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A story of gendered mass incarceration
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release A story of gendered mass incarceration maggie andresen
Š2015 shutterbabe productions temple university photojournalism Photographs, design, editing, and production: Maggie Andresen Printed and bound in Philadelphia, PA Fireball Printing 3237 Amber St Box 3 Floor 5, Philadelphia, PA 19134 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retreival systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover photo of Riverside Correctional Facility by Maggie Andresen This book is a short anthology of the female experience through incarceration; exploring life before, during, and after. Some surnames have been withheld to protect anonymity.
To Dr. Renaya and Petrena, to Dr. Traylor, To dr. trayes, To my parents. to every woman who shared her story. to every woman incarcerated in the United States of america today.
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C contents
14. Forward
52. Wynne
16. I’m Free
56. Noelle
26. Cosas de Mujeres
60. Marjorie
28. Roisin
64. Inside the Walls
32. Laura
66. Latifa
346 Lynn
72. Sonia
42. Tashinyka
76. A Final Word
48. Melissa
Left and previous page: A woman attending Release: An Exhibition and Program Series of Gendered Incarceration by the Bread and Roses fund, supported by the Leeway Foundation. February 26, 2015.
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forward It started in a room. An idea to help disenfranchised women who were silenced by a system that let them fall through the cracks; a system that incarcerates women at a rate triple that of men since the 1980s. There is a massive lack of trauma informed, gender responsive care given to these women before, during, and after sentencing. It’s devestatingly easy to say that all people in prison deserve to be there, so easy to forget that they are humans with an often tragic past, a fragile present, and trembling hope for the future. We forget that it isn’t easy to come back from prison. Without reentry programs, a support structure, reliable housing, and transportation, these women fall right back into the areas they were triggered in; only to re-offend and contribute to the revolving door that is recidivism. National statistics read that following release, almost seventy percent of all offenders will be re-arrested within the first six months of freedom. Transitioning from a strict, highly regulated schedule to one dictated by free will tests all the strength these women have. The struggle of getting to court-mandated outpatient programs and job interviews, probation officer meetings, and sometimes picking up medication from rehabilitation centers are overwhelming to say the least. Transportation, something most people take for granted, is a massive hurdle that very often leads to these women inadvertantly violating probation or parole, and ending up back on the inside. Nothing is handed to them, not with their past. Team I’m Free is trying to change that. The program begins inside of Riverside Correctional Facility, so that relationships built inside of the walls can be continued outside of them. Petrena Young and Dr. Renaya Furtick Wheelan work together in these special workshops designed to change these women’s perception of themselves from self-hating to dignified. The cycle of recidivism stems from abuse to the self and from the self. I’m Free seeks to end the abuse by being active in changing these attitudes from the inside out. When these women need clothing and necessities, Renaya and Petrena are there - wares in hand. A ride home from prison, a lift to a mandatory appointment, a friend in court; Team I’m Free is there. One day they hope to offer housing to women returning home, but the right funds need to be present for such a goal. If there’s one thing I learned from the women that I spoke to during this project, it’s that incarceration is not limited to one type of person. Anyone and everyone is succeptible to its detriment. America holds five percent of the world’s population, and twenty-five percent of it’s prisoners. There is something very wrong with that statistic; it is time to change our nation’s obsession with puntitive measures. The 1970s shut-down of state-run mental health facilities left thousands of Americans without help or home; it is estimated that almost half of America’s prisoners are mentally ill. Locking up sick people should not be an option, locking up drug addicts and not offering rehabilitation should not be an option. The use of solitary confinement and administrative segregation, which violates the Geneva Convention on Human Rights, should not be an option. In the last thirty years, women in America have been incarcerated at an almost four-hundred-percent increase. Mandatory drug minimums and property crimes are responsible for this spike. When these women come home, they are often forced into a traditional feminine role directly following their reentry. These women are in no way prepared to resume their status as mothers, sisters, and daughters when they don’t have access to support systems that gradually help their transition from incarceration to freedom. And what is freedom to these women? The ability to wake up and eat on their terms, to work a job that they chose, to see their families on a regular basis, to be at peace with their incarceration and work through their trauma. The dates of incarceration listed for these women is for their most recent offence only - most have been victims of the system for a large number of years. These are their stories, in their own words, on their own terms.
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Dr. LaTosha Traylor (Right) and Dr. Renaya (Left) at a Team I’m Free meeting, held on Temple University’s campus, in Gladfelter room 553. These meetings generally consist of fundraising ideas, I’m Free is a non-profit running out of pocket for Petrena and Renaya. January 23, 2015.
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i’m free
A conversation with the founders
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pEtrena young I’m Petrena Young, co - founder of I’m Free, Females Reentering Empowering Each Other. The inspiration was ignorance, and realizing that I knew very little about it, and I know how many people don’t know. We made it a point to get the word out that women are struggling and women have a lot of trauma that they’re dealing with; and that a lot of people incarcerated didn’t necessarily do something to be there. So we started I’m Free four years ago so that we could make a difference with the women and that we could make an impact globally – letting people know what the real issues are. The more that I’ve learned about women who are in, usually they’ve not had a good life. They’ve dealt with childhood trauma, sexual abuse, physical abuse from people who’ve said that they love them. There’s been drug addictions, just one thing after another that has led her into a life of prison and the revolving door that jail and incarceration is. What’s unique about I’m Free is that we work with the women inside too, and build that relationship so it can continue on the outside. What we found is that the women who have been most successful after their release are the women who have support. It could be family support, community support, just getting in with a different crowd – being around people who want better for you. I’m Free offers that safe place for women. A space that they can come to and be themselves and learn a different way of being. A lot of people are going right back to the place and the things that are triggers for them. If you’re not introduced to a different way of doing things, if you’re not introduced to a different setting, it can be really difficult to walk the straight and
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narrow every day; especially if that’s what you’ve grown up with and that’s all you know. This is your life – what’s normal and common for you and I has not necessarily normal for them. That’s something I’ve learned over the years too – my way of looking at things is not necessarily their way of looking at things; we’ve come to it from two very different perspectives. But I know that there is a way out of it, with a lot of support, and I’m Free tries to do that for these women. Every day I learn something new from the women. I think it’s really a two way street. We learn from them, they learn from us. We grow together because we don’t go in thinking we have all the answers; that we’ve done it all right, that you have to do what we do. No. Every day is a struggle for everyone, we just have different struggles. So just being with the women every day keeps me coming back the next day. People are starting to get it. Not we in the circles who are dealing with reentry or are
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currently incarcerated, or people who haven’t been in but who are charged with something and might be feeling the same effects as somebody who has spent months or years in prison. I think more awareness, even with T.V shows like Orange is the New Black, bring awareness to the issues women are facing. We’re glad that however people are learning about the system and learning about the struggles that women are facing that they’re learning them.
Left: Petrena and the social work head of RCF at a town hall meeting on mass gendered incarceration.
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dr. renaya furtick wheelan I’m Dr. Renaya Furtick Wheelan, my position
is the Executive Director of I’m Free and I’m also a co-founder. I think the inspiration for me came with having a number of relatives in and out of the system. Nieces, nephews, siblings, and people that I dated were there. After a while I felt like, “What’s happening in the system allows for the incarceration of a lot of our young folk?” We had an opportunity at one point to see a friend’s dissertation, and in that she talked about the number of persons who are incarcerated – and those persons she talked about were for the most part men. So I said, “I know that women are hitting the system, so why aren’t people talking about that?” Well a part of why people aren’t talking about it is because it’s taboo. Women should not leave their families, women should not leave their children, women should be perfect. We have this ‘S’ on our chests like we’re supposed to be superwomen, but we get into trouble. So once I saw that I asked the question, “Why weren’t women in the study?” And her response was there were – they just didn’t stay. My follow up question, “Well then why didn’t they stay? What about your study did not allow them to feel comfortable enough to stay?” And that’s what we are finding when we talk to people who are doing this work, engaging in this community, there’s not a lot of stuff out there for women to keep them engaged and to keep them involved. When they leave that system they’re still carrying all their guilt and shame and all of the stigma of being a woman in that system. After family members serving time, and listening to the sister doing her presentation, and then researching, there was definitely
a need to have people understand what’s happening in the system for women. There was an 888% increase for women going into the system within the last thirty years. That’s drastic – there’s something fundamentally wrong about that. As women we are relational beings, that’s how we interact. Our thinking when we designed this was if we touch her on the inside first, if we get to know her on the inside maybe we will have a greater chance of having her stay connected with us. So that when she makes that transition from incarceration to home she’ll have that support team. We also know that once they’re released if they don’t get into a community, if they don’t begin to connect, if they don’t get that family support we’re going to loose them again. It was important for us to make sure that she knew that once she left that jail, we would be there to support her regardless of what she did or not didn’t do – because there are some sisters who were there that did nothing, and happened to get caught up in the system. It took some time for them to get out, we had one woman who was there for seventeen months, they can keep you for almost two years before you get a trial date, so she was there and after that it was “Oh, I’m sorry we made a mistake, you can go home,” but that’s seventeen months of her life spent away from her daughter, her mom, her family; it’s important for people to know that. On some levels it’s worse for women returning to the community, and people might argue that point but I think because immediately when we are released as women we immediately have to take our
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responsibilities back. Especially if we have children, or if you’re the head of a household, all these things are your responsibility. Immediately people want to give that back to you, but what if you aren’t ready? The anxiety around having to take back those responsibilities, the responsibility around having to pay those bills. For the most part when women are behind the walls for substance abuse they’re not getting the treatment, so what happens is they come home and they are faced with all of that. Some of these women are returning home and their boyfriend or their husband, their boo, their significant other is involved in the drug life. Immediately you don’t have any money, so ‘let me help you out,’ not by keeping you positive or on the right track but ‘let me help you out’ by giving you a bag or two to help you get on your feet. Well that’s not helping her out because then she begins to get caught up in that cycle again and she recidivates. Or she’s trying to juggle so many different things as a slave to that system. You come home and you have to get a GED, but what if she can’t read at a seventh grade reading level? There’s no way they can get it without the support. Or you have to go to a welfare to work type program, and you have to see your PO, oh and by the way if you have mental health challenges you have to make sure you do your treatments and your therapy, and if you have a drug addiction on top of that you have to do those appointments. Well there’s seven days in a week. You’re asking them to do all these things and they’re not used to time management and don’t know what to do. They freeze. And when they freeze they
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woman in your core and let us help you to develop that. So you can shine in your brilliance. Some people argue with me about brilliance, I don’t see brilliance as just somebody who can write or regurgitate some kind of information; I see brilliance as spiritually brilliant. If this sister was able to stay on the streets and do what she did while she was out there and didn’t die – she was able to bounce back from that no matter how painful, that’s brilliance to me. That’s the thing that I get, being able to see her smile again; watching from the first day she comes to our class of cognitive training and shifting where she cant even say who she is, to the last day when she’s talking about how she is brilliant and beautiful – that’s the thing that makes me happy, that’s the thing that pays me a hundred fold.
don’t go see their PO, and then there’s a violation. She may not have done anything wrong but she didn’t go see her PO and now she’s back in jail on our tax dollars. One of the things we try to help the women with is to get them to recognize that even though there are a lot of balls in the air to figure out; we can talk to drug court, welfare, whatever those things are, let’s talk to the people asking you to do these things. But some of them don’t have that skill set. It’s difficult for them, so we try to make it easier for them to make the transition. We try to be that support for them, but if they don’t have that support unfortunately nine times out of ten they’re going to recidivate. The thing that keeps me going and the internal reward for me is being able to
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pour in, because some of these women, the sisters – I don’t care what color or shape, you’re my sister – some of them don’t know what unconditional love is; they’ve never experienced it. Someone has always been taken from them. Abused them. For me to be able to go in and touch them and show them that there are people out here who don’t want anything from them, they just want to pour into them. We want to get them to the point where they are acknowledging who they are as women. If they can see past all of the pain and the trauma, the victimization, then maybe we can get her to recognize that she has strength in her – that she can be the great woman. Is it going to take some time and effort, is she going to have to put energy into it? Yes, we tell them all the time it’s not going to be an easy thing, we really need you to recognize who you are as a
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People will say that she did something to get incarcerated. What we want to keep in mind and what we’re fighting to get people to recognize is that gender responsive, trauma informed care is very important. When a woman presents and she is inside that prison, if we can look at her from the door not knowing much about her as a sister who may have been traumatized. If we can get people to see that and not look at her as a criminal, not look at her as a victim, not look at her as someone who is a throwaway person – because we don’t believe in throwaway people; if we can just get people to begin to see who she is and how she operates. Even in that painful spot. If we can begin undo some of that so she can show up in her glory, that’s what we want to do at I’m Free.
Top left: Petrena and a member of Team I’m Free at Release: An Exhibition and Program Series of Gendered Incarceration by the Bread and Roses fund, supported by the Leeway Foundation. February 26, 2015. Bottom Right: Dr. Traylor and her partner at the Release exhibit held at the Leeway Foundation on Walnut Street. February 26, 2015.
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Left: A man attends the Release exhibit held at the Leewar Foundation on Walnut Street. February 26, 2015. Right: Petrena and a member of Team I’m Free discuss the planned summer Bra and Panty campaign, which will collect donated underwears to women being released from prison. January 23, 2015.
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Left: Petrena and Renaya in attendence at the Beyond the Bars: Transforming (In)Justice conference at Columbia University. March 7, 2015. Right: Renaya listens to the chanting of an opening ceremony at the Town Hall Meeting to discuss Gendered Mass Incarceration. March 29, 2015. Next page: A member of Team I’m Free attending the Beyond the Bars: Transforming (In)Justice conference at Columbia University. March 7, 2015.
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Women’s things What follows are the personal accounts of women who have been and are still inside of the system. Asked a single set of questions, they spoke of their lives before, during, and after their incarceration. Their own lives in their own words. These are some of the bravest women I have ever met. Their will to live is startling and brilliant, it shows in the scars they bear both physically and mentally. They are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and sisters. Some are the first in their family to know incarceration, others fell into a pattern that had consumed their mothers before them. Each woman spoke of their time served with similar poignency, a desire to share their story. There is something very comforting in telling a stranger the worst of your troubles, and that is exactly what these women shared with me their horror stories. Their abuse, their sadness, their pain. Through their pain I see a strength that transcends bars; it goes above and beyond their status of freedom. These women are fighters, they cherish their freedom and don’t take anything they have built in their lives for granted. Without the tenacity and strength that these women cultivated on the streets, who knows how they would have lived through their incarceration. The role of a female in today’s gender-ridgid society has developed over the years to a place where we should be equal to men - and are, at least on paper. Gendered incarceration is an experience unique to the female body. It is depicted on television as familial, and we are taught that it is easier to experience prison as a female than as a male. This is a lie. Dignity is taken from everyone going through the system, but a special kind of dignity is taken from incarcerated women. These are the females who are societally bound to be taking care of their children, to be raising families, to embody the impossible double standard of demure and sexy. For a woman to violate this standard by going to prison is like shattering the glass; simultaneously it destroys her family life and binds her incarceration to the gendered stereotype of a broken female. These women are not broken; they may need the help of outside support systems but there is nothing wrong with their make up - and they should not be treated as such. To quote one sister on her feelings of the misconceptions surrounding female incarceration, “Women put on many masks.” They mask themselves in order to adapt to situations out of their own control. Women are masters of disguise, and have to be in order to survive. The freedom is in taking off the mask. Here are the things of women, unmasked and unhindered. Cosas de mujeres.
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COSAS DE MUJERES
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transition and reentry My name is Roisin O’Neil, I’m currently twenty-nine years old and I was incarcerated for five years. I had an idealistic childhood – pretty fairytalesque. No severe trauma. No family abuse. Plenty of happy holidays, family events, a very family oriented childhood, it was great. I was completely ignorant to the world of incarceration prior to being incarcerated. Looking back, I wish I knew more, but it didn’t affect me therefore I didn’t care, which is terrible to say now. I went out to a bar and I was drinking, I went out to have a cigarette. Long story short, I decided to drive home, and I never made it home. I got into a car accident and caused the crash that ended another woman’s life. I was charged with vehicular homicide, which carries a three to six year sentence, mandatory minimum. I was given a sentence of five to ten years. There are a lot of misconceptions. One of the main ones would probably be that we’re treated with more emotional support on the inside because we’re female, that it’s
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easier to do time as a female. Just because the media, and there’s more education about male incarceration. Movies, T.V., everything focuses on the masculine side, therefore it’s like female incarceration doesn’t exist. It’s glorified. I have one friend who actually said “After I watched the show Orange is the New Black I felt better knowing the kind of place you were at,” and was just shocked. I’m sure there’s vague similarity, but until you walk in those shoes you can’t really comment on it. But there was definitely a glorified perception of what it is to be incarcerated. Not everybody who’s incarcerated is a bad guy. I had the misconception before I was incarcerated that if you were in prison that you probably deserved to be there. It’s the beautiful irony, I can say it’s beautiful because it’s mine. But not everybody is a bad guy, things happen. I think that the judgment that comes with the stigma of being incarcerated should be pulled back a little bit, I think we all need to be a little more understanding. I have the strongest family support system. And I have
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Roisin 29 Served
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State Correctional Institution (SCI) Cambridge Springs riverside Correctional facility 5 years Vehicular homicide
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The prison didn’t do much to help me transition. They’re trying to start a reentry program, but being out – I’ve been out for five months, and were it not for my family and friends and groups like I’m Free, I don’t know what I would have done. I was not prepared emotionally, financially, anything. You’re thrown back into the world that you’ve been gone from for so long. The prison doesn’t tell you what you’re about to go through at all. You get your check for whatever money you saved while you were away, you’re told to go to this meeting, that meeting, be here, be there, don’t mess up or you’ll go back to jail. If it weren’t for my family and friends and people like I’m Free, who would have taken me to my meetings that I had to be at? If I didn’t make it, I would be back in jail. It’s very easy to see why recidivism is so high, and the people helping recidivism are the prisons themselves. It’s a culture shock for someone who was once part of this culture to be taken away from it, and thrown back into it with no warning. The system is a part of it’s own demise.
some pretty loyal friends. Just at mail time knowing someone would write me, and that didn’t get old - all five years till the day I left. My friends and family. There’s an overall protocol that the officers of the state have to follow regardless of female to male prisoner.s I do know that there were more privileges taken away from female prisoners. Males retaliate more, males will act while females in my experience are more eager to take the peaceful route and not fight. So more female privileges were taken because they were afraid of male riots, and we would just talk and hope that things would work out. Women are taken advantage of more. Something as simple as commissary. Commissary is your livelihood while you’re incarcerated, so taking away shampoo; something so simple in the free world is a big deal in there. For the men they retaliated, and they striked and didn’t buy commissary; but for us they took it away and we didn’t get it back. For a lot of the women it was a big deal. Being locked down. They fed off our emotions more than our ability to act.
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There’s something extremely moving about just knowing that people care. Knowing people wanted me to do well did wonders for the soul. So knowing that I’m Free women exist is a gift. Also the connections I’ve made through them. They helped me get a job and prepare a resume. I’m employed now, that was huge. I have a supervision fee to pay, I have bills to pay, unfortunately money is an issue so having a job is huge. Also just networking with other friends who are sober and trying to walk a straight path who I’ve met through them. It’s only been five months so I don’t know what else it out there. Emotional support is above all important. Monetarily I didn’t have much, my mom
took care of me and still takes care of me. I’m making minimum wage so it’s not fantastic, but my family definitely helps me out monetarily. My friends who stuck around continuously help with my needing validation for my path in life. If I didn’t have my mom, my sister, and a couple of friends I don’t know what I would do. Because when I was incarcerated I was able to talk to my friend across the hall. You start to need someone around you all the time – living a certain way for so many years you start to get used to it. It’s definitely lonelier out here now, you’d think you’d want to be away from people since you were incarcerated for so long but I actually became dependent on people around me. I reached to my mom, my sister, and they talked me through my breakdowns and what not. There’s some really great people out here that I can lean on, and I definitely wouldn’t be able to be here, above water, carrying what I’ve been through if it weren’t for them. I still have extreme social anxiety, luckily I work in a very fast-paced environment with a lot of people. If I don’t think about it, the sign blinking above my head that says, “Recently out of prison” doesn’t blink as bright, as often, but it’s still there. I’m still extremely insecure about just me. The only thing that has changed is that I’m going through the motions of what a “normal human being” goes through, work and work and play here and there. It’s still a lot, it’s still surreal to be out here. There are times where I’m extremely confused as to which way I’m supposed to be going. Because when I was incarcerated it was always “walk towards home.”
to what my mission is. Freedom right now is completely mental and emotional for me. Freedom before incarceration – I don’t even think I knew. Freedom to me before was the way I was living, I was free but I didn’t know I wasn’t as free as I thought I was. Before incarceration freedom was naivety, no bad or tragic things happened. Freedom today is the fact that tragedy can happen and you can still have peace and still live a happy life even though you’ve come through the pits of hell. Acceptance of whatever your path is is the ultimate freedom.
And now I’m home and now I don’t know where to walk. It’s definitely confusing as
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“Tina”
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Riker’s Island Bedford Hills Criminal Sale of Controlled Substances Bail Jumping
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REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE: SHAckling pregnant inmates anything they poissibly can to upset you and disrespect you. They looked at me with the lens of “You are in prison, you are pregnant. What are you giving birth to, an alien? A demon?” Just a constant, constant level of disrespect.
I came home from Bedford when Blake was seven months old, and he’s three now. And that was not my first felony. Whenever I would be in jail the only people I would argue with were the officers. The level of disrespect you go through as a woman incarcerated - some people would say I’m exaggerating. When I was in prison with Blake - I happened to get bailed out after ten months on Rikers Island and his father bailed me out. I had no intention of finishing my sentence until they caught me and I got apprehended ten weeks later. Upon arrival to Rikers Island, I was totally dope sick because I was a heroin addict. I was informed that I was pregnant; meanwhile I’m forty two and was told that I could never become pregnant. They actually put me on methadone because heroin withdrawls are so intense that I would have miscarried. But they don’t give methadone at Bedford Hills; so when I went to finish the rest of my time they took me out every day to a methadone clinic, which was a circus show all in itself beacuse I was always shackled when I was bussed out. There was even one time that I was mentioned in a New York Times article. The officers just belittle you, argue with you, just totally do
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Upon release I was renting a room that women and their children could live, I though it would be a big mistake to go home to my mom. A couple of weeks upon release two women came to see me from the Correctional Association. I was really shocked that anyone would inquire about my well being in prison. So I told them everything, all the facts and all the horrors I went through. The lack of respect and medical care. The Reproductive Justice Report was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I know what I said, and when I read the report I was lucky enough to intern at the Correctional Association for quite some time. I started going to the Incarcerated Mothers Committee Meeting, this helped me find ut about the Reconnect class. Ten weeks, one night a week. I was home for a little over a year, and although I got a lot of help from the Fortune Society in terms of job development workshops, at the end of the day I still have four felonies. As soon as I tap into the outrage, it’s bad because this is the
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United States of America and as soon as you have a felony you are the lowest on the totem pole. That’s how society made me feel. If I wasn’t so determined and so angry over the level of disrespect I went through in prison, I have this mindset that nothing is going to stop me. It empowers people to help in issues that don’t even effect you. To help someone maybe have an easier transition or possibly not such a horrible experience - like the anti-shackling law and the fact that it’s not being respected. There are ways to have your voice heard. When I came home from prison I was mandated to an outpatient program and had to go to anger managment. Everywhere I went for reentry services, forced or on my own, women are the minority. I think it’s important to have a woman to talk to, as a woman. In a group setting with twenty-five dudes sometimes there’d be a smoke break and all these jackasses ask for your phone number. Just on that little fact alone that would make a woman not want to go back - but you’re mandated to go to outpatient programs. Even going to report to parole, you’d think you were a human steak. I’ve been in solitary confinement with someone that was at the Correctional Association, interviewing women on the effects of solitary confinement and it really opened my eyes to the direct connection of women, violence, and direct impact on things men have done to them per se. If you’re coming home and you’re exposed to a sea where you’re just a little shell it’s intimidating; it’s arrgevating, it would be great if women could maybe speak to someone before abandoning ship. It’s your freedom that’s on the line when you’re abandoning something that you’re mandated to.
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Tinen and fellow speakers at Columbia University’s Beyond the Bars Conference. March 7th, 2015.
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lynn 61
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montgomery county burglary 4 months 23 days
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jail as a hell, and a savior Twelve years of probation to walk off, then getting involved with the wrong person I picked up drugs again prayed to God for me to stop, and he took me to jail. That was it, I don’t believe in suicide and I couldn’t stop on my own because opiates are addictive in three days, and that’s the kind of addict I am. The second time I was there five months and eleven days; and Montgomery County will not release you until you have an address to go to; and this time my kids didn’t want to talk to me, which I really understood. My social worker said, well here’s a place with Michelle Simmons in Germantown, and I said, “Wow I grew up in Germantown.” So I called Michelle and told her my release date was January eleventh, and I need an address to go to because I’m a Montgomery County person. She said alright, call me next week, needless to say I called eight weeks in a row and she said ok come. She came and picked me up in a four door Mercedes and I said, “Dear God what did I get myself into.” I live in a gorgeous room, with the bay window part. The first time I came here Michelle said treat this like your own house, and I do. This program is a year to a year and a half, I’ve only been to two other programs. When I went to the shelter I got caught doing opiates, and was sent to STOP, which is Broad and Lehigh, where I graduated from, now I got to New Stop at 16th and Poplar and will finish that program in September. I grew up in Germantown, and went to a private school until
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I was twelve. I’m adopted, I was told when I was nineteen. My father was eleven years older than me, he’s an obstetrician and a gynecologist; he practiced in Chestnut Hill. When I was twelve he told us the neighborhood is changing, and moved us to Lafayette Hill. He designed the house we lived in, it was for my mother, whatever she liked. When we lived here in Germantown, my brother took my father’s scripts and forged them, got cough syrup; which I guess was big then in the ‘60s. My parents led me to a sheltered life. When my brother went to rehab in Norristown State Hospital, he was just on vacation. I was sheltered and naiive. I got married when I was twenty-six; two weeks before I got married my mother died of pancreatic cancer, which is a horrible death. But my father kept it from me, knowing I wouldn’t get married if I knew. That was hard, really hard. She died in ‘79. In ‘84 my brother hydroplaned and the steering wheel cut off his head. My father just said he as in an accident; but I knew. We picked up the phone at the same time when the police called. My father finally died in ‘91, and I really didn’t understand until after my father died. I’m not sure why the sequence was my brother and then my father, he was the strongest of all of us but he said you’re not supposed to bury your children – and you’re really not. That’s my fear for my son. If I have no control over me I sure don’t have control over him. When you become a mother, you really
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want the best for your children, you want all for your children. My daughter came to me and said that her father wanted to talk to me, said that he was dying, and I should call him. We were married for twenty years, he said, “Was our marriage that bad?” If you have to ask the question, the answer is yes. I was like a volcano, spitting all over the place, I’ve held the resentment for so long it’s almost killed me. I once put a 360 magnum to his head and said, “Is this what’s going to stop you drinking? [Points to her head] or is this?” I thought my love would be good enough to change and fix him. I want him to suffer as much as I’ve suffered. He took five million from his mother and spent it; he took two million from me and spent it. I believed in the institution of marriage, and the fact that you stand no matter what. I sold my house when the market was bad, I got 65,000 and that’s it. He learned how to sign my name for the taxes. He took a couple million from the girl he left me for and now he’s on the third one. I was taught not to hate, I may really dislike what you do but I don’t hate anybody, and as bad as he hurt me I don’t hate him. I don’t think he knew any better. He surely was not a man. He had the two kids, the two dogs, the house. What was wrong with him? That’s why I go to AA meetings, I try to understand him and my son. Women put on so many masks. The reason I got into drugs is that I fell down my steps, ripped a muscle open over my left kidney. In 1999 they had pain clinics everywhere. They put me on oxycodone, which is a medicine I had never known, even with my father as a doctor. It is a death warrant. Three days and the gorilla is on your back. Physically addicting, it didn’t even stop the pain, it just made my head so cloudy. I lost five jobs that year. I couldn’t remember to take my insurance to the rinks, they just said, “Lynn don’t come back.” And it really didn’t mean anything to me until I got sober. I was in such a fog, I know I hurt some of my students. I really didn’t know what the medicine was. When my husband’s insurance stopped where did I go? Street drugs. I tried to buy as much opiates as I could, then someone gave me heroin and I was done. Being in jail saved my life. I knew I couldn’t jump off the bridge, I couldn’t step in front of the bus, I couldn’t do something. The first time I would wake up in the morning that drug had me craving and crazed – locked and loaded. Had to have it or I would be physically sick. The mental obsession; sometimes that never goes away. The fact that it tok me nine months to learn how to sleep again – wow. I wouldn’t even give that to my ex-husband husband; that’s how bad it was, and I want him to know my pain. It’s just horrible. The thing I like best is locking the gate to the house; because it locks them out and locks me in to be safe. Jail was hell on wheels, and I went to the county, not even Philadelphia jail. I stayed to myself the first time, I got a job. The first time I was in detox. You get a fever, blood pressure goes up. You would get in and get put on some seven day program. I detoxed and was allowed to have a job, it’s very different now. I was mopping the floor in the pod, mopping the stairway, in laundry, then I got a job cooking for the cops – $18 a week, that’s hot stuff in jail. I could eat whatever I wanted, that was the best thing in the world. I got out and went back to using, I went back to a boyfriend I had no business going back to. He was using, so I got caught up in the crap again. The second time I used I said, “Lord I can’t do it.” Now they charge you $50 to get arrested, now they don’t detox heroin addicts; they just give you a bucket and let you throw up. Me being an older woman with blood pressure and temperature rising, thank god they detoxed me. The nurse said aren’t you tired of killing yourself? Nobody had ever said that to me, and I said, “Yeah. I am.” At the worker’s pod the “shower” shoots out. Everyone gets skin problems from it, the first time I got here I just let the water run over me, and just to lay in a bed. They gave us such little food that I couldn’t sleep at night. The only time I slept was in the morning when I drank a little milk. It’s dehumanizing. And yet you see some people recidivate, every six months it’s like, “Hi how ya doin, nice to see ya.” No. I will kill myself before I go back on drugs again, I won’t do it.
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Why Not Prosper locks it’s doors at night. It keeps the women inside, and everybody else out. All of the women I spoke with were thankful for the seperation. April 9, 2015.
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Lynn’s journal. April 9, 2015.
tashinyka 45 Served
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montgomery county purchase of drugs 3 months
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the pain of a woman because even when I was using I was still going to church three times a week and I would pray, I knew what I was doing wasn’t right and I would have moments of sobriety but not that long. I was not in a clear state of mind. It was Christmas time, which is a horrible time to be in jail, and I have two kids. I remember seeing them before going to my probation officer and saying, “Mommy might be away for a while.” But I had no idea it was going to be that long. I had to tuck them away in my heart, I would not talk about them or anything.
I grew up in Lower Marion, I was really blessed in my childhood. I went to Episcopal Academy, the private school of Performing Arts in Philadelphia, went to Emerson for undergrad and got my masters at Sarah Lawrence. I did the acting thing for a while, had to go to California for a few years and came back here to help my family with their ministry. To have lived so long and never have been incarcerated before. I had an incident happen in 2011 where I was placed on probation. I was waiting to be seen by the judge and was let out the seventh day, so I don’t consider it being incarcerated. I just cried every night and was bewildered. I had a probation violation for using drugs in Montgomery County, that’s where I lived, for buying drugs. I really didn’t think I was going to jail, or that I would be there for that long. When I say that it killed me – it killed me. To be fortyfive and that be your first experience. There were some ladies who were like, I know how to jail; but I definitely did not know how to jail. There was twenty people to a pod, I remember hearing all these different conversations at once and I remember going, “My mind – I need to hold onto my mind.” By day twelve I was kind of grateful, because I had detoxed. The whole time I was using I was working, spending time with the kids – but there’s no such thing as a functional addict. The whole time I knew it wasn’t right and that I shouldn’t be doing that, and that’s how God answered my prayer. It’s the first time I had a crisis of faith,
The first time I was in I lost six pounds in seven days, and I lost weight at the beginning of the second time too. But the second week you’re there survival kicks in and you’ll eat more. I like salads and fresh food, they gave you all carbs and starch. I gained five pounds in the first fifty days. It’s really hard to sleep there so I let the psychiatrist put me on Seroquel, which I never should have done. I think it’s horribly wrong to give someone a drug for psychosis when they’re not psychotic. They like people on it, it’s cheap and makes people sleepy, so they won’t be a problem. One week on the drug I gained five pounds, my last three weeks I gained fifteen pounds. The water there is very harsh, so my skin broke out on my back and face. It sounds vain, but it was terrible. To ask for toilet paper, or during menstruation to have to ask for a pad – the dignity is gone. You do kind of want to Seroquel because it makes you sleep, but it wasn’t worth the sleep at all.
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Probation didn’t send me here, my father said, “Before you come back into my house you have to go.” At first I was horrified, but I so needed to be here, I’m so glad I’m here. My job is waiting for me, I need to get myself together – my soul together – my spirit together. I do NA; being in jail for me and then having to come here was beyond humbling. There’s no high in the world worth not being with your kids on Christmas time or being treated like that. I was praying not to get sick in there. I was in the middle of dental work and had to wait because they just want to pull your teeth, they had MRSA checks all the time, scabies checks, I just said, “God keep me healthy.” A lot of people I met there were there on probation violations, people with a drug problem like myself – they need help, not incarceration. They have NA meetings there, I never got called. AA – never got called, church – never got called, bible study – never got called. I had a miscommunication between my
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support system so there was 50 days before I had money for commissary. Thank god for books, that helps you pass the time. Another scary thing was people who had been there several times. People who got out at Thanksgiving were back again at Christmas. I said, “God that cannot be me, I don’t want it to be me.” But it’s so easy to happen. Probation is a trap. A lot of people left jail and it got around that they ODd, maybe if they had treatment they would still be alive, there’s always going to be people that know how to jail. I hated the phone, having it say this is so and so calling from Montgomery County Correctional Facility, that’s embarrassing. I couldn’t do anything in the outside world so I really stayed away from it. There are a lot of people who stay on the phone, and commissary becomes a game. It’s like the haves and the have nots with dollar store food. There are a lot of people who have been institutionalized, they’re all that in jail but wouldn’t do well
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Top left: Chores are given out daily and changed to rotate the women’s positions. Rev. Michelle tells them to treat the house as if it were their own. April 9, 2015. Above: The women recite this together before every group meeting. April 9, 2015.
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outside. When my money finally came through I would try to look out for the people who didn’t have anything – because it disgusts me, everyone is in this bad situation and we should be helping people. You do meet nice people, but it’s just the pecking order of the jail. I think a lot of people would not be prone to recidivate if they were not getting commissary every week or packages. You’re not away at college, you’re in jail. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t support someone in jail because you need a lot of support, it’s a horrible thing. But you see people treating it like camp, a sleepover.
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There’s a misconception that most people are uneducated; I met lawyers in jail. That they had to do something to deserve it. One little twist in your life and you can be there. That they don’t care, that they want to be there – ‘three hots and a cot.’ This was not a holiday, it was not fun, it was not restful. The word bitch is used so much, it’s just really degrading. There were some correctional officers that were fair and treated people with dignity, but I think after a while if you’re used to it and desensitize yourself, it’s a whole different world that is not kind. It’s a modern day plantation. A money
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making business, opening prisons and shutting down schools. Still I’m dealing with shame, like this is going to be on my record, what can I do? There are a lot of people who have overcome the shame and guilt of incarceration at Why Not Prosper. It doesn’t have to taint your life or limit you. But it’s a heavy thing. I don’t blame anybody, I blame myself. I made a stupid decision and it landed me there and cost me my freedom, my kids lost their mother for that time. My mom threw out all my clothes, jewelry, all my stuff – in her
mind she was getting rid of the drugs. There’s people who lose their apartment or their car, I lost different things. I’m the only one whose been incarcerated in my family, I’m not ready to go back to my church yet. Through this program I see a little light that I could thrive in life, I might have to get creative but there are options and opportunities. There is life after incarceration. It’s a lot. One mistake makes you lose your life. It’s not worth it. Coming out of that stigma – am I going to have to explain this to employers, you know it’s out there for people to see. You’re harder on yourself than others will be, and it’s cool to meet people who have never been incarcerated who care and are helping. It gives me hope.
Left: The words that meet every woman who walks through the doors of Why Not Prosper. April 9, 2015. Right: The outside of the Why Not Prosper building on East Chelten Avenue. April 9, 2015.
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hustling for survival I feel safe and calm here, I feel happy. My mom lets me stay with her for the weekends with my kids. And that’s all I want to do, everything I lost for my kids I want to get back – different and sober.
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and came here when I was thirteen. We had a beautiful time over there. My mom was in Puerto Rico with us, my father left and never came back. So he sent a letter to my aunt, his sister, for my mother that said he wanted to come back into our life and have us come to him in Philly. I was excited to come to the United States. I went to school, dropped out of school, went to the corners, hustling, smoking and drinking, smoking dippers, wet (PCP), everything. I got locked up, came out, got locked up again, came out. I had probation from six to nine months and got good behavior so I was let off early. They dropped it at court and I went right back to the corners, smoking and drinking, working under the table. My mom said I had to stop.
My cousin just got killed in Puerto Rico, she was shot fifteen times, then her brother was drinking in New Jersey with friends and wandered in front of a snowplow when it was cold and got killed too. My aunt has one daughter left, and I want to be with her and stay sober for her too and be home with my family to help her.
I got pregnant with my baby daddy, when I was a little kid I went through a lot with my mother and brothers. Fighting, abuse, rape, everything. So my father passed away and I was still hustling. I was still running around getting in trouble, getting booked. I was at my baby daddy’s house when I got the call from my mom that he died. I went crazy, I blacked out. The nurse said he died saying my name. I was supposed to buy him some small stuff, a t - shirt, a CD, but I never did. It hurt me so much. I don’t want to go back to the streets, I don’t want my friends anymore; they weren’t there for me when I was locked up. It was just my mom and kids who were there for me.
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Away from kids- It was so hard. I got locked up pregnant too, I got no letters, and I would get into fights, I got put in the hole. They put me in unit F – for crazy people – because they didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I was ready to go home. I was so happy when these doors (Why Not Prosper) opened. It helps me be a mother, a friend, to grow, to be calm, how to talk to people and listen when they talk to me. I’m doing good, little by little. I stay out of trouble, I go to New Stop and NA and AA and my appointments, my therapist, my probation offiver, court, I go to everything. I got ten years parole. I don’t want to do ten years in Munsey, that’s the next one. That’s what motivates me not to go to jail anymore. To be the woman I am, to stay out of trouble, behave myself, listen.
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Why Not Prosper welcomes women coming out of incarceration without a place to live. April 9, 2015.
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A piano stands in the main room next to the computers where the women talk with their families on Facebook. April 9, 2015.
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a force for family I’ve been in and out. I grew up in Norristown, I live in Phoenixville. My childhood was pretty good. My mom wasn’t there, she was a drug addict and strung on drugs. I’m not really sure who my dad was but I had a stepfather who was recovering from drugs and went cold turkey to take care of me while my mom was running the streets. I lived with my aunt, he took me into his sister’s house and she raised me. I first entered the system when I was twenty-two, twentythree. For me, once I got into the system the first time I was put on probation and I’ve been stuck ever since. That was back in ’93. So you get in and get on, get back and they give you more time and just to walk off it hard. This last recent spin, I was put on house arrest prior to getting out, I relapsed but I caught myself and I went to the psychiatric hospital and went to rehab and then came here. Now I just got caught with something that is new to me, so I have to turn myself into jail. It’s gonna drive me crazy. It’s a nightmare having to go back again. I’m trying to get my life back together, to get my life back on track. It’s a struggle every day to stay clean but I do. Just having to go back when I think that I’m done with it. I only have a little more time to walk off, like eleven months, and then something else hits me. And now I have to tell my kids that I have to go back to jail. It’s hard because they miss me and want me around and I know how they feel; because my mom was an addict and she wasn’t around.
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She was in and out of my liife. I swear they’re gonna get give up on me one day. I lost them to CYS when I was younger but my family got them out of the system. Now my oldest son is going through it, very depressed. He’s saying he doesn’t want to live anymore and that he doesn’t want to me on this earth, like he doesn’t have anyone in his corner. My aunt, who cares for him, can’t do it anymore. He just gets up and leaves without telling anyone where he goes, disappears for a couple days or a week if he could. Now he started smoking marijuana and stopped going to school; truancy stepped in and he could get locked up. I want to help him, he’s about to be sixteen and I feel like a horrible person. That’s why I’m trying to get myself together now. I used to do programs just for probation or because the judge wants me to, but now I really want it. I really want it. I tried to tell him what the system is like. He is not going to see it or believe it until it happens. I by no means want my son to be in the system, but if this is what how he’s gonna learn because he’s grown up around people who aren’t dealing with it he picks the wrong people to hang out with. I just want what’s best for him. He’s depressed right now. I failed him, his dad failed him. It’s depressing, the food’s horrible. Just being locked away, not having your freedom or your family. It’s a nightmare, it’s very, very hard because when you’re sitting in your cell it’s just so small. Different people coming in and out that you don’t know. Some people are getting sick off heroin,
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Wynne 33 Served
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some people are mentally crazy, some people are just cool. Just being able to think, trying to shut my thoughts off. from the outside world is just too much. It is a struggle because you have to depend on other people to do stuff for you and I have a problem with that. I have a problem with authority figures period – which is why I keep getting in trouble, because I like doing things my way. I still need structure. I don’t have the cure, whether I want to kick and scream about it. Why Not Prosper is helping me to see life in a different light. It makes me want to fight, fight harder to not go back out on the streets. I’ve only been here about a week but Reverend Michelle is an awesome lady. They have good programs here. Having a place that locks up at night, they want to keep us in and the other people out. I’ve only been to rehabs, being here and having a responsibility is different. They trust you to do different things. I’m not institutionalized. I just look for a brighter tomorrow. I pray, and just know that I’m not going to be there forever. I just know that my family is out there waiting for me. Above: The Why Not Prosper house is decorated with lots of beautiful arrangments, there is art everywhere. April 9, 2015. Right: The chore list that rotates out every week to give the women responsibilities. April 9, 2015.
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noelle 38
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breaking free something here in Philadelphia, and my father didn’t tell me that they wanted me in the show. He took the letter and he hid it from us and we didn’t find out until it was too late; I missed that opportunity and that was really hard for me. I was very athletic, I was good in school, I had a lot going for me. At this point in my life I look back and I think that my father felt threatened in a way. He never went to college, he was drafted in the ‘60s, went to work in an oil refinery and worked there his whole life – he never really did anything.
I was adopted when I was six weeks old, don’t know anyting about my biological family. I was raised in a town called Pinehill, New Jersey. I had an older sister who was adopted from another family, and a younger brother who was my parents’ biological child. Things were very cool in my family until I was about five or six years old and my father began to be very abusive towards my sister and I. He would say things like he wished he never adopted us, and that we were worthless, we would never be anything. I guess the physical abuse started when I was nine or ten years old. It would be for stupid stuff, not even for a legitimate reason.
So when I was fourteen I was in this group home called the Beta house in Camden, New Jersey. I’m adopted from Norfolk, Virginia and was born in Richmond. I always knew that I was adopted, I don’t remember them telling me, I just knew. I got this brilliant idea to find my biological family and run away. So I ran away from that group home to Norfolk, Virginia, and started getting involved with drugs and alcohol. A girl, a child trying to live an adult life. I was down there for two years, never found my family, got really strung out on crack/cocaine, alcohol, smoking cigarettes, I was sexually active at a young age just trying to be an adult. So when I was sixteen I decided to come home I turned myself back into that same group home that I ran away from. I stayed there and got my high school diploma, then they finally put me in a foster home in Cherry Hill. I got my license, and my dad decided to buy me a car so I felt like I should move back home. I think it lasted six months.
So when I was eight I started running away and when I was twelve the state got involved with my family because of the abuse between my father and me. My sister always kept her mouth shut and didn’t really say anything; he never hit my brother. There were issues, I didn’t like my brother because one he was the only boy – the baby, and he was theirs. In my mind he was their child and I wasn’t. And he never got hit. So when the state got involved I would get taken out, go to a foster home for a week, get taken back to the house, go to a group home, and that went on for me from twelve to fourteen, and that was really hard. It was hard in the sense that I was really starting to figure out who I was at that time in my life. I sing, and I started singing at a young age and it really started to amount to things when I was in junior high. I had auditioned for
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I started working at an amusement park near my hometown and got right back involved with drugs and alcohol again. It was bad. From seventeen to twenty-two, I don’t remember much of that time of my life. I was in a bad relationship, very abusive, it seemed like there was a pattern. If I look back at my life now I was abused as a child and that’s all I knew, so that’s what I sought out. I didn’t care what kind of attention I got from a man, or a woman for that matter, as long as you gave me attention – good, bad, indifferent, it didn’t matter to me. And I stayed with this man until I was twenty-two, when I was twenty-two I can’t tell you what happened or what was going on in my mind; I just knew that something had to change. So I went to my family and said, “I’m an addict and I need help.” I had a friend who I ran into that day ,and didn’t know was recovering; she came to my parent’s house that particular night it was November 17th, 1999, she got me into rehab the very next day and drove me to Coatesville, Pennsylvania and that’s how I located to PA. I went to a rehab, then to a halfway house, then got my own place and things were starting to get on track for those five years. I relapsed right before my sixth anniversary. I was dealing with a lot of stuff, I had cervical cancer and my ex committed suicide, and that was all in my first two years of sobriety. I got highly involved with a twelve-step program, went to the meetings and got involved; it saved my life. In 2004 I was raped by someone I knew, I had a nervous breakdown, I self mutilated and cut my arm really bad; ended up in a psychiatric hospital for a couple weeks. I ended up pressing charges, but he’s dead now, he ended up killing himself. 2005 we were supposed to go to trial. A couple more women came forward and we merged the cases, he was looking at mandatory twenty-five years to life and he decided to drive himself into a tree. I got the call at work and ended up relapsing
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shortly after. It was hard, in the interim between the rape and his suicide as a direct result of that self-mutilation I developed a bad Staff infection. I was in a coma for nine days after passing out at a train station. Had I been somewhere where nobody was that could have helped me out I would have died. So I ended up in Philly after that and quickly relapsed, the last eleven years of my life have really been a struggle. I had never been arrested before I came to Philly and with this relapse my addiction took a whole new life. I started prostitution and stealing cars, running with gangbangers. Everything that you can imagine to get money to support my addiction I did. I’m not proud of that stuff but at the same time I don’t regret it. Everything – good, bad, indifferent, has made me who I am today. I’ve been back to the prison several times with my twelve-step program, the warden asked me to come back. Now I just live life on my terms, but my childhood is what set it all up. We do all the same stuff in the suburbs but we just don’t get caught, like I didn’t know anything about corner drug dealers or corner bars, I had no clue what that world was all about till I came to Philadelphia. I had no idea what I was in for. When I did get incarcerated I got the full gamut. I was in administrative segregation for six months, which meant if I was lucky I got two hours out of my cell a day. I was on the mental health unit for a year. I don’t remember getting arrested, I don’t remember my interrogation but it was apparently half a day long, I don’t remember. I remember coming to in an orange jumpsuit, and an officer who knew me from the streets telling me why I was there. I just cried out to God, I’m very spiritual, “I don’t know what it is but I can’t take it and I need you to take it from me.” I haven’t had the need to drink or get high from that day on, I’ll have three years of
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continuous sobriety next month. It took jail to get me here. It took six months of ad seg, being on a mental health unit that I didn’t need to be on. Twelve-step fellowships come to one unit in the jail I was in. For eighteen months all I had was the book we use in my fellowship to help my recovery, and I kept saying I need to be on that unit, but everyone kept shutting me down because I didn’t have a drug case. I went right to the warden and said, “Listen I am going to die if I don’t leave here and have a foundation I’m gonna die, and I don’t want to die today.” The next day he put me on the drug and alcohol unit. I finished my time there, I spend eight to nine months there and it saved my life. I’m grateful for my incarceration, I don’t know how many women can say that. I needed my incarceration, before I was locked up I wanted to die, I was just too chicken shit to kill myself. I didn’t have the energy or the strength to pull the trigger so I was trying to do it slowly. I was doing stupid things like stealing from people who had the potential to cause extreme physical harm to me but didn’t cause they felt sorry for me. It’s not what TV portrays it to be; it’s not all peaches and cream either. There’s a lot of abuse from officers, verbally. The little bit of power they’re given it blown out of proportion. But at the same time you have those officers who go above and beyond. I was fortunate. The jail I was in, the warden was awesome. The warden who was there when I first got there didn’t even want to let me out of ad seg, which is why I was there for so long. They have guidelines, like if your bail is over one million dollars you have to go to ad seg and mine was significantly over that amount. But I had gotten mine reduced and once you drop under a million they’re supposed to let you out but she wouldn’t. But
then we got the new warden, Warden Clark, and he’s amazing and so into programming. There’s staff that are not direct to the department of corrections and they genuinely want to help you. I was involved with a spin class, and three times a week for that hour when we walked into that gym we were sisters. It didn’t matter if we had beef on the unit, we were sisters and supported one another. And it’s a society in itself. You have your ghetto, your uptown, but it’s not Orange is the New Black. It’s not a dorm, everybody’s not buddy buddy but we get along. People genuinely care but I think the biggest thing is that it’s not correctional. They use that word correctional facility but correctional means to change, it means to make change and when you have 75% of your women coming back you’re not correcting anything. They talk about all these great programs, there’s twenty-one churches that come into that jail. They’re church services, not programs. But then you have people like I’m Free or Chill Out. Those women are still in my life, I’m their social media coordinator, they stand by my side and go to court with me, you don’t see that so much. It’s not all peaches and cream but it’s not all bad either. I’m Free helped me believe in me again. They showed me that there’s people who care. They showed up in court to help me get out sooner by letting the judge know, we’ll pick her up, we’ll bring her clothes. I came out of jail with no clothing and they were there two days later with a bag of clothes. Just walking into the education area and seeing them and having them smile showed me that there are still good people. I lost my faith in humanity so them coming in and talking about I have the power to change my life and that I can be this woman of honor and dignity. Nobody was telling me that, everyone was telling
me that I was an addict. You’re doomed to repeat, you’ll be back here. So they helped me believe in me again. I was on a death mission before I got incarcerated. I lost faith in myself, I knew I went wrong there because I went from having all these aspirations and goals and a great future ahead of me to sleeping in abandos, prostituting on corners, I felt worthless. I didn’t care, I was relieved when I got picked up. Today, it’s not like that. I know I’m a beautiful woman today, I know that there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done but I overcame my rape, I overcame my abuse, I overcame my trauma, I overcame my addiction. To be able to walk down the street and see someone doing what I used to do and have it not look attractive to me is a miracle. The fact that I want to help other people – back then if you had nothing for me you did not exist in my world. I’m just not that way today. I got my parents back when I was incarcerated. I didn’t have to tell them I was changing, they saw it in my letters, we didn’t talk on the phone and they didn’t visit the whole time I was there but they could see it in the way I wrong and what I wrote. My twelve-step fellowship helped me, the program I live in which is called RHD (Resources for Human Development). I was originally looking at ten to twenty years and my lawyer said you have some mental issues lets see if we can get you into mental health treatment court, and the wraparound services they offer me are huge. They got me a case manager to find housing, and when I came home I got involved with an outpatient drug and alcohol program and I ended up working there for a while. So I had a lot of support in and out of the twelve-step program.
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It was a shock when I first came home, I didn’t call anyone for a week and didn’t go out for about a month. I isolated myself, I’m in a co-ed house and spent a lot of time in the area of the house where the men weren’t allowed. Now it’s almost like those twenty-six months never happened. The way I look at it I’ve been blessed to be able to live two lives. The first life ended on July 26th, 2014. Noelle died, that chick is gone. This is a new person and a new life. My life is amazing today, I have a full time job, I have keys to my office and a key card to get into the building. I run an office at nighttime. I have my weekends off like a normal person. I can go home to see my family. Today I’m going to get my haircut and then going to the Philadelphia soul game, I have people who want to be around me and that’s huge. I didn’t have that. This whole experience either makes or breaks a person. It’s been one of the most spiritual experiences in my entire life. To be able to go through what I’ve been through in my life and not be a victim, not be an abuser, not fall prey to dumb shit in life, to be ok in my own skin. I can look back in my life and not be happy with some of the choices, but to look back and not feel any regret it true freedom. I can do jail, but prison of my mind? I did that for thirty-five years. Now I’m thirty-eight and I’m freer that I’ve ever been. I have the best relationship with my mother, we didn’t talk about the abuse when I was a kid and she didn’t teach me how to do my makeup, but now we share clothes and like some of the same stuff. It’s just amazing. Life is just amazing.
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paying it forward I grew up around in North Philly with my mother, had four sisters and one brother. Basically it was an ok childhood; all my sisters graduated from college.
A misconception about female incarceration is I guess they think everybody’s bad or something, you know that’s why they’re there. They don’t want to give a second chance or something like that. I mean it is more Black women incarcerated than any other race in there. I think that has something to do with the police, racism-wise. But the total is more Black, and a lot of them return back.
It was horrible being away from my daughter, but then I got her into the Girl Scout Beyond the Bars program. You sign your child up, they come to Riverside and your child is able to come see you twice a month, which they provide transportation for. Because they were having custody issues, they wanted to give custody to grandparents but nobody wants to give up their custody. A lot of people don’t know that once they’re incarcerated they don’t lose all their rights. But it was just a lot of custody issue battles, so I put my daughter into the Girl Scout Beyond the Bars and she’s still there to now.
I believe men probably receive better treatment. I think they stick more together; they fight for more of what they have. The women don’t stick together, you know how they are, they’re bougie.
My incarceration didn’t change the way I felt about myself. I was a little depressed at times, sometimes I was down but it didn’t change me. Cause I stayed seventeen months and was released and didn’t come back.
I kept myself occupied, I worked at the law library for fifteen months, I had a good job. I entered every program and I just didn’t get into the “he said she said.” It’s a lie, people will twist your story around and tell you, girls come back and forth asking this and that, oh my god it was horrible. I kept to myself. Mostly what kept me strong I
I’m Free helped me when I got there and started volunteering with them. I was in class when I was on the outside I was volunteering and helping them out going to the prison, talking to the women and letting them know how to stop being a repeat offender. It felt good, I was there telling my story, telling them I spent seventeen months
I had never experienced the world of incarceration before I was in the system, I was scared.
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think it was family-wise, my mother was there for me. When you have a lot of support it counts.
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marjorie 32
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riverside correctional facility 17 months found not guilty on all charges
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there and was released, and found not guilty of all charges. All my charges were dropped. I was charged with conspiracy and attempted murder, all this crap. I took it to trial and they were trying to get me to take a [plea] deal and I said I wasn’t gonna take the deal, I know I didn’t do anything. So I took it to trial and the jury found me not guilty of anything and let me go. If I could change anything about the system I would change the slow process, to me it’s a money making scheme. They’re trying to get you to come back and forth, that’s why they’re providing a lot of people with probation, so they can come back into the system. It’s difficult when you first come home, it depends everybody’s situation is different. When I came home, oh my god I lost everything but it didn’t stop me. I re-enrolled myself back to school, plus I had a lot of support, and a lot of people don’t have that support. If you don’t have it, you’re gonna keep going back to the same lifestyle and become a repeat offender. I just hope people stop going into the system, and that they change the way they do everything with the criminal justice system. And to me it depends on the person, they can provide programs there but it’s up to the individual at the end of the day whether or not they choose to help themselves.
Team I’m Free meets to discuss crowdfunding ideas for a video intended to increase the budget. March 31, 2015.
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A view from inside the RCF social services room on the third floor. April 14, 2015.
inside the walLS
an afternoon at riverside correctional facility 694. That is the total number of women housed at Riverside Correctional Facility, located on State Road in Philadelphia, P.A. Classified as a medium security facility, the prison offers various treatment programs, religious services, and educational resources - but not enough to cater to the needs of 694 individuals. Women who cannot be lumped together into one easy fix, women who need gender based, trauma informed care within the system. I only had access to two women on the inside, both of whom have gone through training with I’m Free. A common thread expressed towards a better run facility was more talk-based therapy and increased access to educational resources. The women I spoke to are referred to only by their first names, and you will not see their faces in the coming pages. Anonymity is necessary for anyone with a camera entering RCF. Every incarceration is different. Remember that as you read on, and remember that these women are human beings with as much a right to happiness and security as anyone on the outside. America raises its citizens to believe that only bad guys to to prison, that if you follow all the rules you won’t fall prey to the system. This is a lie. It’s dangerous to think that way, to think that the two million plus men and women incarcerated in America today are bad guys. The realization that prison is not the black and white entity it percieves itself to be is overwhelming: it’s a reality that takes more than one lifetime to understand. The idea I come away with from my brief visit at RCF is simple - rehabilitation, not incarceration, is our answer. But it will take a generation to understand that concept, and another to begin true policy change if we do not go out and fight for it. Thank you to Latifa and Sonia for your stories.
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latifa 34 Serving
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Riverside correctional facility 17 month sentence
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inside the walls
your worth is your wealth My childhood was sweet and sour, it was like a sourpatch kid. I had two sisters; one brother, who I still have. My mom and dad, grandmom. Average childhood. I grew up in West Philly. The only thing I knew about jail was that guys I knew in my neighborhood would go, I never knew of a woman who went, and still none of my friends have ever been. People don’t talk about female incarceration. Like I said, I don’t know any female who’d ever been to prison before I came here. I never even thought about it. The only woman I’ve ever known being in jail was a guy I was dating, his father’s wife. You just don’t hear it from where I’m from. I think there is a difference in how men and women are treated during incarceration. One thing I can say is that we all get lumped into one group. Things that happen in the male population affect the female population. For instance, the men have something going on with bottles and urine right now, but it’s not happening over here. Because of it we can’t have lotion, or shampoo unless it’s in a package. I don’t understand why that would affect us when it’s not our problem, we’re not doing it. I also feel that our uniforms, everything about the female prison experience is very masculine – down to how we dress and the things we can buy on commissary. Like
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long john’s with penis pouches, and boxers, and even the lotion that we could buy was very masculine. I think it’s very important to be able to embrace your femininity, even if you’re in prison. They took eyeliner off commissary, I mean it’s nothing that we really need but sometimes you want to feel like a woman. As far as the way we’re treated, I think it’s specific to us as a population. Men are more aggressive and intimidating, certain privileges they get aren’t afforded to us because we don’t make a fuss for it. But I also think our population is calmer. Like I said, we’re not throwing piss bottles at people or freezing it, not that violence doesn’t happen but it’s just a different atmosphere. God keeps me strong through my incarceration. I’m around a good group of women; I was moved to A unit which is a smaller population. It’s where they house the pregnant women and the workers who are minimum, low custody. So it’s smaller, and just a different group of people. And my cell mate, a few of the girls we have a little clique. I can’t believe sometimes that I’m in jail. It’s weird. Groups like I’m Free let me know that people actually care, it lets me know that people don’t just look at us like evil people who broke the law. They see us as human beings and want us to succeed when we come out of here. When I did I’m Free it was real to me, because it wasn’t just
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someone coming in and going through the motions doing a group, like they really care to know what’s going on with us and let us know that we’re worth something. If I could change anything in the system it would be more therapy. This jail, all of State Road has one psychotherapist, four psychiatrists that prescribe meds – everything is about meds, but nobody’s getting talk therapy which is what people need. That would probably close the prison system if they had it. Incarceration has changed the way I feel about myself for better, the reason I say it’s a good thing is because when life is too much on the street and you don’t have a chance to sit and think, you realize that everything that’s going on in your life is a result to your thinking in the past. So now I’m consciously thinking really positive to attract some good things, and I know it’s possible, it’s so real to me. Jails need more groups like I’m Free. They need to be stipulated, I don’t know if groups like these are just volunteers, but the money that they have, that they make, from having us in here can actually go to giving people’s salaries who really love to do this and that needs to happen.
Right: The release forms that all inmates are required to sign in the presence of any press or media. April 14, 2015. Back: The entrance of the Riverside Correctional Facility, part of the larger Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility located on State Road. April 14, 2015.
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casting out fear I had a good childhood growing up. My mother was in my life, my father was in my life. My father got killed when I was six years old, I was a happy child and I believe that his death saddened me and I have been sad for a very long time. Him just not being in my life – I didn’t want to be happy, I didn’t want to succeed. I stopped going to school, I started doing things to upset my mother, I just didn’t want to be happy because my father was our everything, my father was good to us. He was good to my mother; that was the last time I felt connected, happy, I didn’t feel unwanted or like I was alone in the world. He just played a major role in my life at the time, when he left I didn’t feel whole, I just felt sad. Growing up without a father was disturbing for me. My mother, she had other relationships and I was just the daughter that wouldn’t accept one of them. I only wanted my father around. So when she tried to introduce me to her new ‘friends’ I rejected everybody, I rejected the gifts, I rejected the love from them, I rejected her being in relationships with other people.it was real bad for me. I would leave home at a very young age. I started getting into a lot of trouble; the school system sent me away to Sleighton Farm School for girls, I left there and went to Waynesburg then left there, and after that the prison life started for me. I was a real angry child, and I’m older now and I realize I was lashing out my anger
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at my mother for no apparent reason, like it was not her fault that my father got killed, and I blamed her for that. For a very long time I blamed her for me being sad, me not succeeding in anything, me not accomplishing anything. I blamed her for everything. I have two children, I had my daughter at a very young age, I was eighteen when I had her. The relationship that me and my daughter share was more sisters and best friends. My daughter and my mother shared a mother daughter relationship. I’ve been in and out of prison from the time she was born, up until now. I have a fourteen-year-old son, I’ve been in and out of prison his fourteen years. He’s been on this earth fourteen years. My life has been based on and surrounded by drugs and prison and committing illegal activities. But today, I refuse to drown or allow myself to be a part of drugs and the prison system. I walk around with fear and anger and addiction, not realizing that I’m worth something or not knowing that I have self-worth. Blaming people for my mistakes and my mess. Not pushing myself to be amongst productive environments and people. So I learned that in order for me to fight this battle, for me I have to remove myself – and remove myself from criminal behaviors, my drug addiction. I have to connect myself amongst people who are productive. I have to connect myself at all times with
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sonia 49 Serving
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Riverside correctional facility time left: 4 months
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people who fight for making a change. Who fight for standing up for women in our society who at times don’t know how to stand up for themselves. I have to speak for me, what’s needed for me is programs like I’m Free. Educational programs, resources. I’m not worried about no eyebrow pencil, or a certain kind of shampoo for my hair. I need resources and education. I need to be pushed and I need to be taught ‘how-to.’ Before the incarceration came about, there was other issues; inner-self stuff played a major role in my incarcerations. The I’m Free program; it’s like I don’t just walk into a room and connect with people, but the day I was amongst the women from the I’m Free program I felt free. I knew that these women cared, genuinely. The classes, the sessions gave me the opportunity to open up and talk and connect not just with the women in I’m Free but with the other ladies in the class. I was able to embrace other women. The women from I’m Free, they want you no matter how you’re feeling or what your situation is, you might feel at your worst stage, they want you to tell yourself that you are a queen at all times no matter what. Stop beating in yourself, stop doubting yourself, hold your head up, and open up to yourself. Free yourself from that hurt, from that pain, and that you don’t have to be a part of this or live the rest of you life using drugs or coming back to jail. The I’m Free program saved my life. Before I walked into that class I was not an open person, a very angry person, scared, not a sociable person. But today I’m sociable, I’m not afraid to walk out these doors, and I don’t allow my fears to drag me anymore. Near Right: View from RCF from Petrena’s car in the parking lot. Photographs are not permitted on scene. April 14, 2014. Far right: Inside the transportation van that takes visitors from all facilities on State Road to the entrance, where families are clustered to make visits. April 14, 2014. Next page: A woman attending Release: An Exhibition and Program Series of Gendered Incarceration by the Bread and Roses fund, supported by the Leeway Foundation. February 26, 2015.
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a final word
on sharing the lessons learned Injustice is done by the hands of the unjust, but it is perpetuated by good people who stand by and do nothing to stop it. This book should act as a Pandora’s Box - a consciousness that cannot be turned off once it becomes aware of the horrors associated with female incarceration in the United States. My inspiration for this project came from a class that I took with Dr. LaTosha Traylor, and was furthered with my introduction to I’m Free. Independently producing this book is how I have chosen to share the information I have gathered. It is my small mark among years of work done by nonprofits, rehabilitation organizations, and reentry programs that work tirelessly towards decarceration, and alternative ways of doing justice. Justice is not being locked in a cell for twelve or twenty hours a day, it is not administrative segregation or solitary confinement. It is not the refusal to medically detox incarcerated addicts, it is not the systematic denial of resources or the imposition of release sanctions that all but ensure recidivism. Justice is redefining the word ‘correctional.’ It is offering therapy, mental health court, anger managment, safe housing, and rehab instead of jail or prison for non-violent offenders. We cannot afford for justice to be gradual. Incarceration is not a problem for future generations to solve, it is a problem for today. Changes in drug sentencing, increased funding to alternative corrections, reforming probation, and stopping the privatization of prisons are only a fraction of the conversation we should be bringing to policy makers. The women in our system need to receive gender based, trauma informed care. Their reentry should involve a gradual reintroduction to the role of sister, mother, and daughter; not a hailstorm of responsibility thrown upon them immediately following their release. Outpatient services should include transportation so these women do not fall prey to recidivism based on petty probation violations. Regardless of gender, history, sexual orientation, race, religion, and any other indicator - every single inmate needs to be treated with some dignity. Some reminder that they are human. Freedom can begin on the inside, but only if we fight for it.
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I had the misconception before I was incarcerated that if you were in prison that you probably deserved to be there. It’s the beautiful irony, I can say it’s beautiful because it’s mine. To be the woman I am, to stay out of trouble, behave myself, listen. If I wasn’t so determined and so angry over the level of disrespect I went through in prison, I have this mindset that nothing is going to stop me. It empowers people to help in issues that don’t 78
even effect you. To help someone maybe have an easier transition or possibly not such a horrible experience. I’m not institutionalized. I just look for a brighter tomorrow. I pray, and just know that I’m not going to be there forever. I just know that my family is out there waiting for me. To be able to walk down the street and see someone doing what I used to do and have it not look attractive to me is a miracle. The fact that I want to help other people . release
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