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In prison, daddies pledge Scouts honor

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 18, 2006

LIMA, Ohio - 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 - not in a school, not in a church, but 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, ages 5 through 12, file into a linoleum-floored visiting room on Wednesday afternoon, four days before Father's Day.

Their dads - most of them imprisoned for drug trafficking, serving sentences 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.

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 the giggling girls, running high on refined sugar, out the door. 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.

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, set goals and simply spend time with their children. The girls learn how to deal with the burden of having a parent in prison, respect themselves, and be a responsible kid. Having fun is part of the plan.

It is, without doubt, a surreal slice of life. Grown men who have 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 have just come from school are sitting inside an all-male prison, ringed by five vertical rows of concertina 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.

Dwayne, 36, is serving three years for drug possession. His daughter, 5-year-old Autumn, is a Daisy scout and the youngest troop member. She is visiting relatives and is not at the prison this day. Dwayne looks forlorn, alone at a table of chattering girls and their fathers.

But he smiles when he talks about activities at the meetings. "I like the sewing part," he says, and the other men nod in agreement and grin sheepishly. "I look forward to it."

He has not told his daughter why he is in prison. "I just told her I was going to college." But Autumn doesn't miss much, even at age 5.

"Every time she walks out that door, she turns to me and says, 'Call me. We'll talk later.' " And Dwayne convulses in laughter. "Like she's the parent. Like she's the one paying the bills."

Dwayne once served seven years for armed robbery. He has five children by five different women, none of them his wife. His oldest daughter no longer speaks to him.

"She's angry," he says. "I haven't been around much. I tried to give them material things, no matter what it cost. They didn't care about that. If I had given them more of my time, I wouldn't be here."

[Last modified June 18, 2006, 05:50:06]