for large families these trips are too expensive, exhaustive, and logistically complicated and as a result many children don’t see their father or mother regularly. Sometimes a year or more can go by before another visit.

PP: How much preparation did you need to do? Or did you just turn up to the terminus?

JD: I researched the bus companies beforehand, some of them are not easy to find or call. And I had to find out which company went where. I also looked into the surroundings of each prison beforehand. I knew I would not be able to go into prison and knew most of them are in the middle of nowhere, so I had to make sure — especially since it was in the midst of freezing winter — that I would be within walking distance of some sort of town that had a cafe.

The first time I went upstate, it was on a private minivan. I had just finished reading Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s amazing non-fiction book, Random Family that narrated life over a decade in the 1980s and 90s in the South Bronx. The characters in the book travel with a company called “Prison Gap” which is one of the oldest companies running visitor transportation in New York City, and so I felt they were the real deal and decided to use them on my first trip upstate.

It was a freezing February night in 2014 and we gathered in a Citibank branch south of Columbus Circle for two hours before the minivans appeared. Many people came in to use the ATMs and some looked at us wonderingly, but no-one would have known that these people were about to visit prisons. What they would have seen is a mostly African-American crowd, mostly women, waiting for something.

Camryn, 1, being held by her grandfather in the car on the way to the bus stop in Brooklyn. She’ll be taking the overnight trip with her mother to see her father in Wyoming Correctional Facility. March 14, 2014.

PP: I see Attica in your photos, did you just photo one route or many?

JD: The bus I ended up focusing on — because riding on the same bus would allow me to get to know passengers better — went to six different prisons in the Northwest of New York State: Groveland, Livingston, Attica, Wyoming, Albion and Orleans. Most buses and mini vans ride to a number of prisons, that way they always have a full bus because they serve a wider demographic.

I wanted to be on a bus that went to Albion, the largest women’s prison in NY State, because my assumption was, that female prisoners get more visits from their children, simply because the bond is almost always the most crucial one. But I was wrong, because as it turns out, women have fewer visitors, and for a number of reasons: Women tend to act as the social glue and make sure visits happen. And so when they’re the ones who are incarcerated, not everyone around them takes over or can take over the same way. Some dads are absent and if the children are raised by the grandmother, that trip will be very difficult to make for an elderly person.

Candis, 31, and Camryn, 1, on the way home from visiting Wyoming Correctional facility. and Camryn,1, find some rest after an all night bus ride and a visit to the Wyoming Correctional Facility to see Camryn’s father, Candis’s husband. March 15, 2014.

Left: Krystal, 30, traveling with her two sons to see her husband in Attica Correctional Facility. March 29, 2014. Right: Many children are on the buses every weekend, so doing homework on the bus is part of the journey.

Valerie, 41, returning back to the city after visiting her boyfriend in a Correctional Facility upstate. The prison Polaroid is all you can take with you once you leave the prison and your loved one behind. These images are usually taken by another prisoner with a prison-owned camera and in front of a wall painted for that purpose. March 29, 2014.

PP: What were the reactions of the families to your presence, and to your camera?

JD: The time I traveled upstate I was squeezed into the back of a white mini van, the only white person traveling up and the only one with a camera strapped around her neck. We drove all night and barely talked. It felt otherworldly thinking we are now driving to the Canadian border, but I forced myself to take at least a few pictures through the frozen window and of hands etc. Later the next morning we were moved to a larger bus and that bus was the one I rode on for the next 5 rides between February and May.

The first 1 or 2 times I took the trip, I did not take many pictures on the bus and I photographed the towns instead. I could quickly tell there was a sense of shame involved in having family in prison, and people where uncomfortable being photographed, which I understand. People had to get used to me first an understand what I was doing. So I did what you do when you are in that situation: I introduced myself to people, I took some pictures and brought them a print next time.

Once they had seen me on the bus more than once they were starting to be intrigued. I also told them that I too was a parent and could not imagine having to bring my children on such a long and difficult journey, and that I was sorry this was the case for them. I think it was rare for many of these women to encounter any kind of compassion from others, and it might have helped them to open up to me.

The first few of the six prison stops the bus makes are in the early morning hours, often before the visitor center opens. In that case people wait on the bus until it is time.

PP: You describe the journeys as emotional, tiresome, grueling.

JD: You’re on the bus all night without getting much sleep. The expectations of the visits can be tense, because the mood of your entire relationship for the next week is depending on a few hours. But the journey has also been expensive and most likely exhausted all your funds for the week. During the visit you will be watched closely by the correctional officers, some of them might be rude to you. And if you bring your kids that aspect might be particularly difficult because you’re in no position to stand your ground.

You worry and hope your kids sleep well because you want them to be in good shape for the visit. I knew a grandmother who slept on the floor so her grandson could get the sleep he needed. Another one of the mom’s I knew was not allowed to bring her three kids to Attica because Attica only allows for three people to visit. The child that was left at home with a babysitter or family member was upset and that puts stress on the entire family.

PP: Why are New York State’s prison so far upstate?

JD: New York has around 70 state prisons, and many of them are in rural, post-industrial or post-agricultural areas. You could not get to some of these towns with public transport if you wanted to. The prisons have been economic favors to depressed rural areas that have little else to offer in terms of jobs, but not factored in is how these favors tear families apart and further widen the distance between children and their incarcerated parents.

Left: Charles, 9, traveling with his younger brother and mother to the prisons. His mother Krystal has three children, but since only three people can visit and any one time, Krystal sometimes makes the trip twice, traveling 48 hours in one stretch. Right: Raul, 3, traveling with his mother and brother to see their dad in Attica Correctional Facility. March 28, 2014.

PP: Do other states have similar geographic distances between communities and prisons?

JD: I am only beginning to understand what the system looks like in other states, but I believe people have to travel far in most states, as there seems to be no policy on the part of Departments of Corrections to place prisoners in proximity to their families.

In California for example, most prisoners at the Pelican Bay State Prison come from Los Angeles, and that prison is a 12-hour ride away. In Washington D.C. it seems a large part of the prisoners are placed federally, rather than within state, so the distances can be even larger. And with distance come increased travel costs that poorer families have a very hard time covering with regularity.

Considering that family ties are crucial in maintaining mental health and key in helping the prisoners regain their footing when they are out, it is a cruel oversight not to place people closer to those that are part of the rehabilitation process. Statistics tell us that the majority or prisoners have minor children.

Attica is a maximum security prison in upstate New York. As all maximum security prisons, Attica has walls instead of fences that are reminiscent of medieval castles. It is one of the most infamous prisons in the US, largely due to a deadly prisoner’s riot in 1971.

PP: What can photography achieve in the face of such a massive prison system?

JD: I think at the very least pictures of an experience we know nothing about can create awareness, and at best it can move people to develop a compassion that can move them to act. I think a photograph can give you a sense of how something feels. Seeing is a sense of knowing, and it’s easy not to care if you don’t know.

In the face of the U.S. incarceration system — a system that seems to be concealed from most people’s sight but at the same time permeates so many aspects of the American life and landscape — it feels particularly important to me that photography plays the role of a witness.

Left: There are always children on the buses, sometimes as young as a few weeks old. Rules regarding food, clothing and behaviour during visiting times are strict and place additional hardship on the visiting parent. Right:

After an 8–10 hour bus ride people get dropped at the visitor center of the prison. The women dress up and look forward to reconnect with their husbands and boyfriends, their family member or friend before they get picked again in the afternoon. Many of the visitors bring presents and food into prison, some things don’t pass the test and are returned to the city again.

PP: How do you want your images to be understood?

JD: I think my images highlight a difficult journey that many people know nothing about.

The focus of the journey, and of my photographs, is on the people that connect the inside of a prison to the outside world: the families.

It might be that by seeing how an entire family’s life is altered people seeing those images and beginning to understand something about how incarceration affects not just the person on the inside, they are maybe capable of a compassion they don’t usually afford for prisoners themselves.

Waiting outside Wyoming Correctional Facility as the door to the visitor center opens at 7 am in the morning. Hundreds of people come for visiting hours on Saturdays and Sundays. March 29, 2014.

Once you arrive at the visitor center there is a 1–2 hour wait before you get to have the actual visit. Children often pass the time by drawing pictures.

After the visit families get their belongings out of the lockers, and dress back into more comfortable travel clothes for the long journey back. Left: Camryn, 1, and her mother Candis, 31. Right: A mother changes her son’s diaper inside the visitor center of Orleans Correctional facility. April 26, 2014.

Inside the visitor center of Orleans Correctional facility. This is where families put all their belongings and phones into lockers before the visit. April 26, 2014.

PP: How do you want your images to be used?

JD: It’s hard to say because I believe an artist’s intention has limits when it comes to how the work is used.

I want people to put themselves in the families’ shoes. I want these images to help people begin to imagine what the secondary effects of incarceration are and how they could be softened. 10 million children in the US have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their lives, and that is not a good start in life for a very large number of the most vulnerable population.

Krystal’s collection of polaroids from the various prison visits with her 3 children. April 30, 3014.

Jacobia Dahm (born Frankfurt, Germany) is a documentary storyteller and portrait photographer based in New York and Berlin. She graduated from the International Center of Photography in 2014, where she was a Lisette Model Scholar and received the Rita K. Hillman Award for Excellence. Dahm’s photography and video has been recognized with awards from Rangefinder and the International Photography Awards. Her work has been published by Makeshift Magazine, The New York Times, Shift Book, AIAP and Prison Photography. Her key interest is documenting issues of social justice.

This conversation originally appeared on Prison Photography, 03.02.2015.