On this Monday, Jan. 3, edition of Sundial:
Silent Victims of Crime
There are close to six million children in the United States who have or have had a parent behind bars. That’s about one out of every twelve. That’s according to a 2018 report, and the latest available figures, from the nonprofit The Sentencing Project.
One organization based in South Florida, called Silent Victims of Crime, is trying to help those kids in our region.
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Silent Victims of Crime is a local nonprofit that provides mentoring and resources to children whose parents are imprisoned.
Xavier Roebuck grew up with the programming from Silent Victims of Crime, his father was incarcerated.
"Having a parent behind bars, really, it really took a toll on my life in ways that I did not know or acknowledge at the time until I got to a certain age," said Roebuck. "I reconnected with my father as of 2020 because I moved to Delray Beach area myself to go to rehab. And that right there, started me and my father's relationship, and it has been better since then and we talk almost every week now."
Paulette Pfeiffer, who goes by the name Tinkerbell, is the nonprofit's founder and executive director.
"I started looking in American prisons. 'What happens in the state prisons when a parent goes to prison? Like, what happens?' So I started interviewing prisoners, and the prisoners would say, 'I don't know what my children are.' Custody was taken away, or maybe somebody is raising them, or maybe they were adopted," she said. "The children are in therapy whenever needed, and that the children have a summer camp with us so that they are growing up with children who they have known all their lives and growing up as an extended family. So they had a very strong support system."
Head here for more information about Silent Victims of Crime and their work.
Tallahassee Takeover
In this episode, we also heard the latest episode of the WLRN podcast, Tallahassee Takeover. Read more more about that story here.
