For families separated by prison, a day of games, hugs and ‘a little bit of normalcy’

By Rachel Crumpler

It would have been an ordinary Saturday for many families: playing board games, making crafts, taking silly pictures and eating lunch together. But for these families, it was a rare opportunity.

Eight fathers and one grandfather at Sampson Correctional Institution, a medium- and minimum-custody prison in Clinton, spent four hours with their 19 children and grandchildren during Parent Day, enjoying the kind of ordinary family time that can be difficult to come by when a family member is incarcerated.

For many there, it had been months — even years — since they had seen, touched and talked with each other in person. During that time, separated by miles and prison fences, the children had grown and milestones had passed. The event offered a chance to reconnect. 

Ray Holmes, who went to prison in March 2024 and is expected to be released in December, said he spent the day soaking in the time with his four kids.

“When we’re fathers, we are still out there with our families, but physically we are in prison,” Holmes said. “No matter how far apart we are, I tell my kids all the time, ‘My heart is one beat away from y’all.’” 

Terrell Wiley, who is serving a life sentence, said the extended in-person visit was meaningful for his relationship with his daughter, who was just 4 years old when he was first incarcerated. Now, she’s a teenager. 

“The most important thing today is really seeing what I’d missed from her and catching up on it,” Wiley said. “There’s a lot of conversations that they want to have with us that we can’t have over the phone. It was easier to have them sitting face to face.”

The men and children, who ranged in age from 5 to 16, freely moved around the room, switching from activity to activity as they pleased. One father taught his son and godson how to play the board game Guess Who? for the first time. Another father and son settled into a long game of Jenga. Others painted wooden treasure boxes and picture frames.

Sampson Correctional Warden Robert Van Gorder has watched Parent Day make a positive impact on both the incarcerated men and children since the prison held its first such event in 2022. Coming out of the pandemic, when prison visitation shut down, he particularly saw how fragile relationships could become and how much in-person contact mattered.

At the first Parent Day, he said one young daughter looked at him and said, “I want to thank you, Mr. Warden, for letting me hug my daddy today.”

From then on, Van Gorder said he became more attuned to how incarceration affects families. In partnership with Our Children’s Place of Coastal Horizons, he facilitates holding a Parent Day twice a year and even grills hamburgers and hot dogs himself to serve for lunch.

As Van Gorder has worked in the state prison system for 35 years, he said one thing has remained constant: family. 

“Family can make or break an offender,” Van Gorder said. “I’m not talking just money, but you know the motivation of, ‘You got to do better. Sign up for this. We love you.’ If they don’t have that family support, very rarely do they get out and be successful.”

Parental incarceration takes a toll

The families at Sampson Correctional are part of a much larger group navigating the effects of incarceration.

More than 11,000 people — about one-third of the state’s prison population — are parents of children younger than 18 years old, according to a February analysis by the N.C. Department of Adult Correction. At least 18,888 children across the state have a parent who is imprisoned, according to the same report. Even more children have a parent incarcerated in a county jail, a population not captured in these numbers.

Incarceration doesn’t eliminate someone’s role as a parent, said Melissa Radcliff, program director of Our Children’s Place of Coastal Horizons, a statewide education and advocacy program focused on supporting children of incarcerated and returning parents.

“Kids with incarcerated parents still love their parents,” Radcliff said. “For some people that’s news. They assume that, well, we’ve locked up the bad people; they’re gone away and kids are better off. The reality is, for most kids, it’s not. It’s the person they love who has been taken away through no fault of their own.”

That’s the case for Andrea Hargrove’s 9-year-old grandson, whose father went to prison last year. Despite keeping in touch through daily phone calls, she said the physical separation and absence from regular activities has been difficult for the family to navigate. 

“Since he’s been gone, it took a toll on my grandson because he’s a daddy’s little boy, he really is,” Hargrove said. “He has it in his mind that you can just pay and get them out and I told him, ‘Well, grandson, in this circumstance, you can’t.’

“He’s not used to his dad being an over-the-phone dad.”

Parental incarceration is one adverse childhood experience associated with long-term effects on children’s health and well-being. Research generally shows that children with incarcerated parents face elevated risks of mental health challenges, food insecurity and housing instability, said Luke Muentner, a researcher at RTI International who has spent years studying parental incarceration, in part motivated by his own experiences with family incarceration. 

“Some children struggle considerably and others demonstrate significant resilience,” Muentner said. “A lot can depend on factors outside of the incarceration itself, like the child’s age, what their prior relationship was like with their parents, whether they lived together, family finances and contact with parents.”

Maintaining contact can be challenging. Muentner recently conducted a survey of about 3,500 people incarcerated in North Carolina prisons that is not yet published, asking about their parenting status and how they stay in touch. He said the biggest barriers respondents reported were the distance between the prison and where their children live, the cost of phone calls and scheduling constraints. A smaller portion cited a lack of willingness from either parent or child to maintain contact.

Strong parent-child relationships can help buffer against negative impacts of parental incarceration, Radcliff said. Parent Day is intended to help strengthen those connections.

Research also shows that family support is a key factor that can drive more successful reentry experiences and that visits by family members can help reduce recidivism.

Charles Wooten, Sampson Correctional’s reentry coordinator, said maintaining parent-child relationships and supporting family reunification is a key component prisons need to focus on. He said those relationships can also help interrupt generational cycles of incarceration by giving parents an opportunity to show their children where their choices led them. 

“They weren’t born in the correctional facility, so they came in with family, and then when they go out, they’re going to go out with family too,” Wooten said.

Day of bonding

Radcliff has organized Parent Days at prisons across the state since 2012, when the first event was held at Orange Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison in Hillsborough. Since the program’s inception, the days have been carefully planned, including input from incarcerated people. 

Radcliff brings a car full of board games, arts and crafts, and books to give families plenty of activities to do together. Throughout the day, conversations never lagged. There were frequent smiles, laughter and prolonged embraces.

“It’s clear on both sides based on the conversations they’re having and their body language, that this [visitation] is important for them,” Radcliff said. “These relationships are important. Phone calls and other visits are great, but having this longer period of time together where they can sit and talk and keep their hands busy with crafts and games is important to them. From the kids’ perspective, they can see their dads and their granddads in maybe a different light, having more time, seeing where they have things in common and where they can connect.”

In contrast, usual in-person visitation at Sampson Correctional is limited to two hours of sitting at a table and talking, with only a brief hug or kiss allowed at the beginning and end of the visit. Parent Day is also different because caregivers do not attend with the children. That’s to keep the focus completely on parent and child bonding, rather than caregivers catching up with adult conversations about paying bills and what’s happening at work.

Parent Day on Aug. 8 was Sampson’s largest event to date. Radcliff attributes that to a change made by prison staff to remove the eligibility requirement that participants be within two years of release. The change opened participation to men with longer sentences — including life sentences — who are taking part in the prison’s father accountability class, in recognition that supporting family relationships is just as important for them too.

When the four hours of time came to a close — arriving sooner than any child or father wanted — Radcliff asked all the participants, “Did anyone have fun today?”

There was a resounding “yes,” followed by everyone sharing their favorite part of the day — from painting to “whooping my dad in cards” to “the little bit of normalcy” to simply “everything.”

Hargrove said her grandson and great-nephew, who is her son’s godson, raved about their day when she picked them up from the prison. Before Parent Day, she said her grandson had last seen his father in person nine months earlier.

“They talked about it for hours, how they took pictures, how they painted, how they played games, how they were able to eat,” Hargrove said. “He said, ‘Grandma, they didn’t tell me I couldn’t hug my daddy this time.’ He was so excited that he was able to hug his daddy and touch his daddy, to be able to actually engage with him the entire time. 

“For him to get the warmth and love from his dad, he was overjoyed.”

Hargrove said her son, who is projected to be released in December 2028, had an equally meaningful experience. 

“When he called me, he was like, ‘Mom, that was the motivation I needed to keep me even more grounded,’” Hargrove said. “I can truly say it gave my son hope.” 

Greater focus on family

As North Carolina increasingly focuses on improving outcomes after release, Van Gorder said more prison leaders and staff recognize that supporting parent-child relationships is an important part of their work.

Beyond Parent Day, which Radcliff currently runs twice a year at five of North Carolina’s 55 prisons (Randolph, Orange, Sampson, Southern and Sanford correctional institutions), she said other changes to better support families could include more child-friendly visitation spaces, greater attention to how far away incarcerated people are housed from their families and revised procedures for visitation.

Carteret Correctional Center Warden Embery Morton has made supporting family connections a priority at his facility. The prison recently completed changes to its visitation space to make it a more child-friendly environment that might be less intimidating for young kids to visit, fostering more comfortable interaction and communication.

“Supporting healthy family relationships does not weaken security,” Morton said, adding that violence has actually dropped at his facility. “In many ways, it strengthens our mission by supporting rehabilitation, stability, personal responsibility and hope.”

Centering families and parenting programs in prisons is also an emphasis of first lady Anna Stein, who has made rehabilitation and reentry one of her priority issues during her husband Gov. Josh Stein’s time in office.

“If we’re thinking about the people in our custody at the Department of Adult Correction as whole people, they are oftentimes parents,” Stein told NC Health News. “If you’re trying to address what is going to help motivate somebody to maybe turn their situation around, I can’t think of anything more motivating than one’s child.”

Stein said she would like to see Parent Days expanded across the state prison system. 

“It would be wonderful to have Parent Days in every single one of our prisons,” Stein said. “I don’t know what that means in terms of resources, but that would be amazing.”

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