Children with parents in prison may not get to see them very often. In fact, in some cases, the children of an incarcerated parent may not have even met his or her parent before. Get on the Bus, a non-profit organization is changing that for hundreds of children in California.
Nationwide, 1.7 million children awaken each day to the reality that one of their parents is incarcerated. About 300,000 California children have a parent in state prison or jail and over 560,000 have a parent on parole or probation. Twenty percent witnessed their parent’s arrest. Children are often one of the forgotten, hidden victims of crime. This is especially evident when siblings must live in different locales and may never see each other for years. Their care falls on guardians and many times elderly grandparents.
Sixty percent of parents in state prison are incarcerated over 100 miles from their children. This distance creates a logistic challenge for children to visit their parents on a regular basis. Since many prisons are located away from metropolitan areas, access to scheduled buses or trains is unavailable. Guardians may not have a car and if they do have transportation the cost of gasoline, along with travel expenses, can be prohibitive.
Since 2000, Get On The Bus, now an outreach of The Center for Restorative Justice Works under the leadership of Sr. Suzanne Jabro, has taken children to visit incarcerated parents around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. As a non-profit organization that unites children, families and communities separated by crime and the criminal justice system, Get On The Bus is designed to establish bonds between children and parents in prison. And the visits are mutually beneficial.
Without visits, statistics show children’s delinquency increases. Visits contribute to better emotional and social adjustment, as children witness their parents' love. The incarcerated parents also benefit, as visits decrease recidivism rates and improves family unification upon release from prison, so they don’t reenter society as strangers to their children. Unfortunately, federal Bureau of Justice statistics show 54 percent of mothers and 57 percent of fathers in state prisons never had a single visit from their children.
Mothers are a significant portion of the prison population, as mothers in prison increased over 400 percent since 1986. Sometimes a mother will give birth in prison and never see the child again. This year Get On The Bus took 500 children to visit their moms for Mother’s Day. On Father’s Day weekend, 700 children will visit their dads. Overall, fifty-eight buses will visit nine prisons.
Many times buses leave at 4 AM, so the children are greeted with a pillow and blanket, along with breakfast and snacks for the ride. Counselors on the bus provide opportunities for children and guardians to dialogue about their challenges. Once at the prison, children spend four hours visiting their parents. With a day filled with food, crafts, games and conversation, bonding between mothere and child begins healing and provides hope for the future. On the bus trip home, separation anxiety is minimized with a teddy bear and a letter from their parent. Counselors support the children through conversations about their day’s experiences. To continue strengthening the family bond, children receive phone cards, envelopes and stamps to keep connected.
Get On The Bus functions with the support of volunteers (see below), a small staff, foundation grants and donations from churches, businesses and individuals. While they are privately funded, California’s budget cuts this year required Get On The Bus participants to come on the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend this year, along with other people visiting incarcerated family and friends.
Mother’s Day weekend is the busiest weekend for visitors during the entire year, so this resulted in a smaller gathering as well as less room for children and parents to find space for personal conversations. The large number of people visiting on a holiday weekend meant added time required to verify paperwork, as the children waited up to two hours after arriving on the prison grounds. Prison staff worked overtime as well, meaning they had to take time away from being with their families on the holiday.
While only a few volunteer go with the children and guardians on the bus trip, as coordinators and counselors, numerous other people support these visits at parishes. They make pillows, blankets and assemble travel kits with snacks. Monetary contributions to defray bus charter costs, along with phone cards, stamps and small cameras are collected.
Get On The Bus provides a link in the restorative justice process. Inmates gain hope in bonding with their children to strengthen families fractured by violence. They see the care volunteers extend to them and their children. Inmates’ children, the hidden victims of crime, hear parents tell them it’s not their fault Mom or Dad is in prison and that they love them. Get On The Bus provides volunteers the opportunity to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable and marginalized in society. They affirm the human dignity of inmates by offering them the opportunity to be Mom or Dad for a few hours with their children. As Sr. Suzanne says, “ There is no them, those in prison, and us, those outside prison. We are one community.” Inmates need their children and children need their parents to talk face to face, to feel the human touch. The decentralized format, offered by The Center for Restorative Justice Works, offers a conduit between parishes and prisons to work together. Oklahoma’s prison system has approved a similar program for implementation in 2012, along with inquiries from ten other states, Canada and Korea. Get On The Bus diminishes barriers inherit in the punitive nature of justice, to create bonds of healing and hope that starts with a four hour visit and opens the door to restore relationships for future long term trust.
The program began under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles working with the California Catholic Conference .For more information about Get On The Bus visit their website.
Volunteer talk about Get on the Bus:
My husband and I have been involved in one way or another with Get On The Bus for nine years, the last five as bus coordinators. To us, the best part is working closely with the families to help them with all the paperwork necessary for them to go on the trip. The biggest problem is arranging a time to meet with them, as many of them have lives that are in constant turmoil. This year, through the process, we were blessed to be able to gain the trust of one of the custodial dads who was denied entry to the prison, but allowed us to chaperone his four wonderful boys, ages four to 14, so they wouldn’t miss the trip. It was an experience I will never forget. We hope to be able to continue on with the relationships we have formed with this family in the future. By the end of the trip we were known as Nana and Papa. That says it all !
Lynn Fadale, American Martyrs Parish, Manhattan Beach
My best experiences with Get On The Bus are seeing children meet their parent for the first time. Every trip will usually one or two children that has never know their parent. Other children may only see their parent every four or five years, as seeing a parent incarcerated four or five hours from where the children are living makes regular visits an impossibility. Get On The Bus could become a catalyst at my parish and other parishes to support the needs of children in our communities on a year round basis. We have forty volunteers support the Get On The Bus program. They want to help children and that energy could be a great resource base to assist and advocate for marginalized youth.
Georgiana Lotfy, MFT, St Bartholomew Parish, Long Beach
My parish and a neighboring parish support our Get On The Bus Sunday, with monetary donations and supplies in response to announcements made by volunteers at Mass. It is a program where the entire parish is aware of this outreach. Get On The Bus visits not only helps reunite children to their parents, it is a setting for parents to tell their children it is not their fault. So many time children suffer guilt from feeling like they contributed to their parent’s incarceration. The visits become a healing experience and children do better in school. By involving local juvenile halls to make blankets, we “let other people in” to support this program, while helping these youth see the long term consequences of prison.
Peggy Huber, St Thomas Moore Parish, Irvine
View Photos from this year's Mothers' Day visit here.
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RestoreJustice.com is an outreach of the California Catholic Conference offering healing and support to everyone affected by the criminal justice system throughout the U.S. 
