I'm Going In...
E-Mail by Christy Marie Camp   Bio/Address

    I was on my way to the newest state prison for women. I had four boxes of personal possessions, 6 years worth of life doing "life." We ate breakfast at 2:00 a.m. and moved on to the "receiving" area of the prison we were leaving. Four girls at a time were called in  to "strip out." Then we were placed in a cage outside to wait for the bus. At 4:00 a.m. the transportation team arrived. A male Sergeant made a speech about the bus ride. There would be no talking and they weren't afraid to "take a boot up our ass" and that "women would take an ass-whipping better than men because we were used to being beat."
    We were each shackled at the waist and ankles and then chained to one other and finally boarded the bus. Everyone slept, waking up occasionally. It was dark when we left, but soon the sun began to climb higher and higher. The guards never said a word. Neither did we. It seemed to go on forever. Few women wanted to use the toilet in the back of the bus because one of the male guards had his post right beside it. I didn't.
    "Bus Therapy" is a policy that frequently transfers inmates from a Southern prison to a Northern prison and visa-versa.   It causes family and friendship ties to be constantly disrupted. Visiting applications that have been approved in one prison are not honored in the next. The visitor must submit a new visiting application. Even if the last prison approved the individual, the new prison may deny admittance for one reason or another. Phone calls aren't allowed until prisoners are "classified" - reviewed by a committee for appropriate job and schooling placement. Again, even if the inmates were "classified" at the previous prison, they must start all over. Phone calls are a privilege earned once inmates have been "assigned" work or are going to school. Even after the classification process, only one phone call per month is allowed. Mail that was sent to inmates at the old prison will be forwarded but it usually takes three weeks. Money orders that had been sent in the mail and placed on inmates' trust accounts at the other prison are delayed most of the time. So the women cannot shop for basic hygiene needs. The women feel isolated and alone. This helps to prevent the development of any coherent or sustained mentality. Rumor has it that the underlying force behind "Bus Therapy" is lack of work for the California Department of Corrections Transportation Department. Supposedly prison transfers have increase since they filed a law suit to this effect.
    The bus windows which hadn't been washed for ages plus the polluted air of LA made the city look desolate, hardly worth a look. Finally, we were off the freeway. We drove longer, nothing in sight but corn stalks and small grape plants. We could see for miles with no prison in sight. I saw a sign that announced the prison and got a lump in my throat. The prison looked like a one way in, no way out place.
     After a 6 hour ride with no water, no liquid, just a bag lunch with bologna and fruit, we were all relieved when the bus pulled up to the prison gate. Most of us just wanted a cigarette and a chance to stretch our legs. Of course, nothing in prison comes quickly. Our personal property was unloaded first. Finally, two by two we were taken off the bus and escorted into a holding cell identical to the ones in police stations and county jails.
    They placed us in two separate cells. The first cell was "stripped" and you could hear the orders being spoken. Then it was our turn ...
    "Stripping" is justified under a security issue: "To maintain the order and security of the prison." Yet, how is it possible that security is breached when inmates are transferred from the inside of one prison to the inside of another prison on a bus in shackles and chains with guards toting shotguns?
    Making a person undress and become completely naked has long been a way of establishing dominance over prisoners. Adolph Hitler used this practice in his concentration camps. Being or remaining naked for any length of time provides a physical as well as emotional vulnerability caused by the exposure.
    We were ordered to place our hands on the wall with our backs to the cell bars. Shoes were taken off first and we were instructed to clap them behind our backs. Next socks. Personal socks were ordered to be left on the floor. State issued socks were turned inside out by us. Next, off came our moo-moos. Then bras and underwear. Personal bras and underwear were ordered to be left on the floor and were confiscated.
    All 19 of us were then ordered to turn around. We had to stand in a circle bare naked. There was nothing to hide behind. Some of us crossed our arms over our breasts.
    After the first cell had been stripped, we saw two male employees pretend to be looking through our arriving files as they took glances over to where the first group was being searched. Everyone working behind the counter in the reception center had a clear view of the search procedure.
    Four years later, a Senator doing a walk-through of this prison ordered "vanity" screens installed in cells where "stripping" is done. They are now a permanent fixture.
    Once we were naked, the process went on at a slower pace. First we had to spread our fingers to insure there was no "contraband" between our fingers or under our nails. Next we lifted our breasts and/or bellies, combed through our hair with our fingers, rubbed our belly buttons, combed through our pubic hair with our hands, raised our arms, showed the underneath of our feet and between our toes. Of course everyone was humiliated. Finally we were told to face the wall, squat and cough three times as an officer held a vanity mirror five inches under each of our vaginas to  search for "contraband". Nothing was found on any of us. New moo-moos were issued. At least these oversized sacks covered up our nakedness finally.
    What imprisonment represents was explained by Malcolm Bradly, a novelist who spent much of his life in prison.

"That single thing that grinds you down and finally begins to erode your confidence and vitality, your most basic sense of yourself is the moment to moment condemnation implicit in this situation. The basic routine of the prison also provides daily reminders of rejection and worthlessness."

    A new inmate is introduced to prison life through a series of degradation ceremonies designed to dramatize the moral condemnation being heaped on her and to create a sense of helplessness and lack of control. Layers of the inmate's ego and sense of self are successively peeled away.
    Clothes and other personal possessions are taken, she is stripped naked. She loses her name which is replaced by a number and ill-fitting prison clothing.
    The Sergeant was a gruff woman who from her appearance was also a dyke. She threatened to confiscate our personal property unless we were "quiet." Everyone was too worn out, anyway, to be causing a ruckus of any kind. Since the benches couldn't seat us all, I kept nodding off on the cement floor.
    We had to have our pictures taken one more time and were seen by a medical worker who inquired whether we had any diseases or were pregnant. We were administered TB shots again even though we had just been given one 2 months ago at the other prison.
    They were taking forever to issue the personal property we had brought with us. The Sergeant accused us of being too noisy. The officers took anything they felt was not within the guidelines of what was "allowed" at this prison even though it had been "allowed" at the other prison. Colors of clothing that were "allowed" there were not "allowed" here. Basic hygiene needs such as shampoo and conditioner that had to last until we could shop were confiscated because "this prison only allows shampoo and conditioner that come in see-through containers and these containers are not see-through. Half of the property we had brought was rejected for one reason or another."
    Material deprivation takes on an added dimension in a prison setting. Possessions are important for they not only represent material comfort, but also    express a sense of self. The clothes we wear, the music we play, the colors we paint our walls and the pictures we hang on them.  The furniture we buy and the way we arrange it. The games we play, the work we do and the lifestyle we lead. These choices form a big part of our lives.
    To be stripped of one's material possessions then, is to be stripped of an integral part of the self. All the more so, since contemporary society tends to equate material deprivation with personal inadequacy.
    Just how important possessions are as an assertion of the self is demonstrated by the risks and expense to which inmates go in trying to give their clothes and their cells a touch of individuality. Inmates violate regulations by bribing inmate laundry workers to get them "new" clothes that fit or they decorate the inside of their gray lockers. It is moving and poignant to observe an inmate's attempts to invest something of themselves in their stark interchangeable cells.
    Only three or four girls were issued property before the process abruptly stopped. We had "attitudes" we were told. No one would have anything now and it could take up to three weeks for their "allowed" personal property to be returned to them. Everyone was so disappointed.
    We knew we had arrived at 10:30 a.m. because we glanced at a clock we could no longer see on our way in to the reception area. The clock was no longer visible so we didn't know what time it was. Occasionally one of the girls would ask medical personnel what time it was. Sometimes he would tell us and sometimes he would not.
    The reception staff gathered in the Sergeant's office and leisurely ate their lunches. Finally we were handed bed rolls (2 sheets, 2 blankets, 1 pillowcase, 1 towel, 1 washcloth) and a small brown bag containing a small tube of toothpaste, toothbrush, Vaseline, roll on deodorant, single blade razors and 4 ounces of shampoo. At least we were on our way. The clock that said 10:30 when we came now said 3:30 when we left.
    The assault on an inmate's sense of self does not end when she leaves the Reception tank. Prison life is a continuous process of mortification. First there is the extreme sensory deprivation of prison life. Until one has experienced it, it is hard to imagine how oppressive the overwhelming grayness of the prison environment is. The unrelenting harshness of the metallic surfaces which seem to amplify every sound. The absence of flowers, plants and trees, indeed any direct contact with nature or the outside world.
    The hot air hit us like a breathing dragon and the newly paved blacktop steamed in the sun. We were escorted in single file to our housing unit about a quarter mile down the road. All of us were struggling to carry our blanket rolls and keep in place in our pathetic little line. We were tired and dehydrated.
    The omnipresent media blitz about serial killers, missing children, and "random violence" feeds fear in society. In reality however, most of the "criminals" locked up are poor people who commit non-violent crimes out of economic need. Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and injuries occur in just 3%. In California, the top three crimes committed by those entering prison are:

#1 Possession of a controlled substance (drugs)
#2 Possession of a controlled substance for sale (drugs)
#3 Robbery

Crimes like murder, manslaughter and kidnapping don't even make the top ten.
    The truth is, every prisoner is a political prisoner. Not because they have made plans to overthrow the government, but because they have been used as pawns in the game of politics.
    Show me a prisoner who was not tried by a District Attorney and Judge who desired not justice nor to represent the state but to represent their own election or re-election purposes by sustaining or increasing their conviction rate. A prisoner who is "eligible" for parole remains behind bars because of a newly elected Governor who ran on the fact that he would take a "tough stance on crime."
    Even in prison, a prisoner can be prevented from participating in community programs because the prison they are housed in needs to maintain or increase its "body count" (population) to collect the largest budget allotted for its operations. This is called "institutional need."
    The struggle continues..

Commentary by DIANE HAMILL METZGER

"IM GOING IN" ....a stark but all too true account of a woman's emotional torture at the hands of a non-caring, sadistic prison system. Her tale takes place in California, but it could just as well be Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, or any other place that warehouses our womanhood and abuses our minds, bodies, and souls. The fervent wish of every imprisoned woman is that those who read it try to imagine how they would feel under the same circumstances, or if the person "going in" was their mother, their daughter, their sister, their grandmother, their best friend... only through the outrage and activism of females in the free world will the nightmare of imprisoned women come to an end.

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