By Kia Gregory
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Renee Gethers sits in the reception area of the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s Center City office, toying with the strap on her pink purse, waiting to see her youngest son, Gee, 22.
He’s a six-hour drive away in the Greene state prison, south of Pittsburgh. But once a month, Gethers visits him “virtually,” traveling just a few miles from her Northeast Philadelphia home.
“I’m devastated and hurt every day,” Gethers says of the separation. “It takes a toll on you. But at least I can see him.”
Through the prison society’s Family Virtual Visitation program and a television hookup, relatives like Gethers can see, smile at, and talk to their loved ones in the far reaches of the state prison system.
For seven months, including a recent July morning, Gethers has made her virtual visits. Her son is serving five to 10 years for hanging with the “wrong crowd” - sitting in a friend’s car unaware, she says, during a robbery.
Before Gee’s arrest, he worked as a cook at a state college, Gethers says. The armed robbery was his first offense. Her job now, she says, is to keep him steady while the family hopes for parole.
“I can’t wait to get him home, and get him working,” she says. “My main goal is to get him back on his feet.”
While Gethers waits for a “visiting room,” program coordinator Ebonee Allen watches the visits from two monitors on her desk.
In Room A, Bea Barnett, 58, talks to her oldest son, 43, who’s doing life at the Greene prison.
In Room B, Tamika Iseley laughs with her 37-year-old brother, who, she says, has eight years left on his sentence for domestic violence.
Once a year, her family drives seven hours to see him in Albion prison, near Erie.
In each of the prison society’s visiting rooms is a couch, a TV, a small table, toys, and books for children.
The same books are at the women’s prisons, so incarcerated mothers can read with their children during virtual visits, flipping pages hundreds of miles away.
“It keeps the family together,” Allen says of the program, “and it’s good to let inmates know they have someone there to help them with their struggles, and who will be there when they get out.”
Most visitors are women - mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, towing sons and daughters. Sometimes a dozen visitors pack the rooms in a joyful family gathering.
In June, 160 prison visitors came through the office.
During visits, emotions run the gamut, Allen says. “It gets rough, especially at the end. When it’s time to say goodbye, a lot of times family members will kiss the screen.”
Visiting hours run seven days a week. Mornings fill up fast. Weekends are heavy.
The idea for the program started in 2001, when prison officials identified dozens of inmates who hadn’t had a visit in a year, says the prison society’s executive director, Bill DiMascio.
Some relatives simply don’t want to visit, hardened over fractured relationships, he says. For others, the lack of cars and limited public transportation to the state’s prisons keep them away.
“We know that, especially when it comes to reentry, if ex-offenders have strong family support, their chance of success is greater,” DiMascio says. “It’s in our self-interest to help people be in a better frame of mind when they come back into the community. If we don’t, chances are they will act out and get in trouble again.”
The program was initially funded through a three-year federal grant. Now the Department of Corrections picks up the tab - $93,000 last fiscal year, a tiny fraction of its $1.6 billion budget.
“There’s been talk of expanding,” DiMascio says, “but money has been a problem.”
Eight of the state’s 25 prisons participate. Inmates apply and put relatives on a visitors list. Families can come once a month, paying $20 for the 55-minute visit.
Barnett, who doesn’t have a car, schedules a day off from work and catches the bus from her Germantown home to see her son. She has done this for three years.
“I see him, and he sees me,” says Barnett, a handsome woman with dark cropped hair. “The visits have made us closer. As close as we can get.”
During the visit, he asks whether she’s all right. They talk about family, and friends from the neighborhood, where they have lived for more than 30 years, “just like he would come to the house and ask,” Barnett says.
But mostly her son vents his frustrations.
“He’s more focused now,” she notices. “It’s definitely a wake-up call. I miss him. But you have to pay for what you do. That’s what life is about.”
As always, their conversation ends with them saying:
I love you. I love you, too. Be careful. You also.
Copyright 2009 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC