"I've wanted to somehow convey to you the sensations, the atmospheric pressure, you might say, of what it is to be a long-term prisoner in an American prison.     To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember anything else. So long, your fantasies of the 'free world' are no longer distinguishable from what you know the 'free world' is really like.     So long, that being free is exactly identical to a free (woman's) dream of heaven. To die and go to the 'free world'.

Excerpt from IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST  by Jack Henry Abbott

    If a person is committed to prison for x number of years, s/he stays in prison for x number of years and then the law releases him/her. It is bearable because s/he can measure it. No matter how insufferable the prison conditions are, it doesn't matter because s/he is getting out.
    But a lifer whose only chance for freedom lies in his/her sessions before the parole board has no expectations. There are no procedures that guarantee freedom. How does a prisoner count the time s/he must serve when it may never end?

The first year I was down, fun died
The second year, laughter
The third year, tenderness
The fourth, love
By the time I get out,
there will be nothing left
but echoes.

    A long term prisoner cannot help but feel despair when they have taken all of the classes that they can, worked in all the areas of the prison and have used all the meager facilities available to them. After that, they start to believe that growth is not possible on a personal or organizational basis.
    Sure, we thought is was over - the decades in prison - that is. We had waited for the elections, held our breath as the votes were tallied - finally a Democrat in office! Could we now look forward to freedom? Then it hit us like a ton of bricks after the new Governor made a statement that no one would be paroled. This fact only became accepted once a newspaper article filled in what these words really meant. That we could still be held captive longer even after far exceeding our minimum terms brought a nonchalant shrug from some, for others straight denial. For me, it began a fight, a fight that would set things in motion once and for all.
    We had waited on the attorneys, if there really were any; the lawsuits that were 'supposed' to finally gain us our freedom, the lingering hope that something would get better, only to see no light at the end of the tunnel.
    Who would intercede on our behalf and rule against the highest authority of our state? This man who holds life and death in his hands and who had already allowed the execution of a death row prisoner whose commutation request was supported by the very guards who kept him in his death row cage?
    Visions of life outside prison has become a fading dream. It makes me wonder if that is what it has been all along. I dream of being out of prison the way the average woman dreams of being a millionaire.
    For the past 15 years, state legislatures and the U.S. Congress have passed more laws putting more women away for longer periods. All it takes is for one mad dog male ex-con to do something really evil. Citizens get outraged and scream for the blood of "all those criminals" So ambitious politicians sponsor new laws to show they are champions in the "war against crime". As a result, they pass no-mercy sentencing guidelines, harsher habitual criminal statutes, elimination of parole and tons of other items off the D.A.'s wish list as a way to 'flush' you rather than 'punish' you.
    These women have been 'thrown away,' in other words, ground up and fed to the hogs, receiving sentences so long even King Kong couldn't carry them. They have no choice but to adjust and cope.
    For most women, prison is just a chapter in their life, but for some, it's the whole damn book.
    Freedom is a complex issue. There are no simple answers. The liberty to think and do as we wish is one of the greatest treasures of life. Yet we appreciate it most when we have it least.
    Too often it is more of an illusion than a fact. In reality freedom is never total, and it is surely never free. But for the legions of women 'under supervision' this hour, freedom is the main goal of daily life. Not just physical liberty, but freedom of mind and spirit as well.
    Women labeled as 'lifers' and their families wage a constant battle to survive. Theirs is an uphill path of fear, fragile hope, and daily distress. To succeed takes unique insight, courage, and skill.
    No matter. how long you must remain in prison, there will be only two things you truly own; the power of your will and the quality of your mind.
    A woman doing days counts hours, a woman doing months counts days, a woman doing a year counts months, a woman doing life counts breaths.

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