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Dow Jones & Company Inc Apr 11, 2002 Like so many children, nine-year-old Monica Velasquez loves to hear her mother read a goodnight book. Monica is partial to stories about Clifford the Big Red Dog. But no matter the book, she often gets emotional. As she listens to her mother's voice, she says, "it makes me smile and it makes me cry. I miss my mommy."
Her mother's voice comes from a cassette player, and although Monica longs to end each night with her mother's goodnight kiss, that's not possible. The little girl lives in Chicago with her grandfather. Her mother, Audrey Klimawicze, 33, is 75 miles south in Dwight, Ill., at the state's maximum-security prison for women. She is serving a 92-year sentence for her involvement in the murder of her mother -- Monica's grandmother.
The books come to Monica through a grassroots Illinois literacy program called Aunt Mary's Storybook Project. As a part of the program, incarcerated mothers read books into tape recorders. Then the books and tapes are mailed to their children. In recent years, more than 20 similar projects have proliferated in other states. Most are run by volunteers, and survive with the help of local libraries and prison ministries.
Supporters of these programs say they help nurture the bonds between mothers and children at a time when the female prison population is swelling. More than 160,000 women are incarcerated in the U.S., up 105% since 1990. Two-thirds of them have children under age 18. "Reading is such a connective activity," says Ellen Barry, founding director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children. "These programs are brilliant in their simplicity."
They are spreading amid a larger debate about parenthood and prison. In California, Gov. Gray Davis recently vetoed a bill that would have permitted incarcerated mothers without release dates to receive overnight visits from their children in apartments on prison grounds. Critics worry that such programs keep children emotionally tied to unfit mothers, while giving them false hopes of reuniting, especially if their mothers are decades from parole. Some, like California State Sen. Pete Knight, question the appropriateness of helping mothers with long or life sentences connect with their kids. "If those inmates are not going to get out, why do we continue to foster a relationship with their children?" he asks. "Let's let the kids get on with their lives."
Such talk upsets Prince Akbar, a 24-year-old journalism student at Chicago's Columbia College. His mother, Lajuana Lampkins, went to prison for murder when he was four years old. Ms. Lampkins is still at Dwight Correctional Center in Illinois, serving a 60-year sentence. Mr. Akbar says that throughout his life, she encouraged him to read, especially history texts and the U.S. Constitution. She now reads to her grandchildren through Aunt Mary's, which Mr. Akbar sees as a great gift. Children have a right to know their mothers, he says. "When they read my mom's sentence, they didn't say they were also giving her children and grandchildren a 60-year sentence."
Many children are desperate to remain in contact with their imprisoned mothers. Two years ago, a boy in Lisbon, Ohio, held his sixth-grade class at gunpoint, saying he wanted to go to jail to be with his mother. An inmate in Indiana sent her four-year-old in California a book and videotape of herself reading it. "The child kept hugging the TV," says Marie Albertson of the Indiana State Library, which co-sponsors the state's program. In Florida, videoconferencing allows imprisoned mothers to read to their kids -- and to watch their kids proudly read to them.
In Iowa, a mother didn't want people to know she was in jail, says Joyce Binder, who coordinates Lutheran Social Service of Iowa's Storybook Project. The inmate's first-grader brought her book and tape to school for show and tell. "My mom's in jail," the girl told her classmates, "but she loves me." She then played the tape to prove it. Though the mother was embarrassed, she was grateful for her daughter's public declaration of love.
In Illinois, Aunt Mary's Storybook is named for teacher Mary Best, who died in 1986 leaving about $45,000 to her nieces. They established the prison ministry Companions, which in 1993 launched Aunt Mary's as a Christmas project. Now supported mostly by small donations, which are used to buy books and tapes, Storybook has twice received $20,000 anonymously.
Wardens often say they are receptive to Storybook, but some have been slow to allow the program access. Even if they do, laborious prison rules make gearing up a challenge. Because volunteers must be fingerprinted, take a drug test, and go through a background check, some candidates back out before they even start.
David Hirsch, president of the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative, fears that Storybook "sanitizes the stigma of being incarcerated, and may suggest it's OK to be an audio parent." He adds: "If parents want a relationship with their kids, that's an incentive to stay out of jail."
Storybook became a monthly fixture at Dwight last year. Of the 850 women there, about 680 are mothers. As Mother's Day approaches, 20 inmates gathered in a room near the prison chapel. Storybook coordinator Nancy Schreiber helped them peruse boxes of books -- titles such as "Goodnight Moon," and "Guess How Much I Love You" -- and the mothers took turns using tape recorders. Some cried as they read, using the pause button to compose themselves. Others sang lullabies to end the tapes.
Audrey Klimawicze read a Clifford book, and then shared words of love and encouragement for Monica. "As a mother, you want to be there when your child is sick or needs comforting," she says later. "On Sept. 11, I wanted to protect my daughter from the danger." The prison was in "lockdown" for 24 hours after the terrorist attacks, so inmates were in their cells, unable to call home. Some had no access to news and feared that the entire country was under siege.
"The thought of losing Monica and not being with her tore my heart out," says Ms. Klimawicze, who has her daughter's name tattooed on her arm. The book project "helps a lot," she adds. "I can give her the love in my voice."
Many Dwight mothers show no interest in Storybook, and "some don't even know where their kids are," says Colleen Dooley, 32, who is serving a four-year sentence on drug charges. But the mothers making tapes speak of the ache of responsibility -- and the guilt of not being there for their children. "I should be baking brownies for my son's classroom," says Ms. Dooley, whose son is 11.
LaToya Thompson, serving eight years for robbery, arrived at Dwight pregnant and gave birth last year in prison. Though her daughter was taken away after birth, the baby's foster mother plays Ms. Thompson's Storybook tapes for her. "Now when she comes to visit and hears me talk," Ms. Thompson says, "she looks at me like she knows me from somewhere."
Serving a six-year sentence for burglary, Melissa Elias, 25, hopes to be paroled this spring, and knows she'll have to build bridges to her four sons, ages 11, 10, 5 and 2. She sends books and tapes, but the two older boys aren't eager to listen to the tapes, says the boys' father, Jeffrey Nimrick of Kewanee, Ill. "They say, `No, no, she abandoned us.' "
There are reading programs for incarcerated fathers, too, and many select the book "Daddy, Can You Hear Me?" It tells children that love can travel through prison walls. Author Thomas Davison is now working on "Mommy, Can You Hear Me?" "Even if a parent did something heinous," he says, "children deserve to know the person they came from."
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