1422 Massachusetts Avenue SE, Washington DC 20003
202-544-2131

Kathy Patterson, former member of the D.C. Council and member of VSC Board from 2007 to 2011......in her own words.

Visitors' Services Center first crossed my radar screen during a D.C. Council performance hearing on March 7, 2001. It was my first round of performance and budget hearings as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and at that hearing I discovered not one but three amazing women providing leadership for three community organizations, each in a unique way serving the needs of some of our most challenging residents. They were Pauline Sullivan, executive director of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants; Susan Galbraith, representing Our Place, the newest of the three groups and the only one specifically serving women prisoners, and Ann Cuningham Keep, executive director of VSC. They testified about the issues including visiting policy at the D.C. Jail, release of prisoners without street clothes, and what had been a persistent issue: failure of the Department of Corrections to preserve vital documents needed by prisoners when they finally leave incarceration.

At that performance hearing, Ann described VSC's efforts to help inmates and their families, and noted VSC typically responded to 6,000 requests per year including tax returns, phone calls, picking up property and paychecks. On the records issue, she described how difficult it was for former prisoners to get a job without any identification papers.

The Committee - now renamed the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary - has oversight of the Department of Corrections, including the jail and the Correctional Treatment Facility. Over the four years I chaired the panel, I got to know Ann and her colleagues as champions for citizens who rarely have others speaking on their behalf. The committee's work included some very tough issues, from overcrowding and incidents of violence to a new classification system and controversy over the time of release of inmates. On each of these difficult issues I could rely on Ann and VSC to provide calm, practical advice - with the needs of inmates, the community and the Department of Corrections staff in mind.

After I left the Council at the end of 2006, I was pleased and honored when John Clark invited met to serve on the Board of VSC and I have had the privilege of getting to know the staff and other members of the board, all firmly committed to the organization's mission of helping inmates maintain their family and community ties.