Families Rallying for Emancipation and Empowerment (FREE) is a non-profit prisoners’ rights advocacy group based in New York City. FREE’s latest project focuses squarely on the families themselves; its
Family Survival Guide, released last month, offers how-to advice for parents, siblings, and others coping with the incarceration of a relative.
Written in question and answer format, the guide addresses a range of topics, from the simple: “Can I send packages?” (yes, usually once a month) to the complex: “Someone in our family is nearing death. Can my loved one visit them?”
FREE spokeswoman Denise Barnes reads a passage from the survival guide.
Families often struggle to find answers to such questions, according to Sheri O’Donoghue, a FREE member, who attended a launch party for the guide at La Pregunta Arts Cafe last month. Over 40 FREE members and supporters attended.
“When a person goes to prison, the whole family goes. It was hard on all of us,” wrote O’Donoghue in the 99-page book. O’Donoghue said that when her son, Ashley, was arrested for drug dealing five years ago, she did not know what his rights were, whom to turn to for legal advice or what rights the family itself had.
“I wish there were something like that when this happened to our family,” she said of the survival guide. “I wish this existed, because then I would’ve known where to go and who to reach out to.”
Stevie Wonder by artist Melvin Cherry.
After her son’s sentencing, O’Donohue turned to Google to research New York drug laws. She also contacted Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry and several prisoners’ rights advocacy groups, in search of ways to expedite her son’s release. O’Donoghue’s efforts eventually persuaded then-Lieutenant Governor David Paterson to make a phone call on Ashley’s behalf, endorsing an appeal for him to receive work release from prison as soon as he was eligible. Ashley was released, and O’Donoghue has now passed on information based on her experience in the survival guide — names, phone numbers and addresses of the people and organizations with whom she worked.
FREE spokesperson Denise Barnes spent three years writing the guide with Marion Rodriguez, the organization’s president. Both brought personal experience to the project; in Barnes’ case, her “how to survive” knowledge came from supporting a boyfriend who was imprisoned for burglary seven years ago.
The guide is full of anecdotes, as well as practical information. Chapter one starts with “Getting the Phone Call That a Loved One Has Been Arrested.” When the phone rings, Barnes says, “Try to find out as much as you can about where the person is, what the person is being accused of and really advise the person not to run their mouth too much, until you can get some legal assistance.” Too often, she says, someone under arrest knows nothing about their rights until a lawyer arrives to counsel them.
When it comes to sending packages, the survival guide counsels calling the prison first. Some allow monthly packages, others permit them bi-monthly. And while one prison might allow lollipops, another may ban them “because of the type of stick inserted into the lollipop.”
Close-up of "Grandma" by artist Weaver-Bey.
As patrons at the launch party perused the survival guide, some also bid on prisoner artwork auctioned at the cafe by another advocacy group, Inside Out Art. Though the paintings did not depict literal prison scenes, some reflected emotions experienced by the prisoner artists. One artist, who goes by “Weaver-Bey,” produced a somber portrait called “Grandma,” showing a grimacing, elderly African-American woman wrapped in an American flag. But artist Melvin Cherry avoids the emotional, preferring instead to paint vivid, smiling portraits of musicians such as Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles.
FREE’s guide is currently available only in English; the group is in search of a translator who can help produce a new print run in Spanish. The Survival Guide can be purchased online at FREE’s website: http://www.freefamilies.us
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“Learning to Sing in a Strange Land: When a Loved One Goes to Prison” is available as a resource for family members and church friends of those in prison. It is available from Wipf and Stock Publishers and can be obtained from them or Amazon. Thank you, WS
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