Leslie Harris has missed most milestones in his daughter’s life whereas serving a decades-long sentence in Louisiana for armed theft and is unlikely to get out earlier than her promenade, her commencement and possibly even her marriage ceremony.
However for one evening at Louisiana’s largest maximum-security jail, Harris made his personal second together with his 17-year-old daughter whereas donning a customized tux and clutching a bouquet of roses: reuniting on the jail’s first father-daughter dance, the place they embraced to Stevie Surprise’s “Is not She Pretty” at a pink-heavy social gathering this month that was extensively shared on social media.
“Seeing her in a gown, crying and working to me simply broke me down,” stated Harris, who has 9 years left on his sentence, in a telephone interview from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. “It made me consider all of the years I missed out on in her life.”
God Behind Bars through AP
The lockup is the most recent within the U.S. to carry a daddy-daughter dance, together with one in Washington D.C. that was featured within the Netflix documentary “Daughters” final 12 months. In Louisiana, jail officers say the dance may grow to be one other custom on the rural lockup in Angola, which each and every October hosts the nation’s final remaining jail rodeo. It has greater than 6,300 prisoners, together with dozens of individuals on dying row, and is on the identical grounds the place a infamous lockup was transformed into an immigration detention facility in September.
Assistant Warden Anne-Marie Easley stated she hoped the dance would convey a way of hope that may be elusive in a prison the place many are serving decades-long or life sentences. For some males, it was an opportunity to reunite with their daughters for the primary time in months and even years – a chance to rebuild relationships and heal wounds. For others, it meant an evening the place they would not be seen as an inmate however relatively a dad.
The jail picked almost 30 inmates to take part resulting from good conduct, amongst different elements. Movies posted from the occasion confirmed fathers in tuxedos – full with pink boutonnieres – breaking down in tears as their daughters ran as much as them in sparkly clothes, shrieking with pleasure. They reunited in the midst of a pink carpet overlayed with petals, with breezy drapes hanging overhead. A dance house was setup within the jail’s Bible faculty.
God Behind Bars through AP 
The dance was placed on by God Behind Bars, which hosts different reunification occasions and spiritual providers in prisons nationwide. In movies the group posted earlier than the dance, some prisoners stated they wished to apologize for all of the years they missed. Others known as the dance an important jail go to of their lives.
The evening included the lads shocking their daughters with a line dance after weeks of observe. For Harris, one of the best half was when he and his daughter gradual danced to ‘Butterfly Kisses,’ a tune a few dad’s unconditional love for his daughter.
In that second, Harris stated recollections rushed again of life earlier than jail, when his daughter was simply 2 years previous. How she would sleep on his chest, play together with his hair and the way he would purchase her little clothes. Earlier than the evening was over, he gave her a Bible with passages he highlighted.
God Behind Bars through AP 
“That is actually the center of it on the finish of the day,” stated Jake Bodine, founding father of God Behind Bars. “Present these people who’s relying on them and as soon as they understand the burden of that, they are going to maintain themselves accountable for change.”
