Eight months. That’s how long Mark D. was in prison. Why? The man, whose real name is different, doesn’t want to say that. Don’t do anything here, he says. Because he has another concern. Mark D., 35, wants to talk about what it’s like to be a father in prison. Separated from the child.
In summary one can say: It is not easy. “You don’t know where the child is. You’re not there when it’s happy. You’re not there when it’s sad. It was really hard,” says D. In his case, it was also because there was a pandemic. And for a long time he could only see his son, who was eleven years old at the time, behind a partition and a mask. And vice versa. Because, says D.: “My son was punished very severely.”
The Landesfachstelle Netzwerk Children of Imprisoned Bavarians (KvI Bayern) estimates that every year 14,000 children in Bavaria are affected by the imprisonment of a parent. According to KvI Bayern, studies show that more than two thirds of these children suffer from negative psychological and physical consequences.
Mark D. has been out since May 2022. So he could be at home or at the bar where he works now. But no, D. is sitting in the kitchen of an office building in Nuremberg’s Eberhardshof district. These are the rooms of the Meeting Point eV, an advice center for almost all questions on the subject of imprisonment. Help for relatives after arrest, discussion group for parents of imprisoned children, discussion group for imprisoned mothers.
D. found only one thing missing during his time in the Bayreuth prison: a contact point for imprisoned fathers. Which brings us to the reason why the man with the black cap, black T-shirt, black sweatpants and black sneakers isn’t sitting at home. But in the counseling center. Because D. wanted to change this fact and initiated a meeting for fathers who were in prison.
The result is a kind of self-help group for returning to normal life and family, “a protected space,” as he keeps saying. “It shouldn’t be about the crime at all, but about giving each other tips.” Only one man came to the first meeting. But still, what the man said and what he thought was confirmation for D. that this group was needed.
What he actually already knew in prison, the “emotionally hostile place”, as D. calls the JVA. “The only ones you have in jail are the other fathers.” You quickly notice who one is, for example through photos on the locker. “Normally in everyday life you try to be as unemotional as possible, not to offer a target for attack. But in conversations with the fathers you have already opened up and exchanged your stories.”
During his detention, he saw his son once or twice a month. At the time, Bayreuth did not have a father-child program like the one organized by Treffen eV in Nuremberg Prison. It’s different now, they also recently introduced a discussion group for fathers here. But that is by no means the norm in the Bavarian prisons. When asked, the Ministry of Justice cannot say in detail what it looks like this year. The last survey dates from 2019. In that year there were only eleven out of 36 Bavarian JVA family offers. Since the beginning of 2023, KvI Bayern has been working with the support of the Ministry of Justice and Social Affairs to improve the situation.
Christiane Paulus is the head of the Bavarian State Office for Network Children of Detainees based in Nuremberg. In the specialist department, she playfully explains to children what it means when their parents are in prison.
(Photo: Max Weinhold)
But why is there such a shortage at all? The Ministry of Justice nevertheless emphasizes that promoting the maintenance of contact with the children of prisoners is of “particular importance”.
Only the respective JVA can introduce such an offer. First you have to convince them that they see this as a benefit for the children, says Christiane Paulus, head of KvI Bayern. It’s not about giving the inmates a good time. Rather, to grant the child its right to contact with both parents, which is laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It is all the more astonishing that the number of offers is so small. If these are not available in detention, normal visiting hours remain for contact. Or letters. Which the law enforcement officers read along. “Because revealing your emotions can be a hurdle for some,” says Mark D. But you have to go over this hurdle.
When D. is asked what makes a good father for him, he understands the question as follows: What makes a good father in prison out of? “Keeping in touch with the child, even when it’s a difficult time,” he says. “To talk about what has happened. Not to leave the child alone with his problems, to take him seriously. To put his own problems aside. To talk about things that may be uncomfortable for you, but which are important for the child at the moment.”
Christiane Paulus says it is not the rule that all of this works as well as in the case of Mark D. and his son. Not during detention – it is often the case that when partners visit, so much has to be clarified that the children are there, but have no opportunity to talk intensively about their lives. And not afterwards either. The lives of the relatives continue to develop. In many cases, the partner now leads a different life. The children were now playing other things and had developed other interests.
“Children sense the wafting lies. They sense when something is wrong.”
Mark D. says he’s heard from many fathers who were looking forward to freedom and were completely overwhelmed afterwards. How was he himself prepared for his release? D laughs. “In the end not at all.”
Nevertheless, he managed to return to normal life, which is not to be taken for granted. He is grateful to those around him that they didn’t let him down. D. was no longer with his son’s mother before he was imprisoned, but he describes their relationship as good. And the relationship with his son as close. before imprisonment. And after detention.
Probably also because the two spoke openly from the start. A year passed from the indictment to the verdict; lots of time to prepare. “We tried to demystify prison and take away fears and worries beforehand,” says D. This type of communication is not normal, says Christiane Paulus. The children are often told that their father is at work. If it takes a long time, in case of doubt on an oil rig. This is a result of the “mothers’ “helplessness” when asked: How do I tell the child? There is also fear and shame: How do others react when they learn the truth?
Paul pleads for honesty. “It’s always right to be open to the child,” she says. “Children sense the wafting lies. They sense when something is wrong.” D. confirms that his son had never asked him as often as during the court hearing if everything was okay.
One could say that now, more than a year after the end of his imprisonment, it’s that again: everything is okay. At first his son was afraid that his father would leave again. In the meantime, however, he could joke about the prison term. D. evaluates this as a “sign of processing”. When he tells his son that his room is messy again, he replies: “Well, you went to jail for that.”
The next meeting of the discussion group: September 13 (6 p.m.) at Fürther Strasse 212 in Nuremberg. Registration is required. Further information can be found on the Meeting Point eV website.