Prison visitation is back in time for Thanksgiving. But no young kids, no food, no contact
Fran Gilhooly used to travel from California to Florida three times a year to visit her son, an inmate at the New River Correctional Institution, about an hour’s drive from Jacksonville.
Last year she wasn’t sure whether visitation would be open during Thanksgiving, but it was.
“I surprised him and had Thanksgiving with him,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
Age 74, she moved to St. Augustine last year to be closer to her son, but this year Thanksgiving celebrations will be muted due to COVID-19.
“Last year we got to walk outside on Thanksgiving,” said Gilhooly. “This year there won’t be any outside at all and they have separators. There won’t be any hugs and no time outside with fresh, healthy air.”
Thanksgiving week, a time of togetherness with family and sometimes friends for most Americans, is going to be difficult for everyone this year because of the pandemic. Prisons are no exception. Already difficult for inmates and their loved ones, this year it is even more so due to COVID-19 restrictions, even as many Americans plan to travel to visit families despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging people not to do so.
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As of Tuesday, 17,014 of the roughly 82,000 inmates in the state’s prison system (a steep drop due to a backlog of local criminal trials during the pandemic) had tested positive for COVID-19. As of last week, 187 inmates have died of the virus.
Staff hasn’t been spared — 3,714 FDC employees had tested positive and there have been deaths as well, although the Department of Health has, with few exceptions, not disclosed them.
After months of of being off-limits, the Florida Department of Corrections has started allowing visitors again but with severe restrictions under the new “modified visitation” plan.
Visitation cannot exceed three hours. Plastic screens separate inmates from their visitors and no form of physical contact is permitted. Inmates and their loved ones are not allowed to step outside in the courtyard. Bringing outside food into a facility was never OK, but visitors are also not allowed to use the vending machines under the new rules. And no children under 12.
“We look forward to safely welcoming visitors during the upcoming holiday for extended visiting hours,” said Michelle Glady, spokesperson for the FDC. “The temporary health and safety guidelines are in order to prevent and mitigate further spread of COVID-19, and to keep visitors and inmates safe.”
She added that FDC is “one of only 13 state correctional systems in the nation that has reinstituted visitation” and “it is one of FDC’s paramount priorities to support the family unit and promote vital family bonds.”
Glady said that eating and drinking is prohibited to successfully implement the mandatory masking orders.
Keri Blanton, whose fiancé is serving time at the Northwest Florida Reception Center, a prison in the Panhandle, said that normally they would “eat together, hug and kiss each other” but even hearing through the partition was difficult.
“We appreciate Secretary [Mark] Inch modifying the visitation schedule to partially return the holidays and remain hopeful he will allow children under 12 to visit and hug the incarcerated during this special holiday as Governor DeSantis has allowed in long-term care facilities,” said Denise Rock, executive director of Florida Cares, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of the incarcerated.
The girlfriend of an inmate at Franklin Correctional Institution in the Panhandle said that when visitation was reopened initially she wasn’t able to visit because they were not married and only immediate family members were allowed to go. It is only with the plan moving into the second phase that she is able to visit him now.
The Franklin CI inmate’s girlfriend said that the last time she saw him was in February, before the restrictions. They can’t even do video chat because she can’t afford it at the moment, she said.
Usually she would go with their 9-year-old daughter to visit him on the weekend before or after Thanksgiving Day and they would have a meal and play cards and board games.
But this year there will be no hugs, or holding hands or kissing.
She said the prolonged separation has been hardest on their daughter, who is not allowed to visit because of the restriction on children under 12.
“She doesn’t understand why they’re not allowing families to be back inside when she is able to go to school, when we can go to stores and restaurants and the rest of the world seems to have opened up to a modest extent,” she said.
“My daughter, she said, ‘I don’t understand, mommy, why don’t they want me to see daddy?’”
According to Florida Kids Count based out of the University of South Florida, 312,000 children in the state have experienced separation from a parent due to incarceration.
Despite concerns about the virus being brought inside the facility by visitors, corrections officers and other staffers were not isolated in any way and were allowed to enter and leave the facilities every day throughout the past six months.
“I try really hard not to get angry about it because you feel like they are trying to punish the incarcerated and their families even more, when the guards still come in and out every day,” she said.
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
