Sunday, August 7, 2011

Prison Flashbacks & Our "Justice System" - Part 1

    Well, happy birthday to me - I turned 31 last Saturday (July 30.)  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  It's just that it still sounds so old to me.... 31 ... 31.....I'm in my thirties!  I never really got a chance to thoroughly adjust to turning 30 since I was in prison for that birthday (and by adjust I mean drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol.)   It's kind of weird when I think about how this time last year I was still in prison and had another 3+ months to go.  So it's only been 9 months since I got out... For some reason it feels like it's been MUCH longer.

My Life In Orange --
    That was an entirely different life -- my life in orange (orange orange orange I REALLY f**king hate the color orange now!) Every goddamn article of clothing you get is freaking orange.  And EVERYWHERE you look there's another group of girls also dressed in orange.  Some days I felt like if I had to look at one more person in orange I was going to throw up.
    And God!  All of the stupid bullshit there! No privacy EVER...  (communal showers, communal bathrooms.)  Never being allowed to sleep in (beds had to be made by 7:30 am - although we could still lay on top of our beds as long as we weren't covered with anything.)  Eating the SAME stupid meals in the same stupid order every 6 weeks.  Lights out at 8:30pm  (a curfew which is rivaled by most 4th graders.) No one allowed outside after that, no more taking showers, or leaving your area (except to go to the bathroom.) And working my ass off  in a cabbage field in the hot sun everyday for 50 cents a freaking hour!  Only so I could come back home from work and then have to wait in a big line with all the other girls returning from various jobs; all of us waiting for our turn in the "Strip Shack."

The Strip Shack -
    The Strip Shack was was a big shed we all had to pass through when we'd come back to the yard after work.  Inside we got to line up, 9 girls at a time, and all of us take off every article of clothing we had (make sure to shake it out good so the female officer in the shack with you can see that you're not trying to hide anything in the folds or pockets of your clothing.)  Then we got to wait our turn as one by one, the officer would go down the line and have each of us bend forward at the waist while we spread our butt cheeks and give a nice healthy cough.  The theory of course is that any machetes or bombs or random sports equipment we'd magically acquired (and then hidden in our hoo-hahs) would fall out of us when we coughed.  

    Ok - it's terrible that I'm here on the outs bitching about it while my good friend Jen is still in there for another 2 & a half years and I haven't even written her a letter in the past month.  God I'm fucking selfish.  And if she knew that I was back up to my old tricks, she'd be SO disappointed in me.

Jen - 
I met Jen while I was in prison and the hardest most bittersweet thing about getting out of prison was the guilt I felt at having to leave her behind.
    She's one of the most beautiful, kindest, and strongest people that I know.  She really got screwed.  The 7 and a half year sentence she received for basically stealing a car doesn't seem just at all.  I mean, she'll be the first person to admit that she was messed up (she was also a tweaker) and that she deserved consequences.  But 7 and a half years is ridiculous.  She and I were both in there with other girls who were serving less time for MUCH worse crimes.  Case in point is this girl, Rendi who only served 6 & 1/2 years for manslaughter.
    Jen basically stole some guy's car from 7-11 where he'd left it running with the keys in the ignition.  But while she was taking off with his car he tried to run out and stop her and grabbed a hold of one of the doors.  But she sped off, knocking him down in the process.  It's not like she ran him over or anything, his "injuries" (or lack thereof) didn't require medical attention.  But because of that factor, she was convicted of Aggravated Assault and got 7.5!

Money may not buy you love, but it will buy you a lawyer - 
Such bullshit too - Jen almost surely would've gotten a  better plea bargain and a lighter sentence if she'd been able to afford a real lawyer instead of just the "Public Pretender" that the court appointed her.  The system is really screwy like that.  It's not based so much on justice (the words 'justice system' are laughable) as it is based on money.
    For instance, as I mentioned, earlier there was another girl on our yard, Rendi, who accidentally killed her baby when she left him in the car all day.  This was in Phoenix - which for those who don't know is like hell with freeways.  Average summer temps are in the 100's (in degrees Fahrenheit.  The 40's in degrees Celsius.)  Anyway Rendi's baby died because she went to a friend's house to get high, and then forgot that the baby was in the car.  She got convicted of manslaughter but only had to do 6 & a half years.  All because her dad shelled out thousands of dollars for her to have a lawyer.  .
    So just to recap my thoughts:   Justice System = A Bunch of Bullshit Based Mostly On $$$.
(There are many other reasons that I've come to that conclusion, but I don't really feel like going into them right now.)




****Just a note - The original ending of this is now its own post.  When I edited this post, I decided to break off the last part of it and make it into a separate post (the next post) since I'd added so much to it.****


1 comment:

PrincessAddiction1031 said...

Hey chicka! EEEk! I couldn't imagine how awful prison is, I have never been there and I never want to go. As for syringes. Luckily, I am a certified CNA and I know alot of medical terminology. And, "word around was" that Freds pharmacy in a nerby county sells them. So I walked in and told them my grandma was on insulin (told them the type and dose) And because I sounded smart, I got them. I think I payed like 7$ a bag of like 10. But it was worth it. It's just too fr from where I live now to go every week. So I'ts been a while. But I became a regular customer buying them for my grandma. LOL.Also, To AVOID HEP C. I have good pain tolerence. All else fails, it there is no rig, period and you need one. Go to TSC, they have dog parvo needles. Get the smallest they hve, It's no insulin one, but it's legal. :) Careful on hitting yourself tho..They hurt worse. Haha. But so worth not getting hep c. Well.Check out my page. I loveee u. Happy belated Birthday!!!

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