What 20 years in a California prison taught me about community and the power of hope
In the almost 20 years I spent incarcerated, I witnessed heartache and was privy to so many stories — sharp glances into others’ lives. Being influenced, inspired and taught by other incarcerated women had the most profound impact on my life.
While dealing with their own traumas, life sentences and family separation, these women were ferociously determined to become better versions of themselves — and to bring me along with them.
My story is not unique to women’s prisons. It’s run of the mill.
My pregnancy changed things, however, pivoting a life of trauma toward a light at the end of a very long tunnel. I wanted to reach that light, but I didn’t have the tools to do so.
I hurt a lot of people along the way. That’s something that never leaves me. It’s something that I, along with many other former prisoners, learned to live with. It surrounds the way you think, see others and live your life.
The most frequent thought I have is that I don’t have the luxury of being mediocre. I have amends to make.
For a time, I believed that I would always be in prison. The laws at the time confirmed it: No one with my sentence was getting out. Anguished, I believed my son was doomed to a life of poverty, shame and generational trauma, having no father and a mother in prison for life.
How do you come back up from that? In one word: community.
I have called it by other names, including unconditional love and compassion. I’ve sometimes said it with flair: “Homies until the wheels fall off.” But it all comes back to community and supporting others.
On my first day in prison, I thought I would encounter terrible people. I believed that some would look like pirates with pink eye-patches, while others would have torn clothing and a ball and chain. Those with neat appearances would be the worst of them all, hiding some deep, dark secret.
Instead, what I found was a group of women who had made horrible decisions that they revisited over and over. They examined every move they made from their childhood all the way into adulthood. They talked about their traumas and identified where life went off the rails. Some were healed, though for others it took longer.
In their own way, they also extended their hands to me.
They knew I had a young child, and though they were imprisoned, they saw hope. He was sweet and playful with all his friends in the visiting room, and he was such a glaring contrast to the world we lived in. He was the child of a lifer, and that was hopeful in and of itself.
These women encouraged me to seek out educational opportunities and to attend therapy and parenting classes. Most importantly, they convinced me that I should be myself. They saved my son and me: He was a part of the community, and he would be successful.
What did almost 20 years in a prison teach me? That people are redeemable. We need to make our communities bigger, not smaller. Where there is a will to say you’re sorry and make amends, there is hope.
We must never go back to the days when more people were imprisoned in our systems without hope. We must create more opportunities for struggling members of our community members to seek help and become part of a larger community.
Assembly Bill 2717 seeks to protect incarcerated women who are pregnant or immediately postpartum as I was, ensuring that they have access to services, treatment and extra visitation with their children. It could show other incarcerated women their light at the end of the tunnel and help them find the tools they need to ensure their children have better lives.