In 1960, approximately 330,000 people were behind bars in USA.  Since then, “three strikes” laws and “zero tolerance” policies wiped out many low level offenders. As a result America’s inmate population soared to 2.3 million having an enormous impact on the poor and minorities. There are now 70 prisons in New York State. Although 60 percent of all prisoners in New York State come from New York City, 95 percent of these prisons are located upstate, in remote rural towns and villages, like Attica, Dannemora, and Malone. Every Friday night about 800 people, mostly women and children, almost all of them African American and Latino, gather at Columbus Circle in Manhattan and board buses for the north. Depending on the destination, the whole visiting trip can take up to 25 hours. Most of the passengers make this trip every weekend for many years and in some cases decades.

The Visitors represent a unique and an under served community with common problems, joy and endeavors that has given birth to a subculture with habits, experience, dreams – and even a language – characteristics to themselves.