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The family studies department was attracted to the idea of working with the prison population because, as Kazura notes, "it encompasses everything that family studies as a discipline can do, and unites the different strands of our work." It involves research on people of all ages: the parents of inmates, the inmates themselves, who are largely young adults, aged 18-30, and the children of inmates. "We were also excited about the outreach component, connecting family members with programs in their community," Kazura says. "That is essential to the university's land-grant mission."

Kristina Toth '91, the program's administrator, is very clear about the impact of incarceration on families. In effect, the family also gets sentenced with the inmate, she says. "No one thinks about the children. They are a forgotten population," she adds.

Toth, a tall brunette, became interested in the field of corrections through her uncle, who is an assistant chief at Interpol. At UNH, she majored in sociology with a concentration in justice studies, and as a junior did an internship with the Portsmouth police department, where she was assigned to an officer who specialized in juveniles. "It became clear to me that you could do the most with that population in terms of changing behavior--you could really help prevent them from committing major crimes," she says.

Toth, along with Kazura, Kristine Baber, chair of the family studies department, and Mary Temke, who is now retired from Cooperative Extension, were instrumental in getting the program up and running, begging cast-off furniture from family and friends, creating a parenting library and coordinating volunteers to paint bright murals in the two visiting rooms.

Between 15 and 20 inmates are now receiving visits from their children. The number varies because the child's caregiver must agree to bring the child for visits, and this sometimes turns out to be an obstacle. Often caregivers don't want the children to be anywhere near a prison environment, or their relationship with the inmate is strained. Sometimes, transportation is an issue.

Inmates whose children don't visit but who want to maintain contact are encouraged to write weekly letters to them. If they are part of a support group, they can also participate in a books-on-tape program, where they are videotaped reading a children's book as if they were reading it to their child.

"The books-on-tape piece encourages literacy while helping the child to maintain contact with their parent," Toth says. For her, the bigger picture is stopping children from eventually becoming inmates themselves. "Ninety percent of Laconia's inmates are men, and probably about 50 percent of them are fathers," she says. "Research has shown that an absent father often leads to early delinquency, early pregnancy and poor academic skills. The program helps children of inmates by giving them the opportunity to have their dad or mom in their lives." She adds, "If a child comes here and has a good visit, a healthy visit and is shown love, then it's all worth it."

It's a Friday morning, and 10 fathers are sitting around a table talking about being parents. Lin Crowley, a warm woman in her 50s, is facilitating the support group. Crowley, who has a master's degree in counseling, insists that her best credentials are her three children, the youngest of whom is a junior at UNH.

The state prison at Laconia is a medium-security facility, and these fathers all wear prison drab and live within the razor-wire fence. Laconia primarily serves nonviolent offenders, and approximately 85 percent of the inmates have committed crimes associated with drugs and alcohol.

These men talk a lot about the person they were when they were drunk or high, and the person they are without drugs or alcohol. The program also offers classes on issues related to parenting, such as anger management and family finance, and these components have clearly left an impression.

In the rest of the prison, inmates are addressed by the prisoner number on their uniform: here, in the program's classroom, they are addressed formally---Mr. Libbey, Mr. Harrison, Mr. Laraway---as befitting men who are trying to better their lives. They mill about freely before the group begins, getting coffee and chatting with the staff.

When the men talk, it becomes clear that they face a substantial handicap when trying to learn to be good fathers, since most of them are products of poor parenting themselves. Jeffrey Libbey is 37 years old and is serving two to five years for second-degree assault. A short, compact man with close-cropped hair, he has an air of determined resignation about him. The program, he says, has taught him patience. "Any time I'm pissed off, instead of going off, I think of my kids and how I need to get the hell out of here," he says.

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