The Federal Jail Blocking Some Inmates' Kids From Visiting
Since last year, a detention center in Philadelphia has had one of the strictest visitation policies in the country. “Now it’s a different world in there,” one local lawyer said.
PHILADELPHIA—During the 15 months that Allen Woods has been held, awaiting trial, at a federal detention center downtown, he has only seen his six-year-old son once. This has been hard on them both, as they used to spend time together almost every day. Woods would pick his son up from school, take him to T-ball practice—all the things that an involved parent does.
“A child that was raised with both parents and one is suddenly taken away—he is going to be confused,” the boy’s mother, Chamira Williams, told me. “He has been depressed, confrontational, not understanding why he can’t see his father. It’s hard.”
The detention center is the federal version
