Video Messages Link Inmates and Families

The inmate looks a little sheepish as he gazes into the camera and begins to talk to his teen-age son, Robert.

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“Little Rob, you haven’t wrote me,” says Andre Williams, serving 20 years in federal prison for dealing crack and money laundering.

“I know you’re getting ready to turn 14 years old,” he continues.

“I just want to tell you, stay out of trouble, stay away from the gangs, don’t get involved in drugs.

“When you get involved in drugs,” he adds, “you be in here like your father.”

The message was taped as part of the Living Letters Videotape Program, a fledgling project to keep inmates in touch with their families and to reduce the chances that they will get sent back to prison after their release.

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“In the best of all possible worlds, we’ll have an individual that has been in communication with the outside and upon release has a place to go,” said Phillip Kellams.

Kellams is a video producer who runs the program with $23,000 in foundation money and equipment from the Allegheny County Bar Assn.

So far, the project involves about 21 drug offenders at the Federal Correctional Institution-McKean County near Bradford.

They record 15-minute messages every month or so and receive similar tapes from families and friends.

Some inmates read books to their children or poetry to girlfriends.

Others lament that no one writes them.

One family responded with a tape of an inmate’s back yard and dog.

Another let an inmate see his son, born after he was imprisoned, for the first time.

By reviewing tapes with a counselor, inmates confront problems with themselves and their families.

“It’s not just a means of staying in touch,” said Michele Boutelle, who is a prison drug treatment specialist.

“You don’t get to touch them or hug them, but you can still see on a person’s face how they’re doing,” explained Glenn Germany, who is serving a 15-year drug sentence.

His brother Gary, a gospel singer in Pittsburgh, recently made a tape with his 4-year-old son, Jonah, at the YWCA in downtown Pittsburgh.

“To see him, even though he’s not physically with us at home, is still a joy,” Gary Germany said.

The program in the prison in Bradford began in March.

Kellams hopes it will spread to others across the country if he can get more funding and the federal Bureau of Prisons approves.