My art work shows a girl writing about missing her dad who is in jail. The words show what she is feeling about her father:

click to view full drawing

In this video column, Emani Davis, the director of Project Family Connect and the daughter of an incarcerated man, talks about  the stigma that she experienced as the child of an incarcerated parent and her desire to address the specific needs of this group.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: How has having an incarcerated parent affected the way you see yourself?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646)-867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

Thirty-year-old Emani Davis has spoken out on behalf of young people whose parents have been incarcerated since she was 14 years old. Her own father has been imprisoned for more than a decade.

Earlier this year, she was named the director of Project Family Connect for New York’s Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). Her focus is to make judges and attorneys more aware of how having a parent in jail impacts children and young adults. And, after years of struggle, she says that some in the court system are finally starting to listen.

In her monthly audio column, Davis will share her thoughts and experiences, and answers questions that you may have about how incarceration is affecting your own families.

If you have a question for Emani, you have three options:

1) Post a question in the comments section below,

2) Send an email to questions@livesinfocus.org,

3) Call (646) 867-1891 to leave a message.

Emani also welcomes questions from others who might simply be interested in knowing more about how the life of families is affected when a parent is incarcerated.

Jay Coleman, who served 25 years in prison, talks about how he felt as he watched his children grow up from behind his prison cell:

Click on the player above or download this video here.

In a previous piece, Coleman discusses how he helped raise his children by using a telephone. He also describes how he went from being a crime-loving man to a family man.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: Did you send your spouse or partner in prison pictures of your children? How did you feel experiencing your children grow through photographs alone?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

<a href="http://fs2.formsite.com/familylifebehindbars/form471433221/index.html">Click here to complete: 2008 Arts Competition</a>

The first time Emani Davis’s father saw her as a baby, he was behind a glass partition at the Brooklyn House of Detention. At that moment, neither imagined that this first encounter would set the stage for most of their interactions in the decades to come. When Emani was six, her father was again headed for prison–this time sentenced to 107 years for his role in a shooting in Virginia. For the past 22 years, the time she spends with her father has been monitored by armed guards and limited to prison visiting hours.

Her father’s incarceration started to affect Emani immediately. Most of her classmates stopped talking to her when they found out that her father was in prison and sometimes she would get into fights with kids who teased her about her dad.

“It was the first time that I realized that this was something that people thought that I should be ashamed of,” she said.

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