For the people stepping inside an orange phone booth, it’s a glimpse into a painful reality for 1 in 10 children in Michigan only being able to communicate with their incarcerated parent through collect calls.
Watch Meghan Daniels’ video report below:
Helping kids with a parent behind bars
“This is a prepaid call from an inmate at the county correctional facility,” plays the system-generated message that has become an all-too-familiar sound for thousands of Michigan children.
“I felt extremely isolated. I felt like no other person in my classroom or neighborhood might have had parents incarcerated because it’s something kind of pushed under the rug and you don’t really communicate about it,” said Sherelle Hogan, founder of the Pure Heart Foundation.
Four in 10 children in Detroit are growing up with at least one parent incarcerated, only able to maintain a relationship with their mom or dad through jail-house phone calls…