Giving Compass' Take:

• The authors at The Marshall Project discuss how remote prison towns and strict visitation policies make it hard to stay in touch.

• What other barriers currently prevent contact between prisoners and the general public? 

• Read a criminal justice reform guide for donors. 

The first time Jodi Calkins visited her son at the federal prison in Seagoville, Texas, the journey took her about 10 hours. From her home in Elkins, West Virginia, she drove three hours to the Pittsburgh International Airport, took a three-hour plane ride to the Dallas Love Field airport, then drove another hour in a rental car to a hotel near Dallas.

After driving an additional hour to the prison, FCI Seagoville, the next day, Calkins was turned away. Her son, Michael James, waited anxiously for hours.

When the mother and son talked on the phone later that night, Jodi explained that she had been blocked from entering the prison because she was wearing a dress with thin, zigzagging black and khaki stripes. Khaki was one of the prohibited colors for visitors at FCI Seagoville.

“Most of these prisons are out in the middle of nowhere, so you can't run out and get a new outfit,” she said. “You learn really quick to fill your trunk with clothing.”

The majority of prisons across the country are located far from the city centers many prisoners—and their families—call home. More than 63 percent of people in state prisons are locked up over 100 miles from their families, a 2015 report from the Prison Policy Initiative found. Black and Latino people make up a disproportionate share of the prison population, but many prison towns are majority white.

Read the full article about the difficulties of prison visits by Beatrix Lockwood and Nicole Lewis at The Marshall Project.