February 22, 2010
by Christine Carey | Online Features Editor
Reading and watching the news lately about the early release of prisoners in California, I’m surprised about the number of people who think these prisoners should not be released because jail/prison is like a “country club.” If jail were like a country club, I’d happily be paying a monthly fee and committing crimes on a daily basis.
Superior Court Judge Loren E. McMaster shut down the program Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last fall to ease the state’s budget deficit. It was supposed to save the state $500 million dollars, however, lawmakers called for (amid other controversies with the program) a repeal after an inmate with a violent past was released and arrested for attempted rape hours after release.
I completely understand why McMaster ordered the program to be put on hold, since a woman’s life has been ruined forever. However, I do not agree with some comments made by citizens who have never been to jail or prison and have preconceived notions about how life is lived inside. I have heard and read that it must be a “cake walk,” a “meal ticket,” and an “easy way out for an offender.” Let me just say a couple things about this: first, jail is no freaking cake walk.
I was in and out of jail six different times in 2009, the result of a driving under the influence charge I was convicted of in 2008. I did my time, and have been trying to put my life back together ever since.
People who have never been to jail have no right to have an opinion about what it must be like and if it’s what is deserved for an offender. They have no idea what it’s like and who the people are on a deeper level. Not every nonviolent offender is a horrible person who commits crime and burglaries and rape on a daily basis.
I met a law student who was doing weekend jail time for a DUI, and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to practice law because she drove after blowing a .08.
I met a mother of two who was there for a crime she says she didn’t commit and pleaded no contest to because she didn’t want to be stuck on 23-hour lockdown for the next six months while she was being tried. If she was found guilty after her trial, she would have been sentenced to six months, so she decided to just stay there. Her grandmother died while she was incarcerated.
I met an 18-year-old girl who was in for littering — throwing a soda pop can out of her car window and had no money to pay her fine. They put her in jail for 60 days.
I met a girl who was addicted to drugs and her insurance company wouldn’t help to put her in rehab. She went to the jail and told them she was high on meth just so she had a place to go where she was forced to stay sober. She was incarcerated for 48 days.
What you have to endure in jail isn’t as easy as these people are making it seem. The food tastes like plastic and you feel like you have taken ex-lax everyday. The shower water is freezing and if you don’t have money for commissary, you wash your hair with a bar of soap. You also have dirty clothes all the time, because you have no washing machine to wash them. You put them in the sink and wash them with the one bar of soap and toothpaste the police have “generously” given you. Then, when you “rack it up” at count time you get harassed by police officers for smelling badly.
You’re awakened at 3 a.m. for a “shakedown,” where they pull you out of bed and stick you outside in the freezing cold on your knees with your hands behind your back facing a wall with Tasers to your head. They raid your bunk and commissary and tear all of your stuff to shreds.
You are harassed 100 percent of the time you are incarcerated. You also have to take off all of your clothes piece by piece till you’re nude. After stripping in front of police, they force you to turn around, bend over till you’re touching your toes and reach your hands around your backside.
You then are forced to open your private parts in front of police while you cough three times.
I don’t know what country club this person was referring to, but I would put a “stop payment” on my check to it immediately.
People who are making assumptions about every person who is in jail should really think about what they are saying. Especially since there are very few people out there who have not broken a law. If you have ever littered, or not paid a ticket, do you think you deserve this?
The point I’m trying to make is, not every person incarcerated is a hardcore criminal. We are just normal people who made a mistake, and are serving time to make it up to society. I understand there are many inmates who deserve all of what they are getting in jail and prison. I’m not disputing that. I just think the next time these people form an opinion about someone they don’t even know who made a mistake they should ask themselves one question: “What if it was me?”
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