Small Christmas Treats
The banal sounds of multiple televisions float down the sterile, white corridors of the Napa County Department of Corrections. Story in the Napa Valley Register.
There are no Christmas trees, lights or stockings here. For inmates, Christmas Day will be like any other day. Last week, however, the inmates received a little splash of holiday color in the form of bags filled with Christmas cards, hot chocolate and cookies donated by Butter Cream Bakery.
“No way!” one inmate exclaimed, at the receipt of a bag. “God bless you,” another called to the men delivering the bags.
Each year, parishioners from local Catholic churches — St. Apollinaris, St. John the Baptist and St. Thomas — work to fill the bags in a program called Cookies with a Prayer. A few church members distributed the 275 bags to the jail inmates and 50 to Juvenile Hall after students at St. John the Baptist School put the care packages together.
For many inmates, it may be the only holiday cheer they see, other than a menu that has some traditional holiday fare.
“It’s basically business as usual,” said Lenard Vare, director of the Napa County Department of Corrections. “Being a correctional facility, there’s not a whole lot we can do.”
Vare said inmate morale dips during the holidays, but just how much depends on the inmate. He noted that relatives of inmates also suffer when close family members are behind bars at a time that most families are gathering.
Jail staff members sometimes act as social workers, or for serious cases, make referrals for inmates to speak with professionals, he said.
“They understand the population they’re dealing with and try to treat them with a lot of dignity and respect,” he said.
Christine Camp, 26, is behind bars now, and said she misses decorating the tree, hanging stockings and putting cookies out for Santa.
She has a 5-year-old who will do those things without her this year, she said. “It hurts.”
Camp has been in and out of jail for much of her life and has spent three Chirstmas holidays behind bars.
For Christmas, her mom is sending her books to read in her effort to acquire her GED.
In the meantime, she was happy to accept a Cookies with a Prayer bag, covered with a drawing from one of the students at St. Apollinaris School.
Tom Kennelly, who with his wife, Susan, coordinates the Detention Ministries of St. John the Baptist and St. Apollinaris parishes, was a federal prosecutor for 10 years and also worked as a defense attorney.
His successful efforts as a prosecutor and unsuccessful work as a defense attorney landed many people in jail, he said.
“I figured it is time to do something positive for these people as a Christian,” he said. “Jesus said that when you visit someone in prison you have visited me.”
Kennelly, who was among those delivering the bags, called the efforts a “corporal work of mercy.”
“These are generally the forgotten people,” he said.
St. John’s also gathers gifts to give inmates’ children. Volunteers delivered those items Saturday and Sunday.
Inmates can mail the Christmas cards included in their bags to their families with postage the jail provides.
DJ Johnson, assistant director of corrections, said the inmates appreciate the effort at a time of year when incarceration can be even more unpleasant than usual.
“Anytime you’re away from your family during the holidays, certainly that’s stressful,” he said.
Suicides and suicide attempts within jails and prisons often rise during the holiday season, he said.
“Showing that someone cares might make a difference,” he said.
Jeffery Main, 28, of Napa, was grateful for the gift. He has spent many Christmases since 2000 in jail, or in the case of last year, prison. “This is kinda getting old,” he said.
He said charges against him have been dismissed and he expects to be paroled in a couple of weeks. But it will be too late for Christmas.
The hardest part of being in jail at the holidays is not being able to see his family or children, he said. “Nobody likes to be away from their loved ones,” Main said.
Jason Slusher, 28, was convicted of assault and will be in jail until March. He’d rather be with family, but as for the holiday plans in jail, he said, “We watch TV and wait for our court dates.”
One bright spot in the monotony is recent news that his girlfriend is pregnant with his child. It’s enough of a incentive to keep him from coming back to jail, he said.
“Hopefully, next Christmas will be different.”
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