HOUSTON – We’re a few days past Christmas but celebrating isn’t over. Harris County Sheriff’s Office and non-profit Navidad En El Barrio join forces allowing some inmates the opportunity to be with their kids.
For a little over an hour, incarcerated women involved with the jail’s empowerment center had a sense of normalcy.
The Women’s Empowerment Center is, “a new gender-responsive, reentry-focused facility. The center is a holistic environment suitable for women’s care, better preparing them for release and supporting positive health.”
“This is a lower-level corrections facility so most of them have non-violent type of offenses. Nothing egregious,” said Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. “It’s about trying to just find individuals that want to seek support and want help. Many of them may have charges that involve addiction or mental type issues where something’s occurred. We want to make sure that we’re being supportive as well.”
The program offers mental health support, job training, GED coursework, and substance abuse support.
“Every year there’s 90,000 children that has a parent that’s incarcerated in our jail,” Gonzalez said. “The odds of them at some point being involved in the justice system goes up tremendously because of the stigma of a parent that’s incarcerated. So, we’re trying to break some of those cycles.”
At Wednesday’s event, KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun met Christina Lara who has been in custody for three months. Lara got a finance certificate through the program and is working on getting her GED (General Educational Development), the high school equivalency exam.
“While I’m here I am taking advantage of everything they have to offer. I’m not saying I want to be here, but I have a little couple of things I want to get out of the way,” Lara said.
Navidad En El Barrio is founded by Israel ‘Izzy’ Gomez Jr. in 1987.
“I’m a cancer survivor and I really believe that I survived because he wants me to continue the mission of helping his children,” Gomez said. “I really believe that there’s so much good in our society and sometimes we judge people when we shouldn’t and to show our children and the residents here there are people that care about them, that pray for them, and we don’t want them to lose hope or faith.”
Sheriff Gonzalez said the goal behind the Women’s Empowerment Center is reducing recidivism. He’s hoping by giving the women more resources and counseling once they leave jail they don’t return.
Gomez echoes the same sentiment.
“Our message to them is we don’t want to see you here next year. You’re already bettering yourself. Get out there and then come back and see us,” Gomez said. “We want to see you again on the outside giving back.”
Lara said she isn’t taking the opportunity for granted.
“Just because I’m here does not make me a bad person. I made bad decisions, yes, but anybody can change. This is a second chance, most definitely to be a better person,” Lara said.