PHILADELPHIA—During the 15 months that Allen Woods has been held, awaiting trial, at a federal detention center downtown, he has only seen his six-year-old son once. This has been hard on them both, as they used to spend time together almost every day. Woods would pick his son up from school, take him to T-ball practice—all the things that an involved parent does.
“A child that was raised with both parents and one is suddenly taken away—he is going to be confused,” the boy’s mother, Chamira Williams, told me. “He has been depressed, confrontational, not understanding why he can’t see his father. It’s hard.”
The detention center is the federal version of the local county jail; most inmates there haven’t been convicted of a crime, while a small minority is serving short sentences. The center’s rules, which appear to be the most restrictive in the country, prohibit any inmate awaiting trial from having a visitor who is not an immediate family member; only a parent, step-parent, foster parent, sibling, child, or legal spouse qualifies. That means that Williams, Woods’s ex-girlfriend, is barred. And without relatives willing or able to accompany her son on a visit, the restrictions effectively block him, too. “I should have the option to take him to see his father,” Williams said.
[For more on this story by MAURA EWING, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/po...rom-visiting/543276/]
Photo: Students walk through the hallway of a Philadelphia high school
The hallway of a Philadelphia high school.
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