Concrete arteries control footsteps around the prison yard. Yellow faded arrows tell to go this way or another. Clots of cops stare at the congestion of groups shaking hands, passing kites and pleasantries. Their badge shines with authoritative gleam as I shudder with arbitrary guilt -- butt clinch awareness of the inventory within my pockets. I find the path least traveled, noticing as I walk by flowers and bunnies and the two-tone fade of an old-school convict’s pants.

As I’m walking out the doors of Unit 2 to head to the chow hall I hit the pavement, look around at the yard. The oh, so small prison yard that it is and see all the other fellow inmates like me dressed in yellow and green and some white and green outfits. I think to myself, I have got to change my ways.

I walk into the male offender restroom as I feel the men walking by the neighboring pods and hallways staring at me through the windows. I am wearing my faded canary yellow shirt and orange sleep shorts that fall below the knee as I am walking in black flip flops smacking on the moldy floor. My peach beach towel, a soap dish with Tone soap, a flimsy orange Bob Barker security razor, and a fresh 2-ply cheap toilet paper roll are in my hands as I place my shower hygiene on a wood bench. 

The work week concluded as I strolled down the hallway ramp, stopping to say “hi” to the same 30-second friends, continuing past cold concrete walls to my living unit. Thirty hours closer to completing a college computer course, proving what I already know, and a dozen hours helping adult men transition from counting on their fingers to solving quadratic equations to earn their GED. This routine became my new normal a few months back. I get to leave the cacophonous 250-man gymnasium of parking spot-sized rooms. Here, I find direction, logic and future. The staff here don’t have badges or handcuffs. They aren’t wearing all blue. Jeans and blouses replace combat boots and mirrored sunglasses. I am Fredericks here, not offender. I have found daily refuge. 

It was the day of all days. The days that I would look forward to the most out of the year. As I am looking out my window waiting for the rain to start hitting it, I see the clouds in the sky building up more of a thick plump shape to them, a thousand things, thoughts, and ideas are running through my mind just like they do each and every time I get a few minutes to just relax and kind of not be where I’m at even if it’s just for the moment.

Thirteen dollars and fifty-eight cents is the sum of a month of involuntary labor, and unexplained restitution deductions. How the hell do I survive off this? “Three hots and a cot,” but bro ain’t never lied! Immediately my stomach growls at my now sweaty pits as the battle begins: hygiene versus food for the month.

“Thank you for coming. Before we begin, I must inform you that I am required by law to report any thoughts of self harm or…”

All I could hear resonating over the music was, “I am going to fucking kill you.” I am naked in a tiny basement bathroom with a window too tiny to exit, drying off with an oversized plush bath towel when I heard the shrieks of a drunken psychopath. Before I could even think, I received a blow to my head and now the added scent of blood. Blood everywhere was flowing from my forehead, a feeling not so unfamiliar.

I woke up to banging and yelling my eyes are still trying to adjusting to where I am at she at the cell door banging and yelling HELP ME HELP ME, GUARD, HELP ME, please. She has this fearful look on her face I ask what’s wrong she’s holding her stomach she is pregnant so I start yelling help as well for hours no body.

I felt like I was buried alive or better yet in a coffin. I was in what was called the slammer cell, in Ohio's maximum-security prison in Lucasville.
             The slammer cell was considered the hole inside the hole. It was solitary confinement on steroids. I had been put in this situation for attempting to stab another prisoner through the cell bars and in the midst of my rage, I allegedly spit on a prison guard.

I was trembling and nervous before I saw the judge. He was there while the deputies held the phone for conference court.

             I was charged with a misdemeanor and three felonies. I was so embarrassed and vulnerable. I was at the judge’s mercy. I could barely remember the scene of the crimes charged against me. 

The first time I went to jail I was 18. I began selling drugs to help provide for my family at a young age. In prison, I can honestly say I did not get the help I needed to rehabilitate. At times the conditions were unbearable. I felt the custodial officers and community correction officers were not there to help me, and they changed so often that it was hard to keep up. Police laughed and jeered at serious moments and did not offer support. No one recognized that I might need support as a victim of violence, PTSD and as a person who has experienced trauma.

As I lay in bed, a crisp chill is around the windowsill and I’m looking at the snow falling in large beautiful flakes. Each flake has its own design, and I’m thinking that like everything else in creation, so do fingerprints.

           Because the bed I’m lying on is not my own. It is my bunk, in a large dorm of about 40 other women. And I somehow feel lucky, even locked up, that I have a bed right next to the window, where as the seasons change I get a certain show of beauty from mother nature. 

Shit. A while ago I was an officer in prison, and here I am an inmate. I’m on probation for bringing drugs into a prison. And now I’m in lockdown. Being an officer, they thought I would get beat up. They told me not to tell the inmates I was an officer.

So many proudfelt moments in everyone’s life and one of the best joys that make it so great are being able to share the moments with those that truly care, that understand and feel its importance to you and see the joy in your accomplishment. You spent your life living disappointment, where your only accomplishment was being part of the conversation. 

             Point is there is/was someone there. 

At 15 I started smoking weed. I know it wasn't the best idea, but I did anyway. I smoked weed for two years and at 17 I was arrested for burglary and robbery. I broke into the Dunkin Donuts next to my house. I took a cash register that had $200 in it. The person that suggested that we rob the place took all the money and told the police where I was and called the store to tell them where the cash register was.

My heart bumped fast because I knew what I did and there was absolutely no place I could have hidden.

The cops in clear site, I squinted from the bright lights flashing in front of me -

Blinded by the lights I surrendered to my fate.

For as long as I can remember I was affected by the criminal justice system. I would visit my uncles, brothers, and cousins with my grandmother and mother, who both, no matter what they did, supported them. From a very young age I was able to see the effects it took on my family financially as well as mentally. Watching my mother raise her children with the help of her mother showed me that in the event of an emergency never fold. I witnessed my brother in 1980 being dragged out of his bed by the police.

It’s 2AM on a Monday morning. I hear “Robbins get your stuff, you’re out.” I’m half asleep when the guard tells me this, so I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not. Then she yells at me a second time to hurry up. I jumped out of my bunk, grabbed my blanket, pillow and bag with all the standard issued jail items they gave me at booking & I was out the door. 

Incarceration was presented to me as a child of 4 or 5 years old as I laid on the living room floor with my cousins on Saturday afternoons watching cowboy movies (like the rifle man, gunsmoke or the long ranger) then my daddy would begin reminiscing on his days as a cowboy.

I watched the needle enter into my arm. The brown liquid inside turned into black from my blood being mixed into it. All hope faded away from thoughts and I watched as dreams became nightmares. How and when did I get to this point in life? Is this everything I have to look forward to in life? In only a couple years, I went from a happy kid, or so I thought, to just another person in prison using heroin. Looking back you might not have seen this life for me, but deep within I have been waging a battle for my sanity. Prison only added to my heartaches of a troubled life.

As I walk across the immaculately polished hardwood floor of the courtroom, feet shackled and hands cuffed, I am escorted to the jury box where a dozen men are sitting. I know all of them: I’m married to one of them. It’s suddenly clear why the DEA picked me up from the state prison this morning.

The first thing I can remember? My mom is there. I just discovered that I can draw. I don’t know how old I was. I don’t know if I even knew drawing was “a thing.” I don’t even know why I drew. It had to be something I liked and was “into.”

In the solace of my room, surrounded by the things that have the audacity to make me happy, in a place that is constructed to bring me pain and sadness. Pictures of my children, family, and friends who no matter what have chosen to stand by me. Certain quotes that inspire strength, change, growth, and love for yourself and others no matter their choices cover my wall…I was finally able to, after five years of praying and struggling to find the strength, to forgive my co-defendant.

I chased a magical white substance to a small hole. I was not alone. My lover and part time friend gave me the extra courage to take the plunge. She did not survive the fall. 

I lay on my 15-year-old mattress. Three-inch foam. It’s 2 ½’ x 6’ and makes up what the state intends to be not only my bed, but my living room as well. Gravity presses my bones into the cold steel of my bunk. Another man lies directly overhead. If I could look out of “our” window I would. 

I walked into my new cell. New to me. Who knows how many guys have been through this cell on their own journey. It was empty at the time. For those of you who have never done time, having a cell to yourself is a rare experience and not to be taken lightly.

I want to scream, take this mask of “Blissful Hindu Cow” off and smash someone’s face into a wall. Good morning! Welcome to med-line! Because waking up next to a toilet isn’t bad enough, I get the luxury of being subjected to blatant disregard of my personal needs as well as wholesale disrespect from my peers. 

I don’t really know where to start. It seems like this kind of thing would happen to me every time I went to jail. I am type 2 diabetic and I was under the impression that the jail would have the insulin that I take. Unfortunately, not in Adams County in Colorado.

It came again. That very first horrifying night terror that started the whole ball rolling. Darkness, me running for my life from something so evil it could make my heart stop, turning as I fall, looking up into a pair of extremely menacing eyes, waking up instantly, realizing I am back in my own special cell, tied down again.

A very near and dear friend of mine suffered “an injustice…!” due to an ambiguous policy regarding ex-felonies/prisoners possessing firearms while on probation or parole supervision.

             My friend, Reuben R., was violated and sent back to prison for having a “paintball” gun in his car trunk

I remember walking into that pod in prison. My first day I was so scared and felt so alone. The faces, the smell, the ugly hard concrete columns and floors. But then I was approached by a man with a bright smile and in his hand he had a cup of coffee. He spoke and said, you thirsty? I felt like I could take a breath. 

I was recently arrested for possession of a firearm. I was careless and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I was lucky when I was arrested because I was released the next day with an electronic monitoring device. I was given the ankle monitor and asked to return to court the following month. I was under house arrest, and I did not do well.

If it ain’t already enough being in prison, they have the audacity to have a place called the hole.

Shackled walking down this hallway still shackled thinking could I really be getting out of here no one knew I was here. I had been here 143 days now I’m finally being unchained and led into this giant cage in the middle of a room surrounded by empty office chairs and desks. I had dressed out of the green county corrections uniform and the orange and white Velcro shoes and back into my own slightly snugger pants and top...

I am serving a life sentence. NO, do not judge me. I did not kill anyone and NO, there are no human victims in my criminal case. I am just a white-collar criminal, who is carrying on her shoulders the weight of a restitution of more than 22 million dollars... YES, did you hear me? More than 22 million dollars.

Prison moms are the best.
There are women in prison who take on the motherly role and take care of inmates. They are the women that pass on wisdom to the new inmates and they try to keep the peace.

There was a chill in the air as I walked to my cab. I had been waiting for this moment for 3 years. As I got in and we pulled away from the place I called home, my stomach got queasy and I felt nauseous. As we went down the mountain side, I watched the world go by. When we made a turn, the contents that were in my stomach ended up on the floorboard and a wave of heat hit my face from embarrassment. I got this fear of dread because of the unknown that lay ahead.

The day seemed like it would never get there. October 4th was right around the corner and I was finally being released from prison. I swear it felt like I was never getting out and I only had 18 months. It was women in there serving life sentences that was never going home. I still think about them to this day. Are they ok? Are they still sane?

That one and only phone call that could have been made, that should have been made wasn’t made.  Why? The guilt, shame, and embarrassment from where I was actually located kept me from making that phone call.  The caller ID would read Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center. How could I make a collect call to my father saying I was in custody and going to jail.

I’m working in food service, on the west line, preparing the lunch meal, when my supervisor tells me what no one in prison wants to hear: “Lawlor, you need to go to the Chaplain’s office.”

Everyone loves Thanksgiving! 😊 That year was a two tray, Styrofoam, through a slot in the door special…even in the hole they went out of their way to get us sliced turkey…A cold blob of cranberry sauce, mystery stuffing and instant mashed potatoes with cold watered down gravy…it was the thought that counts, right? I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it. Hours ticked by and those two Styrofoam trays sat there like ghosts, bright white reflecting off the soft count light that NEVER went off. I kept thinking, “Michael and Aimee and Laurel can’t eat Thanksgiving dinner…” 😔

I will never forget June 3rd, 2021. There I was in my 6’ x 10’ cell. As it was a minimum restricted facility surrounded by other prisons in the East Canon Complex, it had real drywall on 2x4s instead of all the concrete of a higher-level facility. My steel bunk was 2 and ½ feet wide and 6 feet long and reduced the emptied area of my cell by even more, with the Stylus wheelchair in the center of the cell. There was almost not enough room for the officer to enter when he brought me my evening mail.

“Bill, I love what I’m hearing. You are doing good, I’m proud of you. But before our time runs out on this call, I need to share something.”

This is my 6:30 p.m. Thursday, once a week call with my dad, who refuses to call me William. I was named William after my grandfather, first grandchild on my dad’s side. It’s weird that when I was growing up I butted heads with my grandfather Bill the most.

On our way to chow I entered with him. John, a six-foot tattooed white guy with short hair. For the last two weeks we’ve played cards and shared our frustration over our sentences together. Today was the first time we were allowed in the chowhall. We grabbed our trays and headed for a seat. The moment he realized I was following him, he turned, looked me square in the eye and said, “Hey man, white and blacks don’t sit with each other, I’ll see you back at the cell house.”

You were learning life on your own terms, but I guess you had to. You were only 5 months old. You learned what the 4th of July was and I witnessed your surprise and fear when the fireworks started their negotiation with the sky. BOOM, the conversation began and your face crumbled as the reverberations echoed in our chest cavities. The sky lit up with fireworks claiming their space. A whistle shrieks a warcry with an angry tail disappearing and silent, then KA-BOOM this arrangement being brokered in the heavens as you tried to discern this foreign language. Tears rolling down your cheeks and I felt helpless with nowhere to hide you from the deafening explosions. I held you tight. I was so mad I didn’t have fear protection for you. As this war of the 4th taking claim to the ethers, you deciphered the code in this lingo of compromise. You listened as the multiple whistles burst into rhythmic sparks entangled with the stars. It was a shriek met with the biggest smile and laugh. You stood proud but not as proud as I was witnessing you conquer that moment. You were so cute and it was the only and last moment we called ours.

Waking up to an officer standing in my door telling me to pack and you have five minutes and make sure everything fits in your green bag. I spring to my feet at a mad dash, my mind and heart beating fast. I think to myself what’s most important food or books, art supplies. What will they take, what can I keep? 

Tears come to my eyes when I think about a 10x8 cell surrounded by bars, a metal bed, a desk, a toilet, and a sink, squeezed all in one cell in Buena Vista State Penitentiary. A program called Therapeutic Community. I call it forced sobriety, a reprogramming community to tell the truth.

The bang from the gavel hitting the sound block had a sense of permanence, what had been said was said and court was adjourned. All I could see were the judge’s dry, pale, wrinkly hands. That's it. That's all I saw. My mind was taking longer than necessary to process the present. Was I really going to prison?

She had me pinned to the floor and I could not breathe. I knew at that point I was going to die. I could not breathe at all. I was worried about what she might do to my five-year-old son. All of a sudden there was a rush of air into my lungs.

Heroin. The first time I tried it was 1987. A person who I thought was my friend gave it to me. I thought they were my friend because a friend would not give someone something so bad, right? Heroin. I took it. It was the best feeling I have felt. I think I was floating. I think I was swimming in warm waters. I did not know what I was feeling but I know it felt good. Instantly I was hooked.

I wish I did not have to come here. I wish I didn't have to sleep on a metal piece hanging from a wall with a dusty sheet. I wish I didn't have to eat what seems like toxic waste for nutrition. I wish I had access to clean running water that did not come out of rusty fixtures....

After going back and forth to prison for most of my 20s I started to actually pay attention to what was really going on. I had met so many females with so many crazy stories it was like the odds was stacked against them from the start.

The dictionary describes jail as a place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime. This definition is 100% true but there is a deeper definition especially for those who have personally dealt with incarceration, like I. The most basic fact that everybody knows is that your freedom gets taken away, so does your dignity… As an incarcerated individual, you get absolutely no respect. How could you expect that when you have committed a crime?

I wake up to do my normal routine and decided to go do my laundry early on a Thursday morning. It to me seemed like everything was ok... As I'm packing my laundry to leave a detective walked through the laundromat and I'm not thinking anything from that so I continue to walk out the back door.

First of all, let me give praise to the most high!

Jail to me was a hard lesson to learn. Back in my days 80s 90s we had rules now there is no rules… Back there you had to have permission to rumble now they just free fall. Jail taught me structure respect and not to judge a man.

I am so tired of hearing the word nigger coming out of a white mouth when speaking about me. You would think that being one of the only black female officers in a prison would earn you a little respect. Oh how I was wrong.

My name is --------. Living in a house with both my parents and my six siblings was very challenging. We all had a good life. My parents took good care of us, we had what we needed. They were very strict parents. Watching my brothers and sister go through their ups and downs with the law, going in and out of jail, I remember going to visit my brothers in prison and it was not a nice place to go.

My man is serving a life sentence right now. He been down since 2016. I been riding with him ever since.

Mean, shrewd, loud, aggressive and disrespectful were some of his qualities according to the average inmate. For me, the list was more like charming, handsome, intelligent, sweet, considerate and amazing lover. I saw him send women to solitary for just speaking to him louder than he would have liked so I understood their logic but to me, he was everything.