Alison Coleman Reflects on Decades of Service

Located near 19 New York State correctional facilities and operated in partnership with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), Osborne’s Hospitality Centers are open during all visiting hours to ensure families have access to the support they need, right when they need it. At each Hospitality Center, visitors are welcomed by a compassionate team that guides them throughout the visit process. Leading this network is Alison Coleman, who is retiring this month from her role coordinating operations and managing staff for this critical service. We interviewed Alison about her decades of work supporting prison families.

Your connection to the work is personal. What would you want to say about that?
I walked into Coxsackie Prison in ‘77 as a volunteer, and it changed my whole life. I had been laid off from a job and didn’t have a rush to find a new job. A friend of mine said she was going down to volunteer, and would I come, too? And my first thought was, “I can’t go to prison. I’m scared.” Then I thought, “Well, you’re scared of something that you’ve never done.” So I went. It changed my whole life. It was amazing.
 

I was also a prison family member myself. My husband, Jay, went to prison in in ‘81, 25 to life for the robbery of $18 with no weapon. He came out after almost 25 years exactly. We raised our children while he was in prison, and he came home and had 12 wonderful years until he died of liver cancer about six years ago.
 

When Jay went to prison, I remember getting the collect call. He was at Attica, and I burst into tears. I needed information and support. What I found early on was that there was nothing going on for prison families. Nothing. So it was the perfect place for somebody like me to get a foothold and make things happen. I was terrified, but I wasn’t going to let fear get in the way. And I really pushed DOCCS and the governor’s office and every other level to make a place for prison families at the decision-making table, and it happened. It happened.
 

I created an agency called Prison Families of New York. I was all over the state, setting up support groups. We had groups for children and prisoners, groups in many local schools. I trained lots and lots of people. I would pick my daughter up, drive up from Albany, and we’d go to Albion and do talks and training for staff. And she has a particular ability to touch the lives of people in prison. When she was young, she would walk in and say, “I know your kids can’t be here, but my dad is doing twenty-five to life. Let’s pretend I’m your child today, and let’s talk.” And everybody would be weeping and sharing.

How did you get started with Osborne?
Liz Gaynes, our former CEO, and I have been friends for almost 50 years. In the 90s, she came up to my office in Albany and said, “You have to come work with me. Come down every week or two. All you need is to find a place to stay.”

My office in Albany was a gift of the Catholic Diocese. So I had a bright idea. I went to a nun whose office was next to mine, and I said, “I need convents in the New York City area.” She gave me a list. I called one near Union Square, and they loved what I was wanting to do. They had a nun who worked for the Fortune Society. They said, “Come on down and meet us.” I had said I want a free room one night a week for six months. What I got was a free room in a convent as many nights as I wanted for six years. Wonderful, just real people.

I ran the Family Resource Center, which was a hotline and a physical space full of trained volunteers, for about six years. Then I saw the DOCCS RFP for visitor centers. They were trying to coordinate all of them. There were no centers at many places, and then some church groups and community groups ran this one and that one, and DOCCS decided to conform them. This was about 16 years ago. Liz said, “If you’re going to run it, I can get that money.”

And that’s what had happened, starting with six and then we took on a couple more. And then Attica, Wende, Wyoming – their contractor didn’t have the infrastructure that Osborne had. So I went out there, and I had long talks with them and reassured them that their work as caring church people would not disappear. And now we have 19. I love bringing the Osborne brand across the state.

Can you describe the work of the Hospitality Centers? What are they? Who uses them? 
The visitor center is a physical structure outside prisons. People get there, in many cases, way before visiting hours. They walk in and use the restroom, get out of the weather, do their initial paperwork. Ask my staff a bazillion questions. Make sure that what they’re wearing is going to be acceptable to visit. And my staff have all the answers and a welcoming attitude. The first thing I say to people is I expect that when that door opens, you say, “Good morning. It’s so great to see you.”

And then people wait to be called into the processing area and then into the visiting room. There’s no contact with incarcerated people. There’s some contact with prison authorities. And at a good prison, the administration, the people who are on duty on the weekend, will come ask how things are going and maybe talk to visitors and certainly talk to my staff. One of the things that I have to hire around is not only the ability to be hospitable, being warm and welcoming, and able to follow rules and regulations, but they also have to be able to do crowd control and handle difficult people, because visiting is so difficult right now since the corrections officer strike.

What is it that you want families that have incarcerated loved ones to know about prison?
It’s going to be hard. It’s not going to be impossible. You need to talk to other families. Women need to take care of themselves first, or figure out how to balance the equation, because there’s never enough time or money. I ran a weekly group in Albany for about 20 years, and every person that I met who had come out of prison was invited to come to the group and share their story. I felt that they needed to debrief, but that also families needed to hear from them. I think that face-to-face is good for prison families.

Tell us three things that you’ve learned over the course of your career.
Everybody needs the same things: information, support, and caring people to talk to. I learned these things early on and it carried through. The brilliance of people in prison is profound and needs to be recognized. I think that’s another thing that I’ve learned.

What do you hope for the future for Osborne and for the people Osborne serves?
Just keep on keeping on. I think at this point, Osborne needs to stand strong and keep fighting on policy issues and on practice issues, because I think there’s a tendency for corrections to be bad for people. My question is, who ever thought of the box [extreme isolation cells] as it now exists? Who thought about that and said it was okay? If you have a kid that you can imagine in prison, would that be okay with you? That’s just one of those questions out there that I have never been able to get an answer to. I think I’ll probably never get the answer.

Do you feel like you’ve done what you set out to do when you initially founded your organization? 
And more. I’m done with the work. I’m finished. It’s sad but I just put that on the Facebook page – that I’m retiring. I’ve helped thousands of families. I’ll be able to go to Starbucks, buy a cup of coffee and a donut, and come back and sit on my porch. I’m still going to help, but it’s not going to be this massive thing that I’ve been doing for decades.