Sara Schineller spent some time at an all-women’s prison, and watched as they were able, despite the odds, to get out of the revolving door legal system.
When I applied to college, I had no idea that I would spend a year working in an all-women’s, high maximum-security prison. I also had no idea how much of an impact that year would have on my life. Like many Americans, I love watching shows like Law & Order SVU, NCIS, CSI, and other cop/crime-fighting TV programs. However, what I didn’t realize, until I walked through the front door of a prison for the first time, was how dramatized and glamorized everything really is on TV. Not every inmate is dangerous, hostile, or barbaric. Not every case is as black and white, with a clear victim and a clear perpetrator. In real life, everything is a shade of grey.
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What working in a prison did for me was open my eyes. I grew up in a multi-cultural home and always viewed myself as an open-minded individual. I go to a liberal arts school and have taken all sorts of classes. However, what I learned in the prison, I could never have learned in real life. Never. My black-white perception was shattered. I was exposed to the treatment the inmates. I smelled the horrific smell of their dining hall, as I walked past it every day, where they serve slop for dinner. I discovered that women make 75 cents a day, if they’re lucky to get a job. I also learned about the treatment of the women and how a correctional officer can essentially do what he/she wants because they’re in charge. I was exposed to the injustices and the problems they face on a daily basis. I was told about the dark secrets because no correctional officer or prison worker would dare say that things are not good.
Luckily, I learned some valuable lessons as well. I learned how special education is and how lucky I was to be going to the school I’m going to and learning what I’m learning. These women soaked up the information like sponges. They just wanted more and more. There are students on campus who never show up to class, sleep through lectures, cram for exams and party all too often. I can’t help but wish some of these women were here instead, because seeing someone without my same access to education has made me truly realize how lucky I am. Seeing these women learn and write and perform their own work has proven to me, semester after semester, how truly valuable education and rehabilitation in prisons is. The recently released women I’ve met with have continued their education and work, and they are working hard to be productive and to change their lives around. Without access to rehabilitation, they would probably be stuck in out revolving-door legal system.
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Most importantly, I’d say, is that I’ve learned they (the inmates) are people too. They laugh, they cry, they tell jokes, and give advice. I worked with women, but I have had friends go into men’s prisons, and it’s all the same. They are people. They are people with capacities to learn, to grow, and to learn from their mistakes. Without the rest of the country understanding this, they will be treated only as criminals for the rest of their lives.
A lot needs to be changed within the prison and judicial system, but if students my age could have the experience I had and learn that inmates are people too, despite the fact that they committed a crime, I think we would be in a much better shape. I recommend this class to anyone who asks about it, because it has honestly changed my life. I just wish that the rest of society would take the opportunity to learn and to educate themselves, so that we as the public understand what is going on and can help implement change as needed. I wish they would, so we can stop locking these prisoners up and just throwing away the key.
—Photo Flickr/msakr
What has this all to do with men? This is an article written by a woman about a prison for females.
Conditions in a prison for male are much worse, but nobody really cares.