Program aims to reduce inter-generational incarceration

WASILLA — Over the decades she’s worked as a criminologist, Susan Magestro has honed her ability to read between the lines.

When she meets angry youth engaged in high-risk behaviors, she sees their actions as cries for help.

“Kids don’t decide to be bad,” Magestro said. “They are responding to something.”

She also has noticed that kids in similar life circumstances often react in similar ways, she said.

But it wasn’t until Magestro came across a support group for kids whose parents work in law enforcement that an idea began to take shape in her head. Would it work to offer similar support to children of incarcerated parents? Could helping children deal with their parents’ incarceration help keep them out of jail, too?

Magestro said intervening with this group could go a long way to lessen the rate of intergenerational incarceration. She said people whose parents are incarcerated or paroled are six times more likely to be incarcerated than people whose parents have never been in prison.

“We’ve really got to start looking at that,” she said.

About a year and a half ago, Magestro began teaching seminars around the United States on the idea of providing specialized support to children of incarcerated parents. To begin, she trained teachers, counselors, therapists and law enforcement to recognize these children and help them process their unique life circumstances. A local training seminar will be offered in January 2014.

The backbone of the idea is to provide children with accurate information and a support system that helps them process the experiences associated with having their mom or dad behind bars, Magestro said.

A pilot program called “I Am Not Alone” for children of incarcerated parents ages 6 to 18 begins monthly meetings this week from 10 a.m. to noon at Wasilla Middle School. The first three sessions are Nov. 9, Dec. 14 and Jan. 11, 2014, and a custodial parent, legal guardian, custodial grandparent, etc. must accompany youths to the November and December sessions.

Department of Corrections also sees value in the pilot program and training Magestro is orchestrating.

Early intervention is the best use of resources and funds, according to Bryan A. Brandenburg, director of Division of Institutions for the state Department of Corrections.

“Any intervention or activity that helps to defer intergenerational criminality is something that should be pursued with the utmost vigor,” he said.

‘Family support and community support is huge’

Phase One of this four-phase volunteer effort that rolled out in the Mat-Su Borough last month surveyed people incarcerated at Palmer, Hiland Mountain and Goose Creek correctional centers and found that they are parents to an average of 2.4 children. And the majority range in age from a few months old to teenagers.

Gene Stone, Mat-Su Borough School District assistant superintendent of instruction, said the district has never really collected data about this group of students and is glad for Magestro’s help getting its arms around the numbers.

“A lot of our data is really in the infancy stage,” he said. “The quicker we can get that information, the quicker we can help.”

About 2,000 of Alaska’s approximately 6,000 prisoners are now incarcerated in the Mat-Su Valley. Department of Corrections says 95 percent of people held will be released or paroled. Their statistics also show that 66 percent of Alaskans released from prison reoffend within three years and are re-incarcerated.

“We want to be a model for the rest of the nation to reduce inter-generational incarceration and improve successful re-entry of the incarcerated parent into the family,” Magestro said.

Helping people successfully re-enter their family units and society is good for children, parents and society as a whole, she said.

“Family support and community support is huge in recidivism rates,” Magestro said.

Phase Two of the project — the support group for children of incarcerated parents — has space for 100 youths ages 6 to 18. Trained mentors and certified counselors will lead groups in four age ranges in order to tailor information to match their level of development, Magestro said.

“All of the mentors have been children of incarcerated parents themselves and have gone on to have successful lives,” she said. “They are dynamic role models.”

Discussion topics include “Visiting Mom or Dad in Prison,” “Parents Re-entry into the Home,” and “Rage Within: Angry Youth.”

Magestro said preparing children to visit parents in prison and helping the parents and children process the visit afterward reduces the anger and anxiety such visits can produce.

“The idea is to help kids know what to expect and what is expected of them,” she said. “It’s rewarding to help them understand, to calm them with honest answers.”

‘Kids love their mothers and fathers no matter what’

Phase Three of the project started a month and a half ago at Palmer Correctional Center and focuses on fathers communicating with their children and the impact of their re-entry back into the community and their families, Magestro said. She said a similar program for mothers is in the works, too. Topics discussed in both groups for parents will mirror the topics addressed with their children, Magestro said.

The program for parents is aimed at helping them learn to see life through their child’s eyes, she said.

“Even though you are in prison you are still their dad,” Magestro said. “Kids love their mothers and fathers no matter what they do.”

While the children learn what to expect when they visit their parents in prison, the parents are asked to debrief with their child the last 10 minutes of the visit. Something like, “I know it’s hard to say goodbye to dad. It’s hard for dad, too, but I’ll see you next week.” It’s also parents’ responsibility to call their children the next day and say “how are you doing,” Magestro said.

Simple things like this serve to show parents that they are still needed and wanted in their children’s lives.

Being released from prison isn’t just a second chance to be mothers and fathers to their children, Magestro said. She said it’s traumatic for children when parents come home, but then violate the conditions of their release and are sent back to prison.

Brandenburg said parenting classes aren’t new in Alaska’s prison system, but said Magestro’s efforts added new energy and understanding to the effort.

“Susan just kind of came along in the last year or so and really reinvigorated us to help prepare incarcerated parents to be better parents and to do a better job,” Brandenburg said.

He said she also made a presentation about the program at the department’s October supervisors’ conference.

“We’re so focused on the re-entry for the offender, that piece of it got lost,” he said.

Often when mothers and fathers are incarcerated, grandparents take over care of the children. Phase Four of the program is for grandparents and begins in January 2014. Magestro said the group plans to meet one Wednesday a month, but still needs a location.

Grandparents face common challenges like navigating prison visits for themselves and the child, financial and marriage strain and questions about what they did wrong as a parent that their child is in prison.

For more information, contact (907) 529-7151, email sulamaestra@gmail.com or visit susanmagestro.com.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.

What: ‘I Am Not Alone,’ for children of incarcerated parents ages 6 to 18.

When: Meeting are from 10 a.m. to noon, Nov. 9, Dec. 14 and Jan. 11, 2014. A custodial parent, legal guardian, custodial grandparent, etc. must accompany youths to the November and December sessions.

Where: Wasilla Middle School.