Kids, prisons and acts of kindness

She is standing in line with her son, a harried woman holding tight to the hand of a small child. He is dressed in a little button-down, collared shirt and pants so new they still have the creases in them. Six year olds aren’t known for being quiet and contained. This little guy is. He and his mother are just ahead of me waiting to be processed through the metal detector at Oregon State Penitentiary. I am here for another meeting of my Lifers’ Writers Group. They are here to visit the man who is her husband and his father.

This little boy is one of the 2.7 million children in our country with at least one parent in prison or jail. That’s 1 out of 28.  As with many other aspects of the criminal justice system, this heart-stopping statistic has a clear racial component: Almost 60 percent of these children are either black or brown (some estimates are higher). This little boy and his mother are African American.

I don’t know if this is the boy’s first time visiting, but I do know he is scared. That’s why he is so quiet and still. What is he thinking? What is he feeling? Research shows that having a parent in prison can be more traumatic to a kid than even a parent’s death. The effects are measurable: Children of incarcerated parents have higher rates of attention deficits than those with parents missing because of death or divorce, and higher rates of behavioral problems, speech and language delays, and other developmental delays.  Some studies suggest these children are at a 6 times higher risk of going to prison themselves.

But right now, he is just a wide-eyed little boy staring at the conveyor belt of the metal detector. He will have to walk through the security door frame and follow a uniformed guard through an iron gate, down a long corridor, through another iron gate, down another corridor to a steel door that the guard will unlock, leading into a big, windowless room where he can visit with his father.

Cory is the guard on duty. I watch as he leans down to talk to the kid. “Wanna see some magic?” Cory asks him. The kid looks up, looks at his mother, then nods cautiously. Cory is a young white guy with an apple-cheeked face. He is my favorite guard.

The mother has taken off her shoes and then kneels down to take off her son’s sneakers. She places them on the conveyor belt. She knows the drill. “Okay,” says Cory, “I’m gonna make your shoes disappear.” He starts the machine, and the shoes vanish. “Don’t worry,” Cory says quickly. “They’re gonna magically come back. Why don’t you go see?” Instructed by his mother, the little boy walks very slowly through the metal doorway.

On the other side, the boy lets out a little yelp. He jumps up and down. He sees his shoes emerge from the conveyor belt. Cory has given the little boy a memory that takes the trauma and strangeness out of this moment.

I take off my shoes, empty my pockets, walk through the security doorway, and wait for my shoes to magically reappear. I smile at Cory. I resist the urge to give him a hug.

(The photo is not of the scene I observed. No cameras are permitted.)