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CREATING TRADITIONS OF CARE FOR THE HOLIDAYS  
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Kelly Hayes
December 17, 2024
Organizing My Thoughts
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_ A commitment to the well-being of whole generations, from children
to grandparents demand that we stop this forcible separation of
families, and as we work to abolish systems, that we support one
another, meeting needs together, loudly and proudly.  _

, Crystal Martinez and her family. (Reunification Ride Photo Series,
2023)

 

Every year, I take joy in supporting the Holiday Solidarity Toy Drive
[[link removed]] organized
by Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration (MUAVI). Launched in
2014, the drive began with a goal of collecting 400 toys for children
of mothers incarcerated at Logan Correctional Center. The effort was
an overwhelming success. MUAVI not only exceeded their goal but
expanded their support to include families impacted by incarceration
at Decatur Corrections Center, Fox Valley Adult Transition Center,
Cook County Jail, and Haymarket Center, among others. Over the last
decade, MUAVI has raised roughly 1,500 donations annually. The drive
offers crucial relief for families grappling with the financial
hardships of having a loved one incarcerated — from the loss of
parental income or the costs of visitation, communication, and
commissary support. Thanks to MUAVI’s work, this difficult time of
year becomes a little brighter for families in need. In addition to
the toy drive, MUAVI co-organizes Reunification Rides, which help
children visit their incarcerated mothers — an especially vital act
of solidarity during the holidays.

I recently spoke with MUAVI’s director of organizing, Holly Krig,
about this year’s toy drive, the impact of incarceration on
families, Reunification Rides, and how you can get involved.

_This interview has been lightly edited for clarity._

KELLY HAYES: THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A TOUGH TIME OF YEAR FOR FAMILIES WHO
HAVE BEEN SEPARATED BY THE PRISON SYSTEM. CAN YOU TELL US HOW MUAVI
SUPPORTS PARENTS AND CHILDREN AFFECTED BY INCARCERATION DURING THE
HOLIDAY SEASON?

HOLLY KRIG: Thankfully, Moms United is part of a Chicago-based
community that supports families suffering forcible separation by
carceral systems, including Love & Protect, Liberation Library, and
MAMAS-Mamas Activating for Movements and Solidarity. There are a
number of groups like us who use mutual support drives to meet needs
and also to invite important conversations, engaging a diversity of
voices, including those who may not yet realize how we are all harmed
by carceral systems. As we move toward our goals we also move more
pointedly toward the question of how we, as Mariame Kaba put it, make
prisons, and prosecution and policing obsolete. We talk about what the
world might be like if we met needs within our communities, without
systems adjudicating worthiness, predetermining who has the right to
survive and thrive. 

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT LAST WEEKEND’S REUNIFICATION RIDE? HOW WERE
PEOPLE'S SPIRITS? WHAT DID YOU HEAR FROM PARENTS AND CHILDREN ABOUT
THE EXPERIENCE?

Reunification Ride, whose partner groups include Nehemiah Trinity
Rising, Women’s Justice Institute and ourselves, is a community
funded initiative that sends a bus each month to Logan, the largest
designated women’s prison in IL. Our December bus is extra full and
extra special. We pack it with gingerbread house kits and extra
treats. We are often accompanied by talented guitarist and CPS
restorative justice practitioner Jennifer Viets, who sings holiday
songs with families. Our deepest desire is to bring survivors inside
home to supportive communities, and to shut down every kind of prison
forever. But in the meantime, we resist the razor wire gates by
surrounding them with the community we are able to bring inside. 

We take photos during each visit, which are printed and shared with
moms inside and their kids. During the December Reunification Ride
visit, we invite a professional photographer to take photos of other
survivors inside, including those who may not be receiving a visit
from their kids, or whose kids may be grown or far away.  It’s just
so important for people to be able to see themselves, literally,
through the lens of those who support their freedom. It’s important
to possess a record of their own making, a photo other than their
prison issue ID card. 

Among those having photos taken were survivors seeking clemency,
including a lovely woman who has been incarcerated 45 years on a
“natural life” sentence. A transgender survivor had her hair
freshly done for her photo, one that I hope will remind her that she
is beautiful and that no one can take from her who she is and her will
to be free. 

As we were leaving, sharing hugs and promises to return, a mother
asked me about her photos. Moms are anxious to receive them, to hold
tangible memories between visits. This lovely mama told me, “Those
photos mark my time. My visits with my kids mark my time, and not this
place.” It was profound and defiant, amidst the otherwise unspoken
sadness of departure. Mamas inside hold back their tears for their
kids, and kids learn to do the same. It’s a strength they should
never have to learn. 

THE MOTHERS YOU INITIALLY SET OUT TO HELP WITH THE TOY DRIVE WERE
INCARCERATED AT LOGAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER, A PRISON NOTORIOUS FOR ITS
HORRIFIC CONDITIONS. WHILE PRISON CONDITIONS ARE GENERALLY TORTUROUS,
I WAS STILL APPALLED AND HEARTBROKEN WHEN I VISITED LOGAN AND HEARD
FIRSTHAND HOW THE WOMEN WERE FORCED TO LIVE. NOW, LOGAN IS SLATED FOR
CLOSURE, AND THERE’S A GROWING EFFORT TO PREVENT IT FROM BEING
REBUILT. CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING THERE?

Much of the discussion surrounding the visit this year is the
scheduled closure of Logan, along with the plan to build a new prison.
Corrections officers seemed conflicted about the timeline. While the
latest announcement from the state is that Logan will close in 4-5
years, it is also apparent that a refusal to maintain the buildings
may hasten that date, but not before people go without heat, fully
functioning plumbing or reasonable access to mail and basic
necessities. 

The current plan is to replace Logan, despite the fact that the
population is actually well below capacity. 

It’s important to know these plans for the future have returned us
squarely to the past and the circumstances that preceded the first
prison replacement/expansion in Illinois. Back in 1930, a group of
reformers raised $300,000 to build the first designated women’s
reformatory in Illinois, with a capacity of 300. Oakdale Women’s
Reformatory was built with cottage style housing, accompanied by
mental health support and vocational skills training. By the 1960s
Oakdale’s population was down to a third of its official capacity.
Historians attribute that considerable reductions to community based
drug treatment and childcare assistance, the increased use of
probation over prison sentences, and a challenge to the
criminalization of abortion and sex work. It may also be that
Oakdale’s focus on mental health, education and vocational training
contributed to decreased recidivism. 

Despite the effectiveness of community-based programs, the state
allocated $1 million dollars to the building of what became Dwight,
whose population was around 1,300 when it was forcibly closed by the
state in 2013, due to deteriorating conditions. The prison population
in Illinois swelled under “truth in sentencing” laws and the
ending of parole. In Illinois and across the US, prison populations
surged under laws exacerbating the criminalization of substance use
and addiction, poverty and violence survivors. Tellingly, even before
the allocation of funds that built Dwight, changes in the IDOC
[Illinois Department of Corrections] code allowed for the imprisonment
of people as young as 17, as well as people who were otherwise
eligible for parole. Even now, there is re-sentencing legislation
being held up, along with unrelenting attacks on the SAFE-T Act, which
includes the historic elimination of cash bond in Illinois, which has
resulted in a historic decrease in jail populations with no increase
in the overall rate of violent crime. 

Dwight should never have been built. The lessons of Oakdale should
have resulted in more funding for community based programs, more
funding mental healthcare, for early education, childcare and housing.
When Dwight was forced to close, Logan should never have been turned
into an even larger designated women’s prison. But, we have arrived
both right back in time, with yet another chance to bring about a
different future. What will we do this time? 

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT HOW INCARCERATION
IMPACTS FAMILIES AND WHY IT'S SO URGENT TO HIGHLIGHT THESE ISSUES
RIGHT NOW?

Our mutual support drives both meet important needs, but lay bare the
deep entanglement of public divestment and prisons. When we ask moms
about what they might like to give their kids for Christmas, we hear
about their kids’ interests and talents and needs. Only, those needs
include food, clothing, and housing. They include the need for fully
funded schools and community based clinics. 2.7 million children in
the US alone have an incarcerated parent. The average annual income of
an incarcerated person was 41% less than their non-incarcerated peers
prior to arrest. The majority are parents of minor children. According
to the National Institute of Health, “Children with a parent in
prison may experience low self-esteem, depression, disturbed sleeping
patterns and symptoms of post-traumatic stress. In a North American
study, separation from a parent through imprisonment was found to be
more detrimental to a child’s well-being than divorce or the death
of a parent.”

Additionally, we see the cost to caregivers, including the impact on
health, of supporting an incarcerated child and for some, becoming the
primary custodial parent to grandchildren, and sometimes
great-grandchildren. Most of the kids who participate in Reunification
Ride are being cared for by a family member, most often their maternal
grandmother. However, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
the incarceration of moms is five times more likely to result in their
kids being taken into state foster case systems than the incarceration
of fathers. Parental incarceration is not itself a predictor of
incarceration for kids, however, 75% and 74% of incarcerated men and
women respectively have spent at least one year in state foster
care. 

A commitment to the well-being of whole generations, from children to
grandparents demand that we stop this forcible separation of families,
and as we work to abolish systems, that we support one another,
meeting needs together, loudly and proudly. 

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO ASK OF OUR READERS?

We ask that you join us in this crucial work of supporting families.
One simple, generous and exponentially impactful thing you can do is
donate to the 11th Annual Holiday Solidarity Drive, so that an
incarcerated mom or dad can share presents with their kids, a joyful
act of solidarity that defies the state’s forcible separation of
families. 

You can donate toys and teen gifts via the registry
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can donate funds that we will direct to unmet needs and last minute
requests. [Funds can be sent via Zelle
to [email protected].]

We understand if you cannot support this or any other mutual aid
campaign at this time–many of us are struggling to meet basic needs
each day. Most of us are one prolonged illness, serious injury or lost
wage away from a crisis. Too many of us are struggling against the
violence of institutionalized poverty and normalized gender violence,
then punished for doing what we need to do to survive.  

It’s that shared struggle that should bring us together, with
compassion and understanding, while the ruling class aligns its own
interests. More than that, we have the opportunity right now to come
together around a shared commitment to a world where we can all
thrive. Right now we have the opportunity to create joyful new
traditions that celebrate equity and mutual care. We can dispose of
those old traditions that promote surveillance, status quo, and a
so-called meritocracy that somehow always rewards the already rich.
Let’s really and truly make policing and prosecution and prisons
obsolete. Down, down with North Pole politics. Up, up with the
people. 

_Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, educator, organizer, and
photographer. Kelly is the host of Truthout’s podcast “Movement
Memos” and co-author of Let This Radicalize You, with Mariame Kaba._

_Author's Note: The photo of Crystal Martinez and her family, featured
in this piece, is shared with permission. It was taken during MUAVI's
2023 Reunification Ride holiday visit. Thankfully, this was Crystal's
last Christmas in prison, thanks to advocates who fought for her
release under Illinois' domestic violence re-sentencing law. You can
learn more about Crystal's case here
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_Organizing My Thoughts is a reader-supported newsletter. If you
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today. There are no paywalls for the essays, reports, interviews, and
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