Texas Inmate Families Assocation

Cecile and I went to a TIFA meeting on Tuesday to meet some of the family members of prisoners currently in the system. Bryan Collier, the director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Parole Division answered questions and explained the process of parole to the families.

Cecile noticed that most of the family members attending the meeting were female. We ran into Pat Perez, who I had met last year. She has two sons, Hector and Leon, who have both been in prison; however, Hector is a success story (he is now a manager at Jiffy Lube) taking care of his two children while Leon is now back in jail again because of a incident involving a stolen car.

We also met Veronica Quiroz, whose father and husband are both in prison. Her father is in maximum security prison because he accidentally shot and killed his friend in a struggle with a third man. He faces deportation after the completion of his sentence because he is Mexican, but all of the members of his family are living in the United States. Veronica said that she was unwilling to make excuses for her father's actions, but hoped that he would be able to stay in Texas after he had served his sentence.