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(Images from our Father-to-Child Summer Camp behind bars)

(News Segment about Hope House)

About us

It has been said that when a person is sent to prison, the whole family is imprisoned as well. There are more than two million men and women in U.S. prisons. It is estimated that seventy-five percent are parents who have left behind between two and five million children. Most families who begin the incarceration experience intact will not remain so together.

According to a report in the Baltimore Sun (March 2, 1997), Washington D.C. has an incarceration rate that is four times the national average. Faced with a Congressional mandate to close its troubled Lorton Correctional Complex in Fairfax County by December 2001, all District of Columbia inmates were transferred to federal custody, and are being held in dozens of prisons, some as far away as California.

The expense and logistical difficulty of making out-of-state trips caused tremendous hardships for the prisoners and their families. This severely limited the amount of contact the former Lorton inmates have with their children, spouses, and relatives. Studies show inmates who maintain regular contact with their families have much lower rates of parole violation and recidivism after release from prison than do non-participants. Conversely, we know that children who maintain relationships with absent parents are better adjusted, do better in school, and show more improvement in behavior than those who do not.

Hope House began in 1998 providing cutting edge programs to strengthen families and, in particular, the relational bonds between children and their fathers imprisoned far from home. In addition our goals include reducing the isolation, stigma, shame and risk these families experience when fathers and husbands are imprisoned, and to raise public awareness about this most at-risk population.

With a few notable exceptions there are not many programs that are focused specifically on improving and sustaining the fragile relationships between incarcerated fathers and their children. Through innovative projects, Hope House is providing exciting new leadership in this area. We continue to believe that just because a father is in prison, doesn't mean he has to stop being a Dad—and the children do not stop needing a Dad.