LIMA, Ohio (AP) -- The convicts stand in a circle, three fingers
pointed skyward, nine faces set in stone, their deep, male voices
raised in slow recitation:
"On my honor, I will try,
"To serve God and my country,
"To help people at all times,
"And to live by the Girl Scout Law."
At their sides stand their daughters, their small fingers also raised
in the Girl Scout salute. This is the regular monthly meeting of Troop
884 at the Allen Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison
rising from the rolling farmlands of northwestern Ohio.
Lugging boxes filled with sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, potato chips and
sashes bearing merit badges, the girls file into a linoleum-floor
visiting room on Wednesday afternoon. They range in age from 6 to 12;
they are in shorts and purple Girl Scout T-shirts, in tennis shoes and
ankle socks, their hair bouncing in pony tails, swept back with
headbands, tied with sparkling barrettes.
Their dads -- most of them imprisoned for drug trafficking, serving
sentences ranging from 36 months to 18 years -- hang back for a few
heartbeats, adjusting to an abrupt shift in reality. They have just
been strip-searched before being allowed to change into identical polo
shirts and khaki trousers, rewards for good behavior and participating
in this program.
Paige and Ben
Eight-year-old Paige, a precocious child with crooked teeth and
chin-length brown hair, gathers the ends of her big T-shirt, trying to
tie a knot so it hangs just so on her tiny waist. Her dad, Ben, who
just turned 27 while serving a five-year sentence for selling drugs,
appears baffled by how to solve his little girl's fashion dilemma.
He tentatively puts an arm around her shoulders, as if afraid he might
break her, and lowers his blue eyes to her hazel ones. "Hi," he says.
And so the meeting begins.
It takes about 30 minutes and copious amounts of sandwiches and chips
and bright pink drinks for dads and daughters to catch up and settle
in. Then there are cake and cookies and games and merit badge work and
projects designed to help parent and child -- the latest is a lesson in
how to open a small business. Many nail and hair salons are planned.
The meetings last about two hours, give or take the time it takes to
herd out the door a giggling gaggle of girls running high on refined
sugar. The fathers put on brave faces that drop like rain the minute
their daughters leave.
This Daddies and Daughters chapter is a pilot, part of the Girl Scouts'
Beyond Bars program, a 14-year-old effort funded by the Justice
Department. It is the only one that unites fathers and daughters. Every
other troop -- about 40 across the country -- brings mothers and
daughters together.
Establishing a relationship
The goal is to establish a relationship between parent and child, in
some cases where none existed. Each group is taught how to understand
the other. Parents learn how to lead by example, how to set goals and
how to simply spend time with their children. The girls learn how to
deal with the burden of having a parent in prison, how to respect
themselves, how to be a responsible kid. Having fun is part of the
plan.
The troop plays charades using a boxed set of cards, a game that
delights the girls and makes shy men out of convicted felons. "Daddy,"
Paige says, "I want you to buy this for me when you get out."
It is, without doubt, a surreal slice of life. Grown men who've spent
much of their lives living on the wrong side of the law are singing
Girl Scout songs, sewing and making purses. Little girls who've just
come from school are sitting inside an all-male prison, ringed by five
vertical rows of razor wire.
Yet here they are, each one struggling to condense a month of news,
hopes and thoughts into two hours. Briefly, they know the comfort of a
father's touch and the warmth of a daughter's embrace.
Six-year-old Lazaria will be a grown woman when her father is released
after serving 18 years; she is an intelligent, gregarious little girl
who smiles and twirls so her sequined, orange dirndl skirt flies around
her knees. But when a prison door clangs shut behind her, locking her
in, she freezes. Her eyes fill with tears and fear. She clings to the
legs of her troop leader, and it takes a few minutes of soft words and
gentle prying to unclench her fingers and persuade her to keep walking.
"Come on, Lazaria, it's OK," the girls murmur.
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