In Transit
Artist Jacobia Dahm documents the great distances families travel to visit.
Jacobia is a Berlin-based photographer who worked alongside the Osborne Association to meet families affected by incarceration for this photo project. Some of the families in the pictures are Osborne participants. As a result of advocacy led by the Osborne Association, parents incarcerated in New York State prisons will be placed in prisons closer to their minor children beginning in 2022.
Krystal has three children, but since only three people can visit and any one time and so no-one feels left out, Krystal sometimes makes the trip twice, traveling 48 hours in one stretch.
Jacobia describes her project:
“With 2.3 million people in prison, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. An estimated 2.7 million American children have a parent in prison and the toll on families is immense. More than 80,000 people are currently incarcerated in New York State alone. After sentencing, prisoners are assigned to faraway places and children often lose a parent whose physical presence is essential for their emotional wellbeing. Ties are broken, and the effects on the most vulnerable population are immeasurable.
Every Friday and Saturday night hundreds of New Yorkers, mostly women, many with children, get on private buses and mini vans to drive all night in order to see their husbands, brothers, mothers, fathers, friends. This journey sets out from the bustling hubs of New York, yet it is invisible to most outsiders. The overnight bus ride to the different prisons hundreds of miles north of the city is a long one, often marked by anxiety, sadness, and exhaustion.”
The Visitor Center of Orleans Correctional Facility, a men’s prison 370 miles northwest of New York City. Visitor Centers tend to be full of handwritten notes that advise visitors how to behave.
Candis and daughter dozing on the bus on the way home from a prison visit. A bus ride costs $65 per adult and $30 per child, a substantial sum for families, many of whom struggle to make ends meet and are effectively single-parent households.
You can also view her short film “In Transit” here.