Program will provide mentors to inmate's children
State will use $3.8 million grant to work with private charities.
By MATT CURRY of the ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS — A new statewide mentoring program aims to stop the cycle of children following their parents into the
Texas prison system.
Gov. Rick Perry and other officials on Thursday announced a $3.78 million state grant to launch Amachi Texas, which uses
faith-based and secular partners such as Big Brothers Big Sisters to match children of inmates with adult role models.
"It is a significant day for a lot of children in this country who have one or both parents in jail, or who have been
in jail," said former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr., who created the Amachi program.
"This offers them more hope that they will not end up where their parents are."
Goode, the first black mayor of Philadelphia, grew up while his father was in prison but credits a church pastor and
his wife for mentoring him. He was inspired to create Amachi — a Nigerian word meaning "Who knows what God has brought
us through this child" — after visiting a Pennsylvania prison in 2001.
There, he spoke with an incarcerated father, son and grandson who met each other for the first time behind bars. Goode,
a Baptist minister, was told by the grandson that he also had a son he'd never seen but expected to one day meet him behind
bars.
About 7.3 million children in America have a parent in prison, on probation or parole, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Justice.
About 70 percent of them will follow their parents into prison. About 70,000 children in Dallas-Fort Worth have an incarcerated
parent, Bureau of Justice statistics show.
Officials said Texas will be the first to take Amachi to a statewide level.
"Amachi Texas will mentor 1,300 children who have a parent behind bars, build infrastructure across the state to reach
thousands more in the future and, I am confident, serve as a national model as to what can be accomplished when caring adults
take the time to be a mentor," Perry said.
The program, headquartered in Arlington, is a partnership between the governor's office, the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, the One Star Foundation and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
