You are now "Property of the State". Sure, many women learn to survive, but there is no joy in just living from hour to hour like a bird in a cage.

I was no longer a "citizen". Just a social outcast - trash to be exiled to a giant government-run dumpster."

Prison is a concrete graveyard, a human outhouse, a hate factory. It is a huge pressure cooker filled with pain and treachery mixed together and simmering on a slow fire of stress and fear. No matter what words you use to describe it, it is a place where women silently cry in their sleep and fight to hold on to their sanity and hope.

There are no logical reasons for the things that happen in prison. What we are feeling and living through has been repeated time and time again since the first U.S. jail opened in 1789. The cages have different names, but what goes on inside is all the same.

From the day we are "received," we been gradually adapting to the loss of our identity and respect. We become accustom to the chaos and lurking danger because we have to. We are forced to accept absurd rules and cope with insane reasoning. Prison only amplifies the negative things that were already in you. Some women stand up and grow strong while others wither and die.

Our cell contains one table, one chair, two sinks, two mirrors, a toilet and shower both with half-doors. The upper portion of the door has been cut out for "security" reasons so guards can see you at all times. There are four bunk beds each with two metal drawers attached underneath, eight lockers and seven other women. There is one large window that faces outside with a view of the next unit. The door to your cell is half safety glass. A window also faces into the hallway approximately 4x4 feet; this is the window the guards use for counting the bodies in your cell and this is done everyday at 4:30 p.m. and again at 9:30 p.m. and every two hours throughout the night.

All floors are cement. When I look down at mine, I can see the imprints the construction workers boots, which are now permanent.

I wonder what went on in their minds as they built this prison. Did it even occur to them what they were constructing? Was it just another job to them, did they feel a sense of doing the community good? Or maybe. did it made them think of one of their own family members in a prison somewhere.

As I'm writing this down, I look up to the large hallway window and see a sergeant and one of my housing officers looking into my cell along with the other cells to make sure it is "tidy".

I go into the bathroom to smoke. It saves me the stress of having a guard catch me smoking and "writing me up". Smoking is only allowed outside now. But getting outside is another matter. I'm locked in until "unlock" is called. This is done once an hour. I sit on the floor in the bathroom. I've done it so long that the toilet looming right in my face is no longer a nuisance. I've done my best thinking in this spot. The bathroom is the only place in the cell where your seven other roommates eyes have enough respect not to follow.

Prison is an environment from which there is no escape and over which we have no control. We are denied the most rudimentary choices of everyday life. Where we live, what time we go to bed and when we get up, the food we eat, the women with whom we eat, work with, and sleep with; all these are chosen for us. The deprivation of choice/liberty tends to be felt as an attack on us personally. It's made all the more severe by the anxieties we sense about ourselves that confinement tends to augment. Life is a constant put down and, a daily challenge to our dignity.

Being in prison puts us in a helpless position. There is so much humiliation to be able-bodied, yet lacking authority to do the simplest things for ourselves. We must basically beg for even such small necessities as sanitary supplies, toilet paper, getting our cell door unlocked or the phone turned on to make a call. It's like being civil would be wasted on prisoners.

I wake up from an afternoon nap on Sunday. Sleep is my escape. Sleep is when I dream of bare toes in the grass or carpet, recliner chairs, king size beds and a kitchen with a full pantry. One of my cellmates said time had stopped. I looked at my watch and told her she was crazy, it was running backwards.

Once our job starts in prison, we continue to work until two weeks before we go home. There are no yearly vacations. If we work and get paid for it, we will earn 8¢ an hour. But not all prison jobs have pay-slots and these are distributed to whoever has been working in the position the longest. The longer the woman has held the position, the closer she is to being released. So, the graduated pay level that increases by 30 every three months rarely is allotted to anyone.

Some women are fortunate enough to be able to improve this meager standard of living through the four 30 lb packages of "authorized" items allowed to be sent from home per year; but most are forced to "hustle" to make ends meet.

It is very expensive to purchase items from the prison canteen because these canteens are "self-operating" meaning all the money they make must go back into the canteens overhead as well as allowing for a profit. Therefore, the price for all items sold in the commissary are increased by two thirds compared to the price paid to the public outside of prison. Although the prices for these items continues to rise, the maximum money ($140) allowed for a prisoner to spend per month has not changed since the 70's.

When not working, the majority of women in prison read. Some prefer those sordid romance novels, others horror books and mysteries. I don't care what they read; I'm just glad to see them reading. If I had my way, dictionaries would overflow abundantly and there would be one in every "isolation" or "lock down" cell where nothing is allowed but the inmate. I prefer nonfiction and self-help. I got into the self-help books when I found my emotional state deteriorating and my will becoming drained. I've learned a ton of things. I've learned that you can only control what you do not others. I've read about cognitive therapy. And I have learned how to deal with negative thoughts versus positive ones. All of this from self-help books that were presented in an understandable and logical format.

One of the girls is teaching another how to play Scrabble. She's never played before. I wonder how much else of everyday life she had missed.

At meal time (chow time) you must line up in your hall, no going to another hall to eat with someone that doesn't live in your hall (there are four halls per unit), you must wear state issued clothing, must tuck in your shirt, must walk in a single file line to the dining room, must show photo identification, must sit at the table of four in the order you came in, eat what is provided in the time provided, must not get up from the table until your row is excused and finally be subject to search by in most cases a male guard upon exiting the dining room. Many women opt not to eat instead of being subjected to the psychological stress placed upon them in order to eat.

I was eating peanuts that came in one of my four yearly boxes as I write. I walk to the sink to rinse my hands off and catch sight of myself in the mirror. Hard not to look in the mirror in your cell because your cell is the only place you'll see one except for the bathroom in the prison dayroom. I'm not looking too good today. There are rings under my eyes and my face is splotchy. But I'm so thankful that I have my health.

The American Medical Association has found that incarceration exacerbates existing illnesses, leads to the development of new problems and causes a general physical, mental and emotional deterioration. (SEE Analysis of inmate patient profile data AMA program to improve medical care and health services in jails 1977)

Women's prisons are inadequate and remote. Opportunities for self-improvement are few and health care is poor. Frequently psychiatric drugs are distributed to some prisoners as a form of social control (1 out of every 4 units is used to house these women). Parental rights are taken away from a majority of incarcerated pregnant women immediately after the birth of their child. The Department of Social Services is able to maintain a legal "black market" for these precious newborns who would otherwise be in their mother's care.

Paul Keve, who has directed the prison systems in two different states has written:

 "It is not necessary to look for sadistic guards, political chicanery from the Governor's office, inadequate food, or stingy budgets from an uncaring legislature. When we look for such factors, we are missing the real guts of the problem, which is that in the best of prisons with the nicest of custodians and the most generous of kitchens, the daily management of these prisons tends to deny and even insult the basic needs of individuals."

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