No Wrong Answers - Blog

In the last decade the female prison population has risen 700%, but we still remain an overlooked population. I recently had a conversation with a man whom was just released from prison. He mentioned how after serving decades in prison he never really thought about women being locked up. He then went on to say that he was sure that women’s time in prison was easier than a man’s time and that we probably got a lot less time than the men. 

His response did not surprise me. After serving a little over eight years in the system, housed in five different prisons and six different county jails, not only did the system design things more for the male population, it seemed like the majority of the resources and conversation were also geared towards the men. Like the jobs available in prison, for example. As a woman, if you were not interested in learning a trade like construction, plumbing, or welding on the inside, your options became very few. By no means am I saying that women cannot show up and show out in these trades. What I’m saying is that there should be more standard options for those of us who don’t want to work in the blue collar field.  When you come home, blue collar jobs seems to be one of the main job resources that your case worker offers you. I’ve watched how the women who’ve completed their apprenticeship on the inside for these jobs often lose out to men when applying for these jobs on the outside.

Looking at this brother who had just spent decades in prison, my heart went out to him. To just cast away a human-being like that behind those dark walls… the mere thought turned my stomach. I’ve always acknowledged that those cages are full of our black and brown men. Many of the women that I did time with acknowledge it as well. We often spoke and prayed for those who had loved ones — boyfriend, husband, father, son, uncle, cousin, friend — in there… even those that we did not know. 

But the thing is, those cages were full of women as well. The story of women’s prison growth has been obscured by overly broad discussions of the “total” prison population for too long. Often times when prison discussion is brought up, men are at the forefront of the conversation. The system is disgusting, unjust, racist, inhumane and lots of other things and we know that those walls are full of men. Unfortunately, I met a lot of women who, by the time I was introduced to them, had already spent years in prison, sentenced to decades or a natural life sentence. I wasn’t and I’m still not sure why some assume that women don’t get lengthy sentences.

Women have specific needs. Studies show that 80% of women in prison are mothers and that most of them are the primary caregiver of a child. Around 2.7 million children have parents in prison. I’ve watched over the years how mothers desperately tried to parent from prison with little or no help. It is known that the majority of women get little support in the system — emotional, financial and visitation.

It is time for us to acknowledge that women are behind bars as well. We should be equally involved in the conversation.

London Croudy is a fellow at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children in Oakland, California.

I was three months along when I found out I was pregnant. I was also in jail.

I knew I would be serving at least five years, so my first reaction was kind of like, “What am I going to do now?” I was scared because I didn’t know how this was going to work out. I had been to jail before, but being pregnant inside was going to be a whole other experience.

The food inside isn’t that great, so I questioned whether I was getting all of the vitamins and nutrients that I needed. I received very basic care when I visited the doctor during my pregnancy. Not a single test was given to me to help determine whether or not I would give birth to a healthy baby. It made me wonder if they would have been able to help me if something was wrong.

I saw the doctor once a month and received two ultrasounds during my pregnancy. I missed out on some of the little things that mothers cherish doing when they’re pregnant, like getting to hear my baby’s heartbeat or finding out whether I was carrying a girl or a boy.

This was frustrating and very saddening for me. Being in jail should not have meant that I would be stripped of special moments with my growing baby.

When I went into labor, I was scared and didn’t know what to expect. I was playing cards with some of the girls when I started to get contractions. I was shackled in the ambulance during the ride to the hospital. My hands were handcuffed across my stomach and my feet were shackled together and then shackled to the gurney. It was so uncomfortable.

When I got to the hospital I had been in labor for 22 hours and wasn’t allowed to do anything but lay in the bed. I wasn’t given the option to get up and walk to help with the contractions. At this point, the only thing that wasn’t shackled was my left hand.

Things got pretty scary. I was in labor for so long that towards the end of my first epidural, they gave me another one. Following this second epidural, my heart rate, along with my baby’s heart rate, dropped. I started hemorrhaging and she went into distress. After she was delivered, the nurses rushed her off to the neonatal intensive care unit. I didn’t even get to hold her.

I was so scared for her. The nurses told me that she had pneumonia, she would not eat, and that she’d been labeled a “failure to thrive” baby. This news devastated me. I hadn’t experienced this with any of my other three kids. My daughter couldn’t possibly die without me ever being able to hold her.

The day after I gave birth, I had to go back to jail. Thankfully before I left I was finally able to hold my daughter for a moment. Skin-to-skin contact within the first few hours that a baby is born is very important for their development and ability to adapt to life outside the womb. I wonder if the lack of contact I had with my daughter during the first few hours of her life contributed to her “failure to thrive.”

I believe the separation that I had from my daughter after she was born contributed to our bond being different than the ones I share with my other children.

A part of the bond between a mother and their newborn child is lost when women are separated from their child after giving birth. I believe the availability of programs for women who have babies in jail or prison would be beneficial in preventing long-term emotional distance between a mother and her child.

Nicole Bennett is a 36-year-old mother from Carson, California.

My mom was taken from me multiple times and the incident that I remember most happened when I was in the sixth grade. I was sitting in my second period class when my neighbors came to my school to tell me that my mom had been arrested and our house had been raided.

I went home to a raided house and had to go through each room and pack it up. It was hard to go into my mom’s room and see needles that confirmed her lifestyle. My neighbors offered me a place to stay for the night but in my distraught state, I did not accept the invitation. My survival mode kicked in immediately, and I just bounced around.

Nobody checked for me. My assumption is that nobody asked about me because no authority ever reached out to let me know what had happened or to give me an update. Also, there was no communication from police regarding the status of my mother and my next steps.

With no adult guidance and no foundation, I was essentially forced to figure life out by myself. Because of my mom’s mistakes, my childhood was put on hold. I was a sixth grader who had to play the role of an adult. This moment set the stage for how I would spend the next few years of my life, in and out of shelters, motels, and friends’ houses until I reached the age of 21.

There should never be a child who literally has to pay for something that their parent did or something that they had no control over. This is something that needs to be addressed and invested in so that we can prevent children from reaping the consequences of their incarcerated parents.

That means extra caution or training. Police and probations officers always mention their safety whenever I talk with them about this. To make an arrest there are two officers needed for their safety. I think there should be a third officer added whose job would be to determine whether or not the person has a child.

The experience of my mom’s incarceration has everything to do with who I am today. One of the biggest things is that it introduced me to social justice and my passion to work with young people who have been through the same thing that I went through. There must be something in place to benefit the child regardless of what their parents did. We have to be the ones telling people, when you lock up our parents, it’s also us being affected. They have to hear us; this is our life too.

Alisha Murdock carried the secret of her mother’s incarceration for over a decade. She wants to let children of incarcerated parents know that they are resilient and not alone in their struggles. Murdock is the youth justice program manager for RYSE Youth Center, an organization that creates safe spaces to help young people learn, heal, and transform their lives and communities.

The saying is all too familiar: Do the crime, do the time.

But in America’s age of mass incarceration, millions of children are suffering the consequences of their parents’ sentences. Incarceration not only breaks up families but also the building blocks of our communities and nation.

As a child I remember constantly looking at a photo of my mother, who is holding me while wearing an orange jumpsuit, and reminiscing about my first visit. It was like the more I stared into the picture, the more I felt connected to her in some way. Her cherry blossom scent seemed to linger in the room, making it hard to believe she was gone. I would wait by the door hoping she would walk in and hug her little girl so tight that she wouldn’t be able to let go. I was so full of ideas for what we would do when her “time out” was over: baking, reading, bedtime stories, and coloring were just a few activities I couldn’t wait to enjoy with my mother. Unfortunately, I was unable to experience those things with her. She was in and out of prison most of my life due to her drug addiction and prostitution. As I got older, she sent me letters promising to get it right, while I became numb to the fact that she was never coming home. But at the same time I never lost hope in her release. This affected me in a huge way, because my mother’s sentence was no longer just hers but mine as well.

I am just one of the five million American children who have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. More than 2.7 million American children and youths have at least one parent in federal or state prison (many more have parents and other family members in local jails), and one-third of them will turn 18 while a parent is behind bars, according to the National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated. The obvious impact of having a parent incarcerated is the absence of that parent from a child’s day to day life. A child needs their parent to help mold them into the young adult they are expected to be. There is no question that our country’s practice of mass incarceration is flawed, costly and in need of change.

Those solutions start with counseling and better programs to help support a child’s relationship with their parent during their incarceration. We need programs in prisons to encourage family relationships or even a chance to video conference with the children regardless of the parent conviction. This will help the child keep a connection with their parent instead of creating a disconnect like it did for me as a child. I wish I had the opportunity to visit more with my mother and experience building a relationship with her. Also, when a parent is released from prison they should be helped to find employment and other ways to reconnect with their family and community not get left behind in an endless cycle with no solution.

Myesha Johnson works at A New Way of Life as an office associate.

My life has been up and down for as long as I can remember. When I was 14, my dad killed my mom and I carried the guilt of this for years, thinking it was my fault because I was not a good kid and not what my father expected of me. During my youth I was sexually abused and physically beaten by the family who we lived next to. After losing my mom, I went to juvenile hall and a large group home. While in the hall and group home, I learned about gangs and quickly learned that in order to survive, I would need to be connected with a group. At some point I got beat in and was accepted. After a year or two, my uncle was finally approved to be my caretaker, but shortly after I moved in with him, he died and my life fell apart again. I gave up on everything. I bounced from foster home to foster home until I landed at a home that cared. I was able to finish high school and went to a local college. However I felt like an outcast at this college and quickly drowned my feelings with drinking and smoking. I later crashed my car into a pole, which I somehow survived.

Shortly after, I caught a bus to LA and landed at the Alameda station downtown. I had no idea what to do and quickly was sucked into the street life. I hung with the squatter kids in Hollywood. Doing drugs and hopping from drop-in center to drop-in center was my daily routine.

I ended up going to prison and spent a large amount of my time in SHU. I was in and out for five years. In 2005 I became pregnant after being raped by a man pretending to be a San Bernardino cop. Out of anger I called the SBPD to report the incident but very foolishly also threatened to kill the officer. A few days later, officers came and arrested me for threatening the officer. No one even knew if this officer existed, I was never asked to identify him, and for all I know someone was impersonating him. But now here I was, four months pregnant and sitting helpless in jail.

I know I could have fought the case, and I regret not doing so now. I was given a parole violation and served four months. While I was at California Institution for Women, this was the first time I was able to be on the main yard and not in SHU! I heard horror stories of ladies having babies in their cells, babies being snatched from them, and women coming back without their uterus. At one point, the doctor said I could get a free tubal ligation and not be burdened with having kids for a long time. All I could think was that this baby is not a burden; even being raped, I still felt like I needed to be a mom.

Upon release I was told I had a warrant and that San Bernardino was holding the charges against me. When I went in front of the judge, I remember him telling my lawyer, “Get her to plead. This will be a sham trial; offer her a waiver.” The lawyer came back and offered me a Cruz waiver so I could go home (even though I had no home), have the baby and then turn myself in. I took the waiver out of desperation and fear. I was sure I’d die having a baby in prison!

I was able to find a room while I waited to have my baby. I used what little money I had to buy some clothes; all I had was the prison muumuu I was released in.

On May 22, 2006, I gave birth on my terms and not in prison as I feared.  Every day I debated running and hiding, or finding a family to take my baby. I knew within six weeks, I would have to turn myself in to finish my deal. If I ran, it meant eight years in prison.

The day I turned myself in, a bit of me died. Handing over my baby was a nightmare. At some point in prison, I signed some papers and never knew I was signing my rights away. This is often the case for many mothers in prison. Aside from the jailhouse lawyers (AKA ladies) who knew the ropes, we were on our own to figure out our rights.

Fast forward to now: I am a mother of 3 kids and am a manager at a residential drug treatment facility in south LA.  I have been working in addiction for almost 10 years.  My path to freedom was through education: I gained an AA in drug and alcohol counseling from Los Angeles City College and then transferred to California State University Dominguez Hills to obtain a BA in Africana Studies.  I was honored to be a McNair Scholar, which opened me up to going to graduate school, a prospect I would have never imagined. Amazing mentors at all the colleges I attended helped guide me and make navigating the education system less intimidating. Soon after, I was accepted into the Master of Social Work program at University of Southern California. Through great support of my family and kids it was possible and an honor to achieve.  Despite the never-ending collateral consequences I will face as a woman who has been incarcerated, my voice and story, I hope, is empowering and helpful to others.  I will continue to be a scholar, activist and warrior to help end the perpetual barriers that the formerly incarcerated face as well as working to dismantle the school to prison pipeline.

Heidi De Leon is a mother who holds a Master of Social Work from University of Southern California. She lives in Downey, California.