Allison Crews calls herself a cultivator of community wellness – hosting the public for various programs at a cinderblock building at the corner of busy US-15 and Waterworks Road. Take that side street, and you’ll discover the Farmville Detention Center, operated by a private prison company called CORE Civic.
“My first e-mail to Warden Crawford at the facility was August of last year, because I had noticed just so much more traffic. A lot of people would turn around in my lot late hours of the night, because they’re coming from long distances to pick up their loved ones, and it’s not marked at all!”
Since then, she’s accompanied many people to the site for hour-long visits through plexiglass and telephone receivers.
“That’s the beef I have. We should still be able to have visits in that common room that I’ve heard about.”
She knows that might mean more security at the front door.
“But I think families would be willing to do that if they could actually hug their loved one.”
And she points out that 25% of people living in huge dormitories where they eat, sleep and use the bathroom may be guilty of a civil offense— an immigration violation— but have committed no crime.
“The first gentleman that I met – he had been in the country 25 years. He was a crane operator. He helped build the hospitals at UVA. He had three children. One had scholarships to all sorts of colleges. Everybody I’ve encountered had been a hard worker. I know their families miss them. I know their families are struggling, because they’re usually the primary breadwinners, or just like any single parent household, it doesn’t operate the same.”
And she’s glad to take late night phone calls from desperate families or lawyers who represent someone being released on bond.
“Usually folks don’t have relatives nearby, or if they do they might not be documented.”
She picks them up and takes them to a meeting point where someone else can provide transportation or drops them off at the nearest bus station. She also watches, helplessly, as buses transport men who have agreed to their own deportation. They’re headed to the airport in Richmond, but she says many of the detainees are being sent to places other than their home country.
She also advocates for employees at the prison and calls some of them friends, including one administrator.
"I’ve known her most of my life. Her momma worked with my momma in the school system. I do value sending positive energy there, and that includes the people who work there and the people who run the place, because the more wellness among us, the better everybody gets treated.”
Treating them well is important, she says, because they’re more likely to treat prisoners kindly, and she adds that many of them are doing what they can from the inside. Still, she knows her actions will have little impact on the conduct of ICE nationwide.
“I’m all for abolishing ICE. I’m all for ending the facility, but I don’t realistically think that that’s something I will see," she says.
But does she feel like her presence is making a difference?
"I don’t know how else to think," she concludes. "If I didn’t feel it was, why would any of us get out of bed?”
She describes the vibe inside Farmville as heavy with many traumatized people in residence, but during her visits she says, prisoners seem happy to spend an hour with someone who cares.
To learn more about visiting prisoners at the Farmville Detention Center, e-mail karen@sojourners-ucc.org.
