The guys at the roofing supply company in Santa Ana are always giving co-worker Cynthia Richardson the business. What is it with you and inmates?
Her boyfriend is a felon and she writes him every day. She's been writing to another guy, a lifer in Folsom, for seven years. Framed pictures of them in prison garb are on a shelf behind her desk. One of her sons just got out of Tehachapi. The other will be sentenced next month. She has a couple of friends in Theo Lacy in Orange County. A niece's husband "went upstate" not long ago.
Richardson takes the ribbing in stride. But even when a complete stranger from the newspaper (like me) shows up at the row of commercial and industrial offices where she works and eventually gets around to asking her the same question with that same indelicate language, she's not the least bit put off.
For better or worse (more on that later), she's an open book on the subject. "I thrive on the prison system," she says. "The endless fight to make it better. It fascinates me."
So, while driving home one night a few months ago, something clicked. Her 26-year-old son Josh faced sentencing for burglary. Richardson thought that if he were married, a judge might keep him closer to home. His fiancee, Amanda, had been dating him for a year and was visiting him three times a week in prison.
Richardson, 51, remembers thinking: I can become an ordained minister.
She'd preside over Josh and Amanda's wedding here in Orange County before he was sent out. She needed to be a notary public, too, so she took a six-hour class and is awaiting her certificate.
Another thought hit her: If she could perform a marriage ceremony for her son, why not for other people?
Earlier this month, she took out a business license in Fullerton under the name "Jailhouse Weddings" and hopes to turn it into a moonlighting job. Not to make a lot of money -- because the couples usually don't have it -- but to do her bit for humanity.
An Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman says the system doesn't keep track of jailhouse weddings but says there have been a few in the last year.
So, are these marriages of love or practicality? Are they meant to influence judges and to ensure that couples get conjugal visits?
To an extent, yes, Richardson says. But that doesn't preclude romance.
"My ex-husband's wife met and married a guy who was already incarcerated. Most of these people are really in love," she says. "Most were involved prior to the other one going to jail."
