Help Offered To Inmates’ Families Visits To Boyfriend, Husband Spur Pair To Start Support Group

Pamela Allister was frightened and confused the first time she visited her boyfriend behind bars.

She’d never been near a jail before and had never known an inmate.

A 54-year-old social worker, Allister never even had a speeding ticket. Suddenly she was surrounded by immense concrete walls, talking to her beau through thick glass.

“That for me was the beginning of my introduction to this whole new world,” she says. “I was terrified.”

Allister, with the help of a former prisoner’s wife, now is creating an organization to support friends and family members of inmates.

When her boyfriend went to prison, Allister became part of what she calls the “invisible population” - the friends and family members of those behind bars.

For them, life can be a roller coaster of anger, helplessness and confusion as they watch the penal system swallow their loved one.

Left alone, they face enormous financial barriers and ostracism.

“I really wanted help but I couldn’t find it,” Allister says. “So, God helps those who help themselves.”

Allister and her partner in the project already have formed an advisory council, which will meet today for the first time.

Allister now believes there are far more people affected by the prison and jail system than most people realize.

The Kootenai County Jail alone has already locked up more than 8,000 people this year, leaving thousands more family members on the outside.

Allister said the support group will help members deal with their loss constructively and support their loved ones, but still go on with their lives.

They also want to teach families how to survive when the inmates are released. This, Allister believes, will help reduce repeat crimes.

“It is a great idea and I think it is a needed thing,” says Robert Smalley, a chaplain at the Kootenai County Jail and member of the advisory council. “These people need someone to let them know we care.”

Allister has two master’s degrees and has spent 33 years working as an educator, counselor and non-profit director.

She remembers talking to friends who had volunteered in prisons and jails. “I thought they were silly,” she says.

“I had a Pollyanna, Mary Poppins outlook - if you were good and worked hard and lived your life right nothing bad would happen to you,” she says, nestled in her Coeur d’Alene home decorated with an antique mandolin, grandfather clock and tea nook.

Allister met Glenn Carrari through their church in March 1994. They became close companions. But by November he was behind bars in Coeur d’Alene, accused of molesting his stepdaughter from a previous marriage.

Carrari has maintained his innocence and Allister has stood by him. Still, in July he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

“I experienced an intense grieving process,” Allister says. “I didn’t know what it was because no one was dead.”

She visited Carrari 74 times when he was in jail. In August he was sent to prison in Boise where he is being held in medium security. Allister now drives all night to squeeze in three visits during the weekend and then drives all night back home.

“I think the hardest part for me has been confronting my own prejudices,” she says. “I went into the jail thinking I was above those people.”

Then she saw the husbands, wives, mothers and children, all waiting to see a loved one in prison.

“They all just looked like me,” she says, blinking back tears.

Allister’s relationship with Carrari is now run by strict rules imposed by the prison.

When they first meet, she can kiss and embrace him for three seconds - no more.

No miniskirts are allowed and no bare arms. They can sit side by side, hold hands and talk only. Sometimes they pray.

Allister estimates she spends $2,000 a year trying to keep her relationship with Carrari alive.

From door to door, it is an 816-mile drive round-trip for a visit. Phone calls cost 65 cents a minute. She sends him $25 a month to buy toiletries, vitamins and stamps.

“Those of us who are in a relationship with someone in prison are in a box also,” she says. “It’s a bigger box, but it’s a box.”

Allister fumbled through her new world until finding a woman named Sandy to show her the ropes.

Sandy, a children’s counselor, asked that her last name not be used for fear she might lose her job. Her husband spent two years behind bars for grand theft and escaping from a work center.

There are so many questions family members of inmates have, she says.

How do I get to see my relative? How often can I visit? Can I write? Often they don’t even know what questions to ask. And there is always the fear of what others will think.

“I used to tell people my husband was living in Boise,” Sandy says. “They just assumed he was working there.”

One person tried to get her fired from her job after finding out.

Now that her husband is out of prison and living at home, Sandy’s insurance company has terminated both her car and homeowner’s insurance.

Chaplain Smalley said many women are left to support their children alone. The stress tears many families apart.

Sandy and Allister hope to pass on what they have learned to other people going through the same thing.

“We have the answers to those things. We know what to do now,” she says.

Allister envisions having a support group and a 24-hour volunteer hotline.

She and Sandy also want to work with the teenage children of inmates and educate the community.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: INMATE SUPPORT Anyone interested in participating in the program can call Chaplain Robert Smalley at the Kootenai County Jail at (208) 765-6232.