Conversations on Loss: Keela
Incarceration wounds families: it loosens familial bonds, fractures a family’s economic security, perpetuates disadvantages, and causes severe relational distress. Today in the United States, 45 % of Americans have had an immediate family member incarcerated.
The criminal justice system is systemically racist: the incarceration of an immediate family member was most prevalent for Blacks (63 %) and Latinx (48 %) (Enns et al., March, 2019). Prior to becoming a marriage and family therapist, I worked in public defense for a decade. Observing a sentencing was a harrowing experience, not only for our clients, whose liberty was stripped away in a moment, but also for their families. Family members of incarcerated individuals are known as "hidden victims"—victims of the criminal justice system who are silenced, and their pain is never acknowledged (Raeder, 2012).
This is the story of one strong and resilient hidden victim, Keela Hailes, who lost her son Jermaine to incarceration when he was 16 years old.
I first met Keela at a non-profit, Free Minds Book Club, which helps current and formerly incarcerated youth find their voice through empowerment programs that focus on literary art, workforce development, and violence prevention. Keela is a rentry manager for Free Minds, and she has dedicated her life to supporting incarcerated children and their families.
What I found so remarkable about Keela was her ability to take her grief and rage at the injustice of her son’s incarceration and channel it into action. Anger moves us into action, and Keela has a lot to be angry about.
With any loss, we feel dis-empowered and search for ways to control our grief. Though we cannot change the circumstance, we can control our reaction. Keela went through a myriad of layers of grief: the loss of Jermaine in her day-to-day life and the loss of time, when Jermaine was arrested, his childhood abruptly ended. Keela bravely navigated the maze of the criminal justice system, combated the stigma and shame of having an incarcerated member in the family, and used her voice to advocate for her child.
Keela’s Story of Jermaine’s incarceration
Keela’s oldest son Jermaine was a teenager when he was arrested for an armed robbery. Keela worked tirelessly to protect her family from harm: she enrolled her children in extracurricular activities after school, was actively involved in her children’s school, and knew their friends. When she got the call that her son had been arrested, she was convinced that the police had made a mistake. (The DC police department wrongfully arresting the wrong Black bodies is not an uncommon occurrence). Keela described that during the initial arraignment, she was in a state of shock and shame: she felt both responsibility for not protecting her son and disbelief that he was facing adult criminal charges, threatening his liberty.
“Jermaine was arrested when he was sixteen years old. I did not know at the time that children could be charged as adults. (In the District of Columbia, a child as young as sixteen can be charged as an adult for certain charges). I never saw it coming. No one has the perfect kid; however, I did my very best to protect him. I always made sure he had extracurricular activities, was involved at his school, and knew his friends. When I got the call that he was involved in an armed robbery, I did not believe it until his name was called at court. Leading up to his sentencing, I was going out of my mind with all of these unanswered questions. I did not understand why my child was at an adult prison and why he could not come home.
I felt desperate and in disbelief. It was surreal and I did not have a lot of information. I could not reach my son to make sure he was okay. Though I was numb, I knew that I had to get it together and hold on to hope that he would come home. In the meantime, I made it my job to research the case and figure out how I can help and support my child.
I felt overwhelmingly helpless. I could not afford to hire my kid a private attorney. I learned that the prosecutor had the power to charge my child, and that the DC government had a law that said that my son, though he has never been in trouble before, can be charged as an adult and can be sent to an adult prison. I went through every range of emotion: denial, anger, acceptance. My anger was fired up by the injustice and inhumanity of that law. Who made this law that sends children to jail? I was feeling so helpless and then I found out that there was no school at the DC Jail. It was in that moment that I began to channel my anger into action. I rallied and called anyone and everyone to try to advocate for my kid so he could finish his high school degree.”
Channeling Grief into Action
“All I needed was to put my eyes on my child to see if he was okay. There were so many layers of uncertainty, and so much that I was not in control of. The only thing that gave me comfort was the small ways that I could help and support him, by visiting him, talking to him on the phone every day, calling his attorney to get her to pay attention to his case, and making sure he had money on his commissary. I never missed a visit and I never missed a phone call. I felt extremely disappointed with the system and disappointed with myself that I could not afford a private attorney.
When Jermaine was arrested and sentenced, our roles and dynamics changed. It was no longer parent-child. My child had to quickly grow up and adapt to certain circumstances. In a moment, the parent-child relationship was taken from us. I no longer was taking him to the doctor, doing homework, all of that is gone. I grieved that I lost out on the rest of his childhood.
After sentencing, Jermaine was moved to Wisconsin and then North Dakota. In the District of Columbia, children who are sentenced as adults and placed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and are shipped away from their families and support networks all over the country. When I realized he was being moved to an adult prison in North Dakota, I used my anger at the system again to advocate for Jermaine. I called Norton’s home, his old attorneys. I kept hitting a brick wall until I discovered Free Minds Book Club. Free Minds funded my trip to North Dakota so I could visit Jermaine. Seeing Jermaine, I cried like a baby. He had gotten taller and he looked like a man. Jermaine is still incarcerated, but I hold onto hope and know every day that he is going to come home and that I will keep fighting for him and with him until he does.”
Incarceration’s Impact on Family
“The criminal justice system misses the mark when it comes to family and children who are impacted by incarceration in so many ways. To send a child 1500 miles away from his family is just wrong. I campaign for criminal justice reform in DC, and one of my focus points is to change the law. We should not be charging our children as adults and should not send our kids away from their families and support systems.”
Jermaine’s mother explained how her son’s incarceration led her to advocate for victims of the justice system. “Working with Free Minds gave me an opportunity to provide for parents what I did not have, a support group. When I went onto the juvenile unit to run the book club at the same jail that Jermaine was at, [that] was closing the circle for me. It gave me so much light to be able to help children like Jermaine and give them an outlet from their day to day. It fueled my passion [and] commitment to building relationships with the kids in prison to remind them that there are people on the outside who are pulling for them and support them. I am so grateful that work does not feel like work. It feels like living.”"
The senses of loss and grief have changed over time for her. Keela’s faith, resiliency and determination wove like a braid to help her move through her loss. She simply refuses to give up.
“In the situation that Jermaine is in now, I know that he is innocent and will one day come home. That belief keeps me angry and motivated. I use my faith and my family to get me through it. When I look at the 70-year sentence, I focus on the day that he walks out of the bars. I know it is going to happen. I know that my son is coming home. And it will be a heck of a victory and a heck of a story.”
Relationships Adapt and Change with Loss and Acceptance
While the two remain close, the relationship between mother and son has changed over the years. “Him and I have always been very, very close. Because his father was never there, after I had him, we were forever bonded. We are in this together. I feel over-protective of him. Now that he’s almost 30, we can talk about so many different things— we talk several times a day. We have very introspective conversations. He still will be protective of me and not tell me all of what is going on.
I’m still a mother, even though he’s 30. We still maintain our same bond. He is a man and this is his responsibility. Our bond has grown stronger- it will always in a way be parent-child, but not in the same sense. He is a grown man, and he has spent a significant time in prison. And prison is a different place. I respect his line of not sharing how hard things are, and I pray and trust him. It helps that I talk to him several times a day.”
Keela wants other parents of incarcerated children to know a few things.
“Let them know you are involved. Let them know on the other side that this child has an advocate. Keep the lines of communication open as much as you can. Be prepared that your child is not going to be transparent and you have to be okay with that. They are going through a whole new situation that they are trying to navigate, and you have to respect.
Sometimes you just have to listen. It’s not about you giving advice. Just be a listening ear, which is so hard for a parent to do who wants to fix the problem or make it better. The more you are a listening ear, the more they will share.”
A listening ear. Such a small but vital gift.
Resources:
Enns, P. K., Yi, Y., Comfort, M., Goldman, A. W., Lee, H., Muller, C., … Wildeman, C. (2019). What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). Socius. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119829332
Raeder, Myrna, "Making a Better World for Children of Incarcerated Parents," Family Court Review 50 no. 1 (2012): 23-35.
