BALTIMORE — At any given moment, there are about 20,000 young people in Baltimore City with at least one parent who is incarcerated, according to city officials. City leaders say those are low estimates.
“We can imagine that there might be even larger numbers,” said Faith Leach, Baltimore’s Deputy Mayor of the Equity, Health and Human Services. “When we start to go further into the family, aunts and uncles or even siblings, we know those numbers increased dramatically.
The deputy mayor is working with non-governmental groups to tackle an issue that’s pervasive but that many people in society may not think about if they are not directly affected.
“We want to make sure that these young people aren’t just what we call the collateral damage, or kind of the hidden consequences of incarceration,” said Deputy Mayor Leach.
The deputy mayor says organizations and the mayor’s office are joining forces to ensure that they are addressing the unspoken trauma that children and parents may develop during tenures of separation caused by incarceration. The deputy mayor says there’s also a focus on providing adequate services for parents before the adults re-enter society. Some of the desired services include counseling and job training before the parents are released from jail.
“Is it challenging when the parents are coming back and trying to reconnect?” asked WJZ reporter Ava-joye Burnett
“It’s so challenging. Depending on how long a parent has been incarcerated. They’ve missed so many milestones when it comes to their children,” said the deputy mayor. If the children are young, there are huge developmental milestones that they’ve missed.”
The deputy mayor’s work has been shaped by personal experiences where both of her parents were incarcerated at some point in her life. The first time Deputy Mayor Leach’s mother – Katie Leach was incarcerated, Deputy Mayor Leach was about 5 years old.
When asked how many times she was incarcerated, Katie Leach answered that she started “…in Rikers, from Rikers it went to Bedford Hills, from Bedford Hills it went to Albion on from Albion it went to Beacon and from Beacon it went to Bayview.
She was 40 years old at the time
“What happened that got you into prison at 40?” asked Burnett.
“Crack addiction,” Katie Leach answered. “Drugs got me there, addiction is an easy thing to get into, but it’s a hell of a hard thing to get out. It’s like going down in a dark hole.”
Katie Leach said she was arrested while transporting crack cocaine. It was during one of those stints in jail that she took a good look at herself in the mirror.
“I looked in that plexiglass mirror they had, I cried because I didn’t know who that person was in that mirror.”
Katie Leach made up her mind she’d never go back to jail when she got out. She enrolled in a substance abuse program and then eventually became a substance abuse counselor with two degrees.
“I graduated in 2016 with my bachelor’s, after I graduated with my bachelor’s, then I did a three-year accelerated program and I got my master’s in social work,” said Katie Leach.
When asked why it was important for her to accomplish those goals, Katie Leach answered, “I needed someone to hear and know my story. I felt their pain. It’s hard when you get down, to get back up. You need a helping hand and you need somebody who understands and care.”
The deputy mayor says her mother’s story influenced the work she’s chosen to do and she has a message for young people whose parents or loved ones are incarcerated.
“My mom is a living testimony that you are bigger than your trauma. Your purpose is bigger than your trauma,” said Deputy Mayor Leach.