After being convicted and sentenced to Life without Parole (LWOP) I caught ‘the chain’ upstate (state prison). First time in prison, first time on the chain. In the wee hours of the morning we were loaded onto a bus- my heart racing, my mind just wanting to get where I was going. A 15 minute ride to California Institute for Women (CIW), I’ll see my family, be able to hold them for the 1st time in 2 years, I was looking forward to the trip. Hey – two hours later we’re still traveling, long past Los Angeles, I am now nervous – where are they taking me in the middle of the night? My paperwork said CIW. I take in the sights – there goes Century City, the lights soon fade – fear sets in – they (Correctional Transportation Team) were hired to kill me I swore to myself. My heart, mind and soul prepared for the worst. I played out ‘not going down without a fight’. I envisioned my mothers smile and words and held that vision until I fell a drift (asleep). I awoke to lights trying to be seen through the fog and just beyond that was high barbed wire. Clank! Clank! Rattle! Rattle! These humongous gates open – just like in the movies. No sense of time, I just knew that my mind was fucked off by the time the gates slid open, my every sense was lost – ‘time’ was the least of my problems.
Processing was another experience all in itself! Naked, cough, squat, bend, spread em’, wide. So degrading. Got my bed roll and filed out with the rest of what seemed like happy return offenders. I held my own. The fear inside was being shown on the outside as the convicted murderer I was sentenced to. “EVERYBODY DOWN ON THE YARD!” I follow suit. Only they were coming for me. As I get cuffed and escorted to the room in a non-labeled building, I was told not to make any haste movements when the handcuffs came off. The guard closed the blinds of the only window in the room. Frozen with dear, I refused and quickly went into defense mode. Is this the part in the movies when I get raped? No explanation as to what was happening to me, why I was singled out and cuffed up… nothing. What seems to be a nurse walks in with a clip board. I catch a glance, it’s a picture of a full body outline. Then I’m asked if I have any tattoos or other identifying marks. I flipped out – what’s happening to me?
All my survival instincts kicked in. Next thing I knew I was on the floor being hog tied. I was then taken to another building with two sliding doors – bi level. I was on the bottom floor—put in a phone booth style cage and uncuffed. All my senses were alert. Yelling and screaming- AHHHHH- I finally realized they were yelling and screaming at me, “ay holmes, where you from?”, “ay cuz”, “Blood”, “you here on a DDU?”, “what yard you from?” I tried to focus on the voices but I couldn’t see anyone, just doors with big numbers of it with slits for windows – only silhouettes. I tried hard to adjust my vision to see who was talking to me. Rivals? Victims family? Who? This looked like lock up in the county jail. Solitary confinement. I would find out later that was exactly what it was ‘a jail within a prison’.
Hours later I was cuffed up through the wicket of the telephone cage and escorted upstairs. All eyes on me. I walked past three, four maybe five cells, only one was occupied with what looked like stickers on the door that said “walk alone’, ‘single cell’, ‘spitter’. It smelled like death in this dimly lit building. The door to the end of my journey opens. It closes and for the last time I turn back into the wicket in the door so my hand cuffs could be removed.
A cell just like the one I came from – toilet, sink, metal bunk, cubby and a desk. All mine. I’m mentally exhausted, physically spent, spiritually dead. I lay in the plastic mattress and try to slumber. Sleep never came, my bi polar kicks in – racing thoughts! I finally learn through other inmates I could only hear and not see that I was in Ad-Seg. My cell was above California’s Women’s Death Row.
I was finally seen by a committee of people who asked so many questions that by then I was beyond speaking. I sat quietly, listened and was escorted back to my cell. I remember the word violent, incorrigible, enemies and VSPW. I was in this horrid place because my co-defendant said she was in fear for her life and afraid of me and the connections I had. We could not be housed in the same institution. The Committee decided I was the one to be transferred and held in lock up until they could safely get my co-defendant over the wall (in general population).
“Roll it up” a guard came to my cell weeks later. “Where am I going?” I ask. “ROLL IT UP!”. Trickery is all I could think of. Back through the R&R doors I came in through – back on the grey goose (bus) with one other person, a bitch with a gun and the driver. A 10 minute ride to similar gates, this time I see the sign: Valley State Prison for Women. I would later learn I was transferred from Central California Women’ Facility (CCWF). This was CCWF’s twin prison. Intended to be 4 corners of women’s prisons.
Back through being naked, coughing, squatting, and spread the cheeks. Grab a bed roll and head out I was told. Head out where? I went out the door of R&R this time not the back, I exited with precaution waiting for ‘yard down!’ but there was no yard. It looked like an industrial site. It smelled like sewage. No escort, no one just me and one other person and women in blue every where doing seemingly normal activities. I am directed to another building with a door, I open it and there’s a metal detector and a counter. I place my things on the counter and a C/O checks it and instructs me to walk through the metal detector. I’m damn near naked! What could I possible have I though. I had on a moo moo, socks, shower thongs, and panties. I clear the detector with no problem and look out to eyeballs looking in at me. Who told them I was coming? Are they the victim’s family? They did say there were going to get me up state.
I walk out and look around, ready for whatever might come my way, loosely holding my bed roll in case I had to introduce it to the concrete in an effort to save my life. An officer on a bike meets me at what I now know is work change and escorts me to 1 of the 4 housing units. When I get in this building it’s well lit, people mingling, I see 4 phones with inmates on them, benches, etc. There’s a cop station in the middle of the building, and four hallways, each with 8 rooms in them with locked doors. I was shown to room 2, my new housing. As I walk in the room there are 2 sinks, 2 mirrors, a shower with a door, a bathroom with a door, 4 bunks totaling 8 spaces for women. Could this be? In prison? I would later find out I was put in the medical unit which housed the ‘pregos’. Being assigned to this in particular unit later proved to be my saving grace and changed my life.
I started my life without sentence at Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) in Chowchilla California. The most difficult part of me doing time was losing my father and not being able to see him, comfort him nor tell him how much I really loved and appreciated him. To not even be able to attend my own father’s funeral was hard. No goodbyes, no last kiss, no unspoken words to be whispered in his ears. My parents used to visit me at least 4 times a year until my father developed Alzheimer’s and the trip was just too much for him. The trip to see me is 4-5 hours each way. California Department of Corrections (CDCR) says they encourage rehabilitation and reunification of family but California Institute for Women (CIW) is less than 15 minutes away from all my family and I was shipped all the way to VSPW. I fear losing my mother, my confidant, my best friend. She too is getting older and unable to make this long trip to see me. I worry about her a lot because I am her only child. Who will care for her? Who can take care of her like me? Who will love her like me?
The pleasures of prison life are few and far between but they do exist. I find great pleasure in helping others succeed and achieve. This place can make you or break you and I am part of the solution not the problem. To see others succeed is a good feeling. To see them happy to finally go home and now possess the skill set they lacked before coming here is a great thing. Groups and things that were non-existent before, I have created for the entire population. Skills, compassion, support, caring and understanding is needed and all of this is provided by us the LWOP community. We are the stabilizers of the community, I also find pleasure in cooking, in spending time with my friends, in being able to call home and talk to my mom, and in being able to pick and choose programs that are good for my rehabilitative pass.
Psychologically I had maintained for about 8 years. Though I was diagnosed as bi-polar as a child and treated for it all my life, I got off meds when entering prison. Mostly because of they gave me someone else’s medication and when I tried to bring it to the attention of the staff I was threatened with disciplinary action. I signed off on my much needed medication. I done o.k. for a while and about my 8th year I started experiencing anxiety attacks and bouts of depression. I had to be put back on medication. Since being transferred to CCWF from VSPW in October 2012 there has been nothing short of extreme psychological issues here, not only for me but for all who had to transfer after more than a decade in VSPW.
Being transferred to CCWF was detrimental to all of us. It is completely different here, this prison is violent in nature and there is not support here. People are oppressed here. No aspirations, very few goals and even less motivation factors. Help is almost unheard of. If you have a mental issue and need help, you have to dang near kill yourself to get it. Prison overcrowding has a lot to do with the lack of services and care here. They just don’t have enough doctors to help everyone that needs it. What helps me to cope is knowing I have hope of maybe being apart of an eventual law change to LWOP sentencing. Not that this is a discussion at present but I hope someone will see that Death by Incarceration is a waste of human life.
unshackled 