An advocacy group is pushing for county jails such as Butler's to expand their contact visitation policies for families and children visiting their incarcerated parents.

Pennsylvania-based Dads Resource Center advocates for fathers to be involved in their children's lives, even if jail bars separate them.

The organization recently conducted a survey with the help of the Pennsylvania Prison Society to find out how many county jails in the state allow for physical contact during visits between inmates and their children.

The survey found that inmates in 28 jails — out of 50 respondents — cannot show physical affection to their children during family visits because of rules barring contact or barriers such as glass.

The state has 63 county jails.

Twenty-two jails in the state allow for contact visits between prisoners and their families. Butler County Prison, which is the county's jail despite its name, does not allow physical contact.

No barrier during visits

Contact visits allow families to visit without a glass barrier separating them. Inmates at Butler County Prison can have regular visits through a barrier. There were 240 inmates in the jail on Feb. 12, according to the most recently available numbers.

Jeff Steiner, executive director of Dads Resource Center, noted all state prisons allow contact visits for inmates, unless they are on death row. Steiner argued this privilege should be extended to all county jail inmates as well, especially since jails — unlike prisons — usually are used as a detention center for people who haven't been found guilty of a crime.

“Our primary concern is the children. Studies find that children of parents incarcerated often end up in the criminal legal system themselves,” Steiner said. “Anything that could be done to try to help those children and try to avoid the path of their parents.”

Claire Shubik-Richards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, agreed, adding that “Being able to hug one's child is a right rather than a privilege to be earned, and it is our duty to minimize the harms that incarceration imposes on both parents and children.”

In Montour County's jail, inmates are allowed to meet with their families in an open-air room every weekend. There, they can embrace when greeting each other but they must then immediately separate, according to Warden William Wilt. At the end of the meeting, inmates and their family are once again allowed to embrace before leaving.

But comparing Montour to Butler's jail isn't so easy. Montour's jail has 27 inmates, and even at that level, Wilt worries about contraband being smuggled into the jail during these open visits. Still, Wilt said, a system for contact visits is important.

'A no-brainer'

“It's important for kids to be involved with parents, that's a no-brainer. It's more for the benefit of the child,” Wilt said.

A closer comparison in population size is Crawford County's jail, where the average daily inmate population is 216.

The county jail system there allows children under age 12 to make regular, monthly visits with their incarcerated parents in an open room, according to Warden Jack Greenfield.

“It's a good tool because a lot of the inmates, their behavior will remain good because they want to see the kids,” Greenfield said. “It's good for the kids to see their mother and father. It's a different atmosphere than looking at them through the glass.”

Greenfield said the downside to the program is security and the added manpower needed. When Greenfield became warden four years ago, the policy was in place for several years. He said that if the policy wasn't in place, he would have never agreed to it because of security concerns.

In 2017, the administration at Butler's jail took its first step toward opening the jail to contact visits and launched a program with Butler County Children and Youth Services that allows children under CYS custody to visit their incarcerated parent in a designated visiting room without glass screens between them.

But CYS director Charlie Johns said the program was put on “hiatus” in January 2018 after an inmate involved in the program threatened a lawsuit against the jail.

According to earlier reports, Kasey Dischman, 33, of Butler, informed the county and jail of the intended court action at the time. The lawsuit was later withdrawn because Dischman was released from the facility into pretrial supervision pending further court proceedings, making the legal action a moot point. Dischman's lawyer at the time, J. Lansing Hills, suggested then that the decision was “some form of retribution or indirect response.”

Under that suspended program in Butler, the decision to recommend in-room visiting rights ultimately came from CYS and the court system, Johns said. Decisions were made on a case-by-case basis by CYS, which decides the length of each visit.

Butler program on hold

Butler County Prison Warden Joe DeMore confirmed the program has been on hold since 2018.

But, he said, the facility is prepared to start again whenever CYS is ready to resume the program. Johns said that before that could happen, there are “a lot of things to balance.”

“The (jail) has had many issues over the past several years that have occupied them,” said Johns, referring to the past issue of inmates smuggling synthetic marijuana into the jail and the 2018 housing of the suspected Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert G. Bowers at the county jail.

“That happens to all of us; we start dealing with multiple topics and issues. It takes time to sit down and meet, so that we can get this rolling again,” Johns said.

In Steiner's urging, he acknowledged the security difficulties undertaken to allow contact visits but he said the effort is worth it for the children.

Asked about the suspended program, Deputy Warden Jennifer Passarelli, who would oversee its possible continuation, said the program was “OK.”

She elaborated, “We've had good experiences. The inmates and administration agree it's been positive.”

Steiner also urges county jails to prioritize contact visits, even for those that are not involved with CYS.

“Those fathers give different, but equally important, contributions to children and their upbringing,” Steiner said. “Children will become imbalanced if they don't have both parents. These contact visits should be available to all children.”