(RIGHT to LEFT) Sara Rassier with boyfriend, Jerry, and son, Trevor.

On one side are the emotional needs of traumatized children. On the other is the hard reality of budgets and security.

This tug of war has played out in the life of Sara Rassier, a drug-related offender who was sentenced to 48 days in the Benton County Jail. Her two children, 13 year-old Jocelyn and 11 year-old Trevor, were sentenced to 48 days without their mom.

“She missed my sister’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve,”Trevor ticked off the days on his fingers.The fifth grader has bright blue eyes, freckles and a freshly cut blonde Mohawk. For all his nonchalance, it’s clear that Trevor is happy to have his mom back, even sneaking a hug while she talked.

“Forty-eight days away from my kids felt like a lifetime,” Sara, 32, said. “I left it up to them whether or not they wanted to visit me in jail. Right away, my daughter said she wasn’t coming because I put myself there. That was brutal, a reality-check.”

Trevor wanted to visit his mother until he learned that they would be separated by glass. “He asked if he would be able to hug or kiss me if I got sad, or if he could hug me at the end of the visit,” Sara recalled. “When I said no, he told me he didn’t think he could do that.”

Due to tight budgets and short inmate stays, most Minnesota county jails offer limited visiting opportunities and only non-contact visits. Visitors and offenders talk on telephones while viewing each other on video screens or through glass.

Minnesota’s ten correctional facilities offer longer visiting hours and strictly monitored contact visits. During prison visits, intimacy and physical contact is limited to a brief kiss on the cheek, a hug and a handshake at arrival and departure. Visitors are assigned a seat by staff, and offenders are placed across the aisle from their visitors. Children age six and under may sit beside the offender or on the offender’s lap.

According to Minnesota Department of Corrections Assistant Commissioner Terry Carlson, the average length of stay for a correctional facility inmate is 27 months. “It’s a long time to be away from family,” she said, “and we try to help offenders maintain contact.”

Child advocates, however, aren’t satisfied with the status quo. While they acknowledge that safety and security are primary considerations, they claim that impersonal visits cause undue hardship on innocent children. Unpleasant visiting situations may also strain relationships, which are important for a child to cope with the trauma of losing a parent.

In interviews with children of incarcerated parents and their caregivers, a 2006 Minnesota Council on Crime and Justice report found that prison visitation situations were often neither inviting to families nor conducive to children’s needs. “The end result is that the child and caregiver are punished in tandem with the incarcerated parent,” the study summarized.

After learning about “window visiting” practices, Jeremiah Hoffman left his children behind when he served three months in the Benton County Jail last year for domestic assault charges. He refused to allow his three kids, ages 4, 6 and 8, to see him.

“I didn’t want them to see the inside of a jail, looking at me through a piece of glass,” Hoffman said. “Not being able to hug them is worse than not being able to see them at all.” The primary caregiver for his children,Hoffman is back home but still dealing with their trauma. “They won’t hardly leave my side.”

Ebony Ruhland, director of research and evaluation for the Council on Crime and Justice, hopes for change. “Prisons can be safe and secure and still provide a friendlier atmosphere for visitors,” she said. “They could have books available or activities to give families something to do during the visitation time.”

But James Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association, said that jails don’t have the facilities or the staff to offer face-to-face visits. “These are short-term stays,” he said. “The majority of people are there for days rather than months or years.”

While most jail sentences indeed number days instead of weeks, counties can house some offenders for up to a year or more, which sparks a debate between child rights and tight budgets. As counties wrestle with post-recession revenues and loss of local government aid, elected officials cite conventional wisdom that there simply is no public appetite for further investment in jails.

Recent research, however, indicates that strengthening the ties between incarcerated parents and their children holds the promise of long-term savings by reducing recidivism. In Minnesota, about 36 percent of offenders released from prison are convicted of a new felony within three years. A pilot project with theMinnesota Department of Corrections indicates those rates can be reduced with expanded visitation opportunities for prisoners.

“Maintaining bonds with family and friends provides a support system for when they get out,” said Gary Johnson, director of reentry services for the Department of Corrections. “It has much more influence (on recidivism) than what we first imagined.”

Child advocates point to model visitation policies and parenting programs like those of the women’s correctional facility in Shakopee where 70 percent of the inmates are mothers. In addition to support groups and classes, a small number of children from infants to age 12 are allowed overnight visits with their mothers in a specialized living unit.

Due to the program’s success, prison administrators created an extended visitation program for teenagers. Since 2000, the daughters of Shakopee offenders have formed a Girl Scout troop that meets at the prison.

According to Carlson, only a fraction of the 600 Shakopee inmates are eligible for the program, which requires them to abide by strict standards. “They are under a lot of scrutiny and must be willing to contribute to a positive environment,” she added.