Section A·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Anna Zinkan eats lunch with her family at the Women's Activities and Learning Center in the Topeka Correctional Facility. They are, from left, her daughter, Jasmine, her boyfriend, Brian, and her sons Frederick and Robert. Brian brings the children on the 21/2-hour round trip from Junction City almost every Saturday and Sunday to visit their mother, who's serving 16 months of a 20-month sentence for possession of cocaine. Photo by Jamie Roper/KANSAN
Kids forced to cope with moms' mistakes
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letting him go to a prison to see his mom, who's in for 32 months on felony drug charges.
The psychological effects of separating young children from their mothers can be devastating for children who don't have another strong maternal figure in their lives. It's tough on the mother's, too. Anna and Kristi says it's been difficult getting through their sentences without their children. But despite their best intentions and the substance abuse therapy that's supposed to rehabilitate them, there's a good chance that returning to the communities where they were arrested will lure Anna and Kristi back to their old lifestyle and, eventually, back to prison.
Learning to be parents
Anna and Kristi both went through a parenting class so they could visit their children in a more home-like environment than the regular visitation area. The Women's Activities and Learning Center has seven semi-private rooms, where inmates' families can visit from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays and from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sundays. They can bring food to cook in kitchenettes. Visiting children can play with games and toys in a playroom, but they have to be with their mothers or whoever brought them at all times.
Next to the center is a large, gymnasium-style room, where other inmates sit with their visiting families on folding chairs with video surveillance and prison guards stationed at the door. They can buy food only from vending machines.
Avoiding this restricted mass visitation area isn't the only incentive for taking the parenting course. When the five- to six-week course is complete, the mothers get to take their children on a weekend retreat at Camp Chippewa near Ottawa, where security is loose and moms stay with their children in personal cabins. Inmates can go on the retreat once a year.
Anna and Kristi both have been on the retreat. It meant a lot to spend time outside the prison walls with her son, Kristi said, but it was hard for him to understand that his mom had to go back at the end of the weekend.
"He thought that's where I was going to live," Kristiisaid.
Despite the heartbreak caused by misunderstandings like this, the inmates generally come back from the retreat with a refreshed outlook, said Tom Shopteese, family reintegration coordinator at the Topeka facility.
"You can visually see the difference in the expressions on their faces," he said. "Some of these women have not been aware of the positive sides of being a parent."
Ana says she's trying to be a positive parent. Although she's in a prison 65 miles away from her children, she has a say in their everyday lives and has even grounded them on the phone for disrespecting their grandmother. She also keeps up on what her children are studying in
school and how well they are doing.
"I really try to stay in there with them," she said. "I know my son is on his eight time tables right now."
Kristi isn't quite as connected. A judge sent her to the Topeka facility in September of 1999, when her son was 3. He'll be 6 on his mom's earliest possible release date next April! Kristi doesn't get regular updates on her son is doing. When he visits
they count together, and he teaches her the songs he learns in school. When he's at home, she writes him letters and asks him to send pictures of his birthday parties — but she never gets letters back.
"I'dn't know if his dad reads them to him," Kristi said. "At least I'm trying. I can't make him do anything. I know my son misses me."
Although she misses him, too, Kristi said she had more to learn about herself before she could be a good parent to her son. She said she sometimes lost her patience when her son acted goofy during visits.
"Sometimes he is an absolute angel," she said. "Other times he will act silly. That's when it hits me that I won't be ready to take him on full-time when I get out."
But she's determined to see her son more often after she's released and has a chance to get on her feet. She wants him to know who she is and that she will continue to be part of his life.
"The first time my son came to see me, he called me Kristi," she said. "I sat down on the floor and cried. I told him, 'I'm your mommy, and that's what you'll call me.'"
Anna's children are well-behaved. They say please, thank you and excuse me. They're bright and inquisitive, asking questions when they don't understand something.
Permanentscars
There's probably a lot they don't understand. They all have different fathers whom they don't know. Anna's oldest three children, Robert, Frederick and Andrew, were born in Florida, where Anna lived until she moved to Kansas in 1983 to escape a husband who so violent he beat her up and caused her to miscarry their child. He's serving time for murder now. So is Frederick's father.
and methamphetamines, and danced at a strip club.
Now Frederick's mother, Anna, is in prison, too. Before she got sent up, she hung out with people in gangs, used and sold marijuana, cocaline
"I'd put my kids to bed, go make money and get messed up," she said. "All that moving and seeing different boyfriends — I'm sure it affected them. They suffer."
The children know why their mother is in prison, said Diana Johnson, Annala mother, and their feelings shift from sadness and lack of understanding to anger, fear and mistrust — and back again. Anna's children live with Johnson in Junction City. Johnson said her hardest days were when the children visited their mother and then acted up when they got home because they missed her.
Anna Zinkan Profile
Name: Anna Zinkan
Age: 28
Born: April 4, 1973 in Florida
Hometown: Junction City
Children: Jeanna, 7
Andrew, 8
Frederick, 10
Robert, 12
Charge: Possession of cocaine
Sentence: 20 months at the Topeka Correctional Facility
— 16 months with good behavior
Evangelist release date:
Parents in prison
Percentage of America's children who have to visit prison to see their moms or dads — 2
Expected release date: May 25
Percentage who never visit 54.1
Percentage of incarcerated women nationwide who are mothers—75
Percentage of women in the Kansas prison system who have children under 18—52
Percentage of mothers in nationwide whose children visit at least once a month—14.7
Percentage who never visit
Source: Bureau of Justice and Kansas Department of Corrections
Anna's children are fortunate to have Johnson on their side. As long as they have a strong maternal figure in their lives — whether it's their biological mother or not — the kids will be OK, said Dennis Karpowitz, KU associate professor of psychology. In fact, visiting their mother in prison may be better than it had been to spend time with her at home.
"They have a right to say what they feel," Johnson said. "If they don't, they'll
definitely be in the psychologist's office. I don't sweep anything under the carpet."
"When they go to see her, I have a rough day," Johnson said. "Other than that, I hear almost nothing. It's something they don't want to talk about because I think they're hurt all the way around." Other than Frederick, who has bipolar disorder, none of Anna's children has required counseling. Johnson encourages them to speak openly about their feelings. She said the children remembered her warning Anna to quit using drugs. Now, they wonder why their mom didn't listen, and they'll come right out and ask.
"Being in prison might make things more regular than they were before," Karpowitz said. "Mom's life might actually be more focused. She may be more responsive to the children than she was when she was using drugs."
Children in prisons
Two percent of America's children have to visit prisons to see their moms or dads, according to Bureau of Justice statistics. About 75 percent of incarcerated women are mothers,
and two-thirds have children under the age of 18. Kansas falls slightly below the national average: Fifty-two percent of women in the state's prison system — 247 out of 525 — had children under 18 as of December 2000.
Anna's children love to visit her.
"I like eating lunch and playing games." Fredericksaid. "I love to see her. I get sad when I can't come."
Johnson's less certain it's worth putting Anna's children through the drama of walking past armed guards to see their mother.
"It's six of one, half a dozen of the other," she said. "They're standing and looking at all these armed guards. It's hard to explain to a child that these people are doing their jobs."
But Karpowitz said it's better for the children to see their mother than to keep them at home just to shelter them from the prison.
Nationwide, 14.7 percent of mothers in prison have children who visit at least once a month; 54.1 percent have children who never visit.
"The first time they go in, it's pretty creepy," he said. "But if everybody responds with, 'Hey, it'll be OK,' then they'll be OK. Kids look to others to how to respond to a situation."
Kristi used to have her parents sneak her son up on weekends because his dad wouldn't allow him to visit. She said she had to threaten to get a lawyer before her ex then agreed to regular visitation. But visitation has been far from regular. Sometimes Kristi sees her son twice a month; other times she shes him once every two or three months.
Despite their best intentions, the risk looms that Anna and Kristi will drop back into old behavior patterns when they get out. Of inmates released from the Topeka facility in 1991, 48 percent had returned by 1996, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections' most recent statistics.
Substance abuse and work programs at the Topeka facility are designed to prevent that from happening. Kristi has worked at Affordable Housing, remodeling and rebuilding additions to older houses in Topeka. Anna has labored on the brick crew, replacing weathered bricks in city streets. Kristi said having a job helped her keep her mind off where she was.
Returning to the world
But the other incentive for working is getting paid. For most jobs, pay starts at $9 a month and tops out at $21. It's not a free ride, though; the program's aim is to teach the women to budget responsibly. After the prison takes a dollar each month for an administrative fee—which Kristi and Anna call "rent"—immates can spend the rest of their money at the prison's canteen on items such as makeup and food. It costs $5 to visit the doctor, and inmates can be fined up to $20 for discipline problems.
now, however, Anna is working now, however, as they go through a concentrated dose of substance abuse treatment. They have sat through hours of brain wave therapy, during which they're supposed to
meditate about rejecting and abstaining from drugs.
"You're supposed to go into this 'other place' that can help you learn to relax and feel high without actually getting high." Anna said, laughing.
"Yeah right," Kristi added. "You just lie there and sleep."
It's hard to measure how effective these kinds of programs are, said Margaret Severson, KU associate professor of social work whose specialty is corrections. They're good while the person is institutionalized, she said, but if there's no state financial support for substance abuse treatment for afercare, it's hard for these women to stay clean. Many times, state money goes toward the treatment of mental health rather than substance abuse.
For non-violent offenders like Kristi and Anna, a community-based program that kept women working and allowed them to spend more time with their children would be a good alternative to incarceration, Severson said. Not only would it cost less than imprisonment, which runs about $23,968 annually per inmate, but it also might preserve quality contact between mothers and children.
"We're in a terrible lock'-em-up-and-forget-about-'em mentality these days," Severson said. "It takes some patience to say, 'We're going to conquer this problem."
Anna and Kristi both say the treatment has been helpful, but they can't promise they won't use or sell drugs again. Anna plans to parole to her sister in Junction City and go to cosmetology school. Kristi will return to Salina, where she'd like to attend cosmetology school as well. Neither woman regrets ending up in prison.
Severson explained that "substance abuse is seen as a more volitional thing. We have a much more punitive approach, like "You have to earn this treatment."
"It's all a part of me and who I am," Kristi said. "I like me. I thank judge for sending me to prison instead of community corrections. I'd be dead of an overdose or by my boyfriend's hands."
As for Anma, she seems determined to go straight.
“It's something she has to decide — whether she's going to go back the old way or raise her kids this time.” Johnson said. “I hope she makes the right decision. If she thinks I'm dragging the kids through that again, she's crazy. I'd just keep them home. If she goes up again, she'll go up for a long time.”
But Anna's mom says the kids worry that their mom's release next month will be only temporary.
"I love to sell drugs, but I've got to something for me," she said. "I'm not having that recurring dream of being in the pen."
Anna's son, Andrew, sits on Brian's lap after lunch during a weekend visit. The children worry their mom will use or sell drugs again when she gets out next month and that her release will be only temporary. Photo by Jamie Roper/KANSAN
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