Meet the Founder: Tanya Hornbeak
My name is Tanya Hornbeak, and for 26 years, I worked in behavioral health for the State of Arizona. I believed in systems. I believed in accountability. I believed that if you followed the rules, people would be treated fairly.
I had no idea how wrong I was.
Everything changed when the man I loved was sentenced to 20 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections. Overnight, I was forced into a system built on silence, retaliation, and punishment—not just for those incarcerated, but for the families who love them.
When I requested an investigation into misconduct, I learned firsthand what retaliation looks like. My visitation was suspended without evidence, explanation, or due process—simply for asking questions and refusing to stay quiet.
What hurt just as deeply was what I began to see all around me.
Families were struggling—financially, emotionally, and mentally—just to remain connected. The cost of phone calls, video visits, travel, gas, hotels, missed work, and commissary adds up quickly. I watched families choose between paying bills and seeing their loved one. I saw parents, partners, and children slowly pushed out of connection—not because they didn’t care, but because they simply couldn’t afford to stay present.
I believe with everything in me that communication and visitation are lifelines. Staying connected is essential to mental health, healing, and survival—for both the incarcerated individual and their family. Separation should never be weaponized through cost, distance, or retaliation.
So I stepped in where I could.
I began driving families to visitation, helping them understand confusing and often weaponized policies, and walking them through grievance procedures, civil rights violations, and retaliation. I stood beside families when they felt powerless, unheard, and exhausted from fighting a system that seemed designed to break them.
Arizona Prison Stops Nothing was created from lived experience, pain, and unwavering love. This work is deeply personal. I know what it feels like to fight for connection, dignity, and basic humanity in a system that resists all three.
My mission is simple: to make sure families are informed, supported, and never forced to choose between survival and love.
Because prison stops nothing.
Not communication.
Not advocacy.
And not the fight for dignity.
