Family Interrupted Project

God tells us that He will put us through no more than we can bear!! Well with that being said, I must be a very very strong woman! And thats only by the Grace of God! My son was wrongfully convicted of a crime and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. My son has no prior record. Always worked, or went to school. He is not and has never been a violent person. He was actually getting ready to go back to college. You see he was accepted into Penn State University when he graduated from high school, but decided to stay home so he could watch over and be there for me. I have been sick for a number of years. I’ve had a number of surgeries, which included brain surgery for an aneurysm. And I’ve been in the hospital more than I would care to mention. So instead of leaving me,he went to Philadelphia Community College instead of Penn State. My youngest daughter was away at college, and my oldest daughter was serving in the military, and was stationed out of town. He was about to go back to Commmunity College when this happened.

Andy(my son) is the sweetest person you would ever want to meet.He never hurt a sole! He was very naive and gullible. And would help anyone! He was not a candidate for sainthood! But he has the biggest, and kindest heart! He is the one serving the time in prison, but he always seems to encourage me and his family with his words, in his letters and in the cards that he sends us! But by the time the criminal justice system got through with him he was labeled as a murderer!! This whole event has made us all lose our trust in people, the police, and the criminal justice system! I’m not gonna go into his case, but there was a lot of crazy things that occurred before, during and after his trial was over. His case is now in the appeals stage. I love my son very very much, and I pray that the appeals board can see through all of the lies and deceit that was put on my son, just so they could get a conviction!! No matter what, we are still going to fight for him to get out of this prison system that he does not belong in!!

Everyday I wake up hoping that this is a dream, and I’ll get up and see my son downstairs sitting at the table eating his big bowl of cereal. I’ll come down the stairs and he’ll look up at me and say,”Hey mom.” But when I come downstairs he’s not there and I realize it’s not a dream it’s reality. HE IS NOT HOME WITH ME ANYMORE!! That hurts!! My heart aches everyday! I keep picturing everything that happened at court. I keep picturing my son’s face. I keep hearing all the words that were said about my son and to us(his family). I go over it all the time!! THEY TOOK MY SON FROM ME! WHY? ALL THE FACTS WERE NOT PUT OUT THERE IN HIS TRIAL! THE JURY DIDN’T HEAR THE WHOLE STORY! THATS WHY HE GOT CONVICTED!It feels like a death in the family and Me and the rest of his family is mourning for him everyday! We share our feelings with each other all the time! I have called many organizations to ask for help and I got none! I wrote many letters and no one was willing to help! We even went to Washington to see if we would run into someone that we could share Andy’s story with to try and get help for him. No luck with that!

Everyday I feel this sense of guilt! I feel like I didn’t protect my son! I didn’t say what I wanted and needed to say on the stand at the trial, so the jury could hear the whole story! I COULDN’T PROTECT MY SON LIKE I DID WHEN HE WAS MY LITTLE BABY!! That hurts me so bad! His brother’s and sister’s hurt so bad! No one wants to get involved unless it happens to them! People need to see how the families of these inmates are hurting! They need to know what we go through! They need to know the hurt we feel! So they can look not at just getting a conviction, or a promotion. Or another notch on their belt. We are talking about people’s lives here! They need to make sure they have the right person who did the crime, and stop giving excessive sentences to minorities and the poor! Compared to the wealthy or people that can afford a good attorney, minorities and the poor get higher sentences and are more likely to get convicted because they can’t afford the proper defense. Thats what happened to my son! And I am here to say that we all matter! Those that are convicted do have people that care, and love them! They do matter! And they are no less human than those that have not been convicted!

The criminal justice system needs to change! And so do the people that are a part of it! The people that are working in the prison’s need to change! And so do the prison’s themselves! The families of inmates are treated like prisoner’s! It’s like they try to deter us from coming to see our loved ones! They humiliate us and degrade us in many different ways! But nothing is going to stop me and my family from seeing my son! Only God can do that!!

Last but not least, the prison that my son is in, is a very well run and clean place. The people that work there are very cordial and pleasant! They never made us feel like we were anything than what we are. And that’s a Human Being! That includes how they treat the inmates!

Life brings the most amazing battles that make you stronger if your
wise enough to learn from every experience. I learned the lesson of
having a family member in prison starting at a young age. My father
was in gratorford for thirteen years. My mother divorce him shortly
before that so for the years he was there I never got to see my
father. Growing up that affected me in the most great ways good and
bad. A female needs to strength and teachings of her father just as
much as her mother. Who would think that experience would carry me to
my adult life. When I met Salon Smith from first sight I knew I wanted
to be apart of his life.

Five years later I was granted my wish. We
became best friends and it carried on into a marriage. I never forget
the day those detectives came to get him. I couldn’t sleep. I held our
children all night not knowing what to do. I just remembered my
childhood and promised them on that day that I would never allow them
the pain of not having their father at all. What a battle was I in
for. County visits taught me the basics of visits. Gratorford turned
me into a vican. Up at 5am, dressed me and he kids and off to take two
trains and a bus to Gratorford every Saturday for years and years. The
rides up were exciting. Daydreaming of the face of the man I loved for
years. Thinking of seeing the kids run into his arms and how he would
hug me and smile.

We are at the prison. The kids run off the bus and
into the waiting area. The male guards are looking you up and down
like a piece of meat and the female guards are rolling there eyes at
you. We wait an hour sometimes two hearing all the names being called.
My children asking when is it our turn. ” I wanna see Daddy mommy” my
son cries over and over again until they call his name. We all rush to
the search room. A guard says ” those jeans have to many zippers and
buttons, they have no pockets and look like tights, your tee shirt
isn’t long enough, cut the wire out of your bra here are some
scissors”, to my children ” your daughters shorts are long enough they
need to be to her knees”, mind you she had worn the same shorts there
four years. So I go out and change into my extra clothes, had gotten
use to the harassment. No, that won’t do either ” her visit is
terminated”, I start to cry my children start to cry. I ask if I find
more clothes can I please see my husband and was told ok.

I go into
the waiting room embarrassed cause everyone can see and hear the
events. A lady says “I have a old skirt and some scribe in the trunk
of my car”. I take the offer and wrap the size 12 skirt around my six
year old daughter and I put on the scrubs. We look like homeless
people now but the objective is to be with Salon to feel like a
complete family again. They let us down to see him. Mission was
successful. At least on this day. I have experience trauma, emotional
scars but I can talk with hope now. I can laugh at the memory of
hearing a female prison guard saying “that’s what you get for
marrying a criminal”. I can share my methods of stirring the
superintendent hundreds of letters, calling the philadelphia chapter of
the NAACP for help, calling judges, becoming an amateur paralegal.

Being without the one you love because of prison is like making your
family breathe underwater without dying and the way the guards treat
you as a visitor is the as choking that family while their breathing
underwater without dying. But now we can breathe. We can tell our
story and someone is listening. My husband Salon is one of the
strongest men I have ever met. Prison didn’t break him it made him
stronger. It made him a mentor for others to see you can still be
successful and have hope for the future. I always one day we would
help people see and understand what hardships us families and
supporters of our loved ones in prison. It feels good to finally do
it. We are the wives, mothers, children, friends of these inmates. We
are in jail with them mentally, emotionally. Our scars are deep and
making it worse needs to stop. AND IT STARTS WITH THIS MOMENT! (Family
interrupted)

Ive spent 14 years of my life in graterford prison. each day i spent
in there seem like the last day of my life. I committed my crime when
i was seventeen years old. I never had anyone there to guide me thru
the way. I was a product of the thing that sorrounded me. wich was
negativity. I always say I wish I could have had some one to show me
right from wrong. but it did not work out that way.I was trapped into
a system that did not have any love for me. I left children behind to
fin for themselvess. I had to watch my wife come back and forth to
graterford with my kids being humiliated by the guards.

The system will try to break your family so that in the end they will give up on
you. god willing I had a wife that could not be broke. but I witness a
lot of people’s families give up on them because they could not deal
with the pressure that the prison put them thru. It got so bad that my
own children could not sit on my lap anymore. I would cry inside,but I
could not let my family see this because at the end of the day I had
to be strong for them. it was bad enough that I left them, it would
have been even worse if they seen me cry.

So many personal things happen to my family while I was incarcerated. things that needed my
undivided attention but I could not be there to support my family. it
kind of made me bitter at first, but I knew I had to make a change if
not for me then for my kids. I could not let them repeat the same
things I been thru. So I decided to make change starting with myself.
I built myself from the ground up. I decided to reprogram myself from
the old me and make a change in someone else life. I told myself my
mistake will not be some one else mistakes if I could help it.

I followed my heart wich was art. and thru this art I found out i can
make a change and help some one. I can share my many stories to the
younger people that mural are has adopted thru there program the
guild, which I was a part of. If you ever think you have the power to
influence a child please do it in a positive way because we are
loosing are kid rapidly and quickly and I dont want to die without
saying I help someone somehow someway. My family was interrupted 14
years ago and i be dam if I let it be interrupted again. stay focus
people, you never no when your being challenge.

The mailboxes are currently in several locations. Including the Free Library’s Main branch, as well as City Hall in front of the Arts and Culture department. We will be collecting the writing that people submit to update the “Stories” Category of this site.

Check back for updates or subscribe to our RSS Feed here.