Harvey Galler: The Unseen Impact of Incarceration on Families

Times Beach and Early Secrets

When Harvey Galler was growing up, his family lived through something most people only read about in history books. They were residents of Times Beach, Missouri, before it became one of America’s most notorious environmental disasters.

“Yeah, so the city couldn’t necessarily afford to pave the roads, so the roads were gravel. So they were paying this private contractor to just spray this defoliant and other stuff to keep the gravel and stuff down,” Harvey told me. “And he was getting this chemical from somewhere outside of Kansas City and spraying it on the roads. And then ultimately, it was toxic. It killed a bunch of horses. People started getting poisoned from it.”

The family was there when it happened. Harvey was just a toddler, but the dioxin contamination would eventually force the entire town to be evacuated and demolished. They moved to Reston, Virginia, but by then Harvey was already learning to keep family secrets.

His father had gone to prison when Harvey was two or three for armed robbery. When neighbors in their new community asked about dad, the family had a cover story ready. “We just decided to just say he was working out of town. Which kind of was true and then we’d go to visit him on the weekend. I mean, he did have a prison job out of town but he couldn’t come home,” Harvey explained.

But Harvey felt the weight of that deception. “I always felt like kind of that weird feeling that I knew that I wasn’t telling the truth. I had all this stuff going on as a kid and nobody really knew about it.”

Drugs at Eight Years Old

The family instability was just beginning. Harvey’s mother married several different men over the years, many struggling with their own addictions. One stepfather, described as “a carnie and a biker,” introduced Harvey and his brother to drugs when Harvey was still in elementary school.

“I was like eight or nine the first time. I was like 13 or 14 when I was allowed to inhale marijuana. They were like blowing it in my face and like my brother’s face, like filling up the bathroom and like here guys like this,” Harvey said. “And so it was normalized. That was normalized for me very, very early.”

By age 12, Harvey was snorting heroin. The normalization of drug use in his household, combined with his naturally questioning nature, drew him deeper into substances that even his drug-using family members avoided.

School became a struggle. Harvey was expelled and suspended repeatedly, though he was determined to graduate high school. His grandparents on his mother’s side provided stability and became the father figures he needed. “Ultimately like my grandparents are the reason why I graduated from high school because they were the people that I looked up to and the people that like I wanted to be able to look down and say wow he’s doing a good job,” he said.

The Revolving Door

After graduation, Harvey fell into the pattern that traps so many people with addiction histories. In and out of prison, mostly on drug-related charges and parole violations. Each time he got out, he’d make plans for change, but reality hit hard at the gates.

“For the most part, people when they’re getting out, they always talk about all the changes they’re going to make. Even prior to months prior to leading up to, you know, they start planning. Like everybody’s New Year’s Eve,” Harvey explained. “But once you hit those gates, reality hits. And you realize then that all these plans that you made on this timetable are not going to fall into place because the world is not going to work on that.”

One particularly frustrating experience involved a probation officer who seemed determined to set Harvey up for failure. Three weeks after getting out, Harvey had found a job selling newspapers. When he reported it to his probation officer, she said it wasn’t lucrative enough and ordered him to find another job. He found work at a restaurant while keeping the newspaper job. Then he found an even better position with benefits and wanted to leave the newspaper job.

“I took this job and now she violated me for job hopping,” Harvey said. The system designed to help him reintegrate had become another trap.

Survival Skills Behind Bars

During his last prison stint, Harvey developed a different approach. He largely disconnected from the outside world to focus on his time. “I communicated with a few people, but I wasn’t on the phone all the time. It wasn’t an everyday thing. I would call maybe once twice a week,” he said.

He also became a tattoo artist, which dramatically changed his status in prison. Despite carrying a sex offense charge from a situation where he was aware of but didn’t report statutory rape involving his girlfriend and a teenager, Harvey’s tattooing skills and established reputation protected him from the usual treatment sex offenders receive.

“You become like a desirable commodity as soon as you move into the wing,” he explained. The irony wasn’t lost on him. “It really is kind of demeaning to have to call home and ask a family member to send you money. And especially when you know that they have children and they’re trying to make ends meet and things.”

The Washington University Program

At Pacific Correctional Center, Harvey heard about something that caught his attention during orientation. Washington University had a college program for incarcerated students. Unlike the usual prison programming, this piqued his interest.

“This guy asked me, can you tattoo? I didn’t have any money on my books. He offered to like put a bunch of money on my books and I was like, I can do this. I lied my ass off. I lied my way all the way through this and I was nervous as shit. And it worked out,” Harvey said about his first tattoo in prison.

But the college program represented something different. Harvey spent months preparing, studying math books from the library for two to three hours every night. He had to separate himself from the tattoo business and the yard politics to focus on academics.

The program required real sacrifice from everyone involved. Professors, teaching assistants, tutors, and administrators drove 45 minutes from Washington University to Pacific, Missouri, sometimes using ride-sharing programs because they didn’t have cars.

“The program that ultimately ended up being the best choice I made while I was in prison,” Harvey said. Despite daily battles with correctional officers who weren’t supportive of the program, Harvey earned his associate degree in 2019 while incarcerated.

Building Something Different

Since his release in 2019, Harvey has focused on helping others navigate reentry challenges. He’s working on documentary projects and workshops aimed at bringing awareness to the real barriers people face coming home from prison.

The college program continues expanding, now including a women’s cohort at Vandalia. Harvey understands that education behind bars faces resistance because it’s not about creating compliant workers. “They’re not teaching people to go out and be like productive in the labor force, they’re teaching people to be creative thinkers. That’s different.”

Harvey’s story shows how family trauma, addiction, and systemic barriers can create cycles that seem impossible to break. But it also demonstrates that when real opportunities exist, people can grab them and build something entirely new.