Bringing Scouting to Prison: Programs and Challenges

• Date: 01 June 1999
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885599079002008
• Published date: 01 June 1999
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE PRISON
Block /
JOURN
BRINGING
AL / June
SCOUTING 1999
TO PRISON
BRINGING SCOUTING TO PRISON:
PROGRAMS AND CHALLENGES
KATHLEEN J. BLOCK
University of Baltimore
Since 1992, several Girl Scout troops have been meeting within women’s corrections
facilities. Known as the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) programs, they took their
lead from the first program, established in Maryland. Incarcerated mothers and their
daughters participate as troop members, enjoying what are enhanced visitation pro-
grams as well as facility-based Girl Scout programs. This article reports results of a
survey of nine GSBB programs. Specific topics of interest are the extent to which the
Maryland model has been replicated in the other sites, the variations on the Maryland
theme found in the other sites, and the perceptions of program leaders regarding the
challenges of developing and running Girl Scout programs in prisons.
In November 1992, the first prison-based Girl Scout troop meeting was
held in the gymnasium of Maryland’s Correctional Institution for Women
(MCIW). Thus began the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) program, jointly
produced by the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland (GSCM), Maryland’s De-
partment of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Maryland’s Correc-
tional Institution for Women (MCIW), and the National Institute of Justice
(NIJ). With the primary objective of supporting the mother-daughter rela-
tionship through enhanced visitation and traditional Girl Scout activities, the
program seemed straightforward to those involved, yet it received more than
its share of media attention.
What began as a small demonstration project almost immediately ac-
quired national significance. In July 1993, the National Council of Juvenile
and Family Court Judges awarded the program the council’s annual Unique
and Innovative Project award. Attorney General Janet Reno counted it
among the “unique and promising demonstration prevention programs for
at-risk youth” in her 1993 report to Congress (Reno, 1993, p. 27). National
television and print media featured the story of Girl Scouts in prisons. Other
Girl Scout council directors and prison wardens contacted NIJ or the Mary-
land Girl Scout Council for information. Many visited the Maryland site,
then returned home and replicated the Maryland model.
THE PRISON JOURNAL, Vol. 79 No. 2, June 1999 269-283
© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.
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THE PRISON JOURNAL / June 1999
Within 3 years, several women’s corrections facilities hosted Girl Scouts
Beyond Bars programs. In November 1995, GSBB program representatives
from Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massa-
chusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
South Carolina met at an NIJ-sponsored Girl Scouts Beyond Bars Confer-
ence. They shared program information, evaluated problem areas, and con-
sidered directions for program growth. Many of the Girl Scout partners reas-
sembled at a GSBB Workshop conducted at the Serving Girls in At-Risk
Environments Conference sponsored by the Girl Scouts of the United States of
America (GSUSA) in November 1997. They were joined by Girl Scout per-
sonnel from other states interested in developing their own GSBB programs.
Today, new GSBB programs are underway or are on the drawing board.
The GSBB programs brought into partnership organizations with little
prior association. Although women’s prisons have long accepted the relig-
ious, educational, social, and other services provided by outside organiza-
tions, scouting and the GSUSA have not been among them. For their part, the
Girl Scouts have functioned, for the most part, within the mainstream com-
munity, with a few facility-based and special-needs programs. Begun in
1912, the Girl Scouts defined its mission as helping girls to develop to their
full potential, and to mature into competent and resourceful women. In 1917,
its first troop for physically disabled girls was organized at New York’s
School for Crippled Children. In 1940, troops from “institutions for people
with mental and social disabilities” began. (GSUSA, 1991, p. 10) In the last
decade, GSUSA has directed some of its attention to young people living in
high-risk areas. Through its National Center for Innovation, for example, it
has developed facility-based programs in public housing community centers,
homeless shelters, and detention homes (Task Force on Youth Development
and Community Programs, 1992), and has partnered with other service pro-
grams, such as Head Start (GSUSA, 1990). From the Girl Scout perspective,
the GSBB program is another facility-based program serving a unique
special-needs population.
Although the focus of the Girl Scout partners in the GSBB programs may
be on the girls, the GSBB programs address prison visitation issues that have
long been a part of corrections. Many incarcerated mothers receive few or no
visits from their children, in most cases because of the distant location of the
prisons or because the children’s caregivers may be unable or unwilling to
take the children to prison for a visit (Bloom & Steinhart, 1993; Feinman,
1986; Kiser, 1991). Yet, as Pollock (1998) observes, “Visitation is extremely
important to maintain bonds, encourage the mother to continue in some pa-
rental capacity, help the children alleviate anxiety about their mother’s
safety, and aid in reintegration” (p. 104). When they do visit, children

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typically find themselves in uncomfortable and adult-oriented visiting rooms
with little close interaction with their mothers (Bloom & Steinhart, 1993;
Johnston, 1994).
In response to this problem, some corrections facilities have developed
enhanced child visitation programs—programs with transportation pro-
vided, a child-oriented location, and close interpersonal contact permitted.
The GSBB programs qualify as enhanced child visitation programs. They
provide transportation of the girls to the corrections facilities to spend 1½ to 2
hours with their mothers at least once a month. While at the prison, the moth-
ers and their daughters have private time as well as structured troop activities.
After 6 years and numerous “replications,” some of the GSBB programs
have been described (Moses, 1995), and the Maryland program has been
studied (Block & Potthast, 1997, 1998).1 However, the overall variety of
GSBB programs has not been systematically examined. One might ask with
respect to these programs, To what extent has the Maryland model been repli-
cated in the other sites? What variations on the Maryland theme have the in-
dividual sites put into place? What are the perceptions of the program leaders
regarding the challenges of developing and running Girl Scout programs in
prisons?
To answer these questions, the author developed a questionnaire with the
input of GSBB program directors.2 The questionnaire focuses on the pro-
grams’ missions and goals, partnerships, structure and staffing, funding,
membership, troop activities, transportation and communication, the impor-
tance of program features, and program challenges. In the autumn of 1997,
questionnaires were mailed to the executive directors of the 11 Girl Scout
councils known to have operational GSBB programs. After they were com-
pleted by the GSBB program directors, 9 returned the questionnaires (see the
appendix). Of the programs, 5 that were represented were less than 2 years
old at the time of the survey, 3 began in 1995, 1 in 1994, and the oldest (Mary-
land) in 1992. Although most of the programs are too new to have undergone
systematic program evaluations, all of the respondents provided information
about their programs’...