Prison Scouting program unites moms, daughters

Saturday, Feb. 12, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

As a drug addict and mother of seven, Michelle, 38, used to spend more time getting high than tending her children.

Now, as an inmate at Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility, she is looking forward to the quality time she will spend with two of her children as their Girl Scouts troop leader.

Michelle, who asked that her last name not be used, is one of four incarcerated mothers selected for the local Girl Scouts Beyond Bars pilot program. The women begin their training today.

Modeled after a central Maryland program started in 1992, the local project will bring imprisoned mothers and their daughters together for two hours once a month at the prison's visitors' center.

The daughters also meet monthly at the Frontier Council Girl Scout center at Stewart and Eastern avenues with staff advisers who will serve as mentors.

The program's mission is to reduce the daughters' separation trauma, build their self-confidence and persuade them not to follow in their mother's footsteps.

The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program is already operating in 20 facilities nationwide.

The Maryland program began as a National Institute of Justice project. More than 30 Girl Scouts visit their mothers two Saturdays a month in that program.

"Girl Scouts is a program that works wherever you put it," Juergen Barbusca, Frontier Council spokesman, said. "Girls are girls everywhere.

"Our organization is here to provide girls ages 5 to 17 opportunities for leadership. These are girls who are least of all able to take advantage of a program like this."

Like other troops

Aside from the prison walls, security guards and metal detectors, the troop meetings will differ little from those at churches and suburban homes. The troop won't be planning horseback rides or camping trips, but it will work on arts and crafts projects, songs, games, badges and patches.

The troop leaders will exchange their prison attire for specially made T-shirts during the two-hour meetings.

Even the training will be the same. "It's not going to be any different from what any other leader receives," Barbusca said. The handbooks will be presented and safety and other issues will be discussed, as will the Girl Scout Promise.

The mothers must not have any serious convictions and cannot be sexual offenders. The troop will be supervised at each meeting by staff advisers.

For Michelle, who declined to say why she is serving time, this will be a chance to spend quality time she wouldn't normally have with two of her daughters, ages 8 and 9.

She has been an inmate since July and has until September to serve.

Once behind bars, Michelle signed up for the prison's drug rehabilitation program to overcome her crack cocaine addiction.

A former Brownie and Girl Scout, she fondly remembers her campfire days and was eager to be part of the program, she said.

Michelle can't recall what led her from "having fun as a Girl Scout" to living a life of drugs, drinking and then prison.

In fact, she said it's something that hadn't come to mind before. But as a mother of seven, ages 2 to 14, and now a troop leader, Michelle hopes to begin building relationships with her children.

"Now I'll be getting to know them better, getting to know what makes them hurt, because they need to get their anger out. I've put my girls through a lot by doing drugs and having to come to prison."

All but one of her children live with their grandmother, and Michelle sees them once a month, sometimes less if her mother can't bring them to the facility.

Not only will the troop allow her to see more of the two girls, she will be able to do more than sit "across a table from them in the visitor's room," Michelle said.

When asked if her daughters will be happy with the new arrangement, she broke into a broad smile. "All they want is my time," she said. "Before I was too busy getting high."

Reaching out

On a bulletin board at the prison where women serve time for crimes from burglary to murder is a brochure for the Beyond Bars program. It's clear that Girl Scouting has changed.

Barbusca says Girl Scouts, with 3.5 million members and celebrating its 88th year, has been expanding its programs to address issues that face today's young women.

It created "Contemporary Issues" booklets that focus on substance abuse, youth suicide, family crises and teen pregnancy. Troops are forming among migrant workers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The organization received a $5 million federal grant to teach about violence in schools.

"There are no bars to a mother's love," Barbusca said about the prison program. "A mother doesn't stop being a mother because she is doing time. And we're there because we think we can make a difference with that girl."

The Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility holds all of the women serving prison time in Nevada. About 90 percent of the 570 women are mothers, according to prison officials.

The women may be there for drugs, prostitution, murder, theft or drunken driving, but they are able to leave with life skills they didn't have before, according to Don Daugherty, education coordinator.

Within the carpeted classrooms, the women can earn General Education Development degrees, high school diplomas and associate degrees. They can take computer courses and landscaping classes, he said. Between 94 percent and 96 percent of the inmates are getting some form of education or training.

One woman, Priscilla Ford, is on death row. Others are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Some are serving double life sentences.

"(But) the biggest percentage of women in here are going to get out," Daugherty said. "They're going to be your neighbors and my neighbors.

"A lot of them, when you take the drugs and alcohol out of them, are just like anybody else. Sometimes I think the children are the ones who suffer the most. I see the cutest kids come in and out of here."

A normal attitude

Alicia, 35, who also asked that her full name not be used, knows her children are suffering. She is counting the minutes until the first troop meeting. She has been an inmate for 10 months and says she will be at the facility indefinitely.

Her son has nightmares about how his "mom's going away and not coming back," she said. Her daughter has become more withdrawn. The children visit her two hours at a time, three times a week. "But there's always that sibling rivalry -- who can sit on my lap," she said.

"Trying to maintain a normal attitude is really difficult. But it's really important for the kids. They're with my husband, and they struggle with the separation. "

Alicia, who also declined to say why she is serving time. She had no prior arrests and no history of drug abuse, and said this is the last place she expected to be. As a troop leader, she will have more one-on-one time with her daughter.

Tiffany Okada, a 28-year-old inmate and mother, is also anxious to be in Scouting.

"Anything to see my daughter more is great," she said. "I told her all about it on the telephone, and she was ecstatic."

Her 8-year-old daughter, who is already active in a Henderson Girl Scout troop, writes her twice a week. The two talk on the phone every night. Her daughter even sends her allowance money to her mother sometimes.

Okada has been in prison since 1998 for drug trafficking and manufacturing. Her sentence ends in 2003. By then, her daughter will be 11.

"I've not lied to her about anything. She knows exactly why I'm here," she said. "She hates the fact that I'm in here, but she's been very understanding. I couldn't ask for a better daughter."

Recruits

Barbusca has printed another 500 brochures and was hoping for at least a dozen more recruits for the program by the end of this week.

Barbusca would like to see the mothers help their daughters earn patches through whatever educational programs they are participating in at the prison.

The pilot program ends in July when, if it's successful, the next segment will begin.

"By then, everybody will know," he said. "Word will have gotten around."

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