Prison disproportionately harms inmates’ children

Steel is a 2000 graduate of UCLA.

By Kirra Steel

The first time I laid eyes on Cook County Jail, Women’s
Division Four, despair washed over me as I gazed at the brown,
concrete-block building. The gray Chicago sky melded with the
gray snow and I sighed as I pushed through the chain-link fence. I
shrugged and walked up the long path or “reflection
pool” moat which was installed for beautification
purposes.

I braced myself as I entered the brown plastic revolving door to
enter a different world, one that I could never have imagined at
sunny UCLA. The dirty yellow walls, greasy orange furniture and
constant noise welcomed me. Each time I’ve been to the
waiting room, there’s a variation of a grandmother or aunt
and several children waiting to visit or being turned away. The
rules of the outside world are dead here and I too become something
less than a human being.

You may remember me from the beginning of the year, the
ex-sorority girl (“Systematic sisterhood promotes
intolerance,” Viewpoint, Oct. 5). Well, I am back and I guess
you could say I have joined a new sorority (same bad food and still
crowded). Except the sisters in this house are from minority groups
(Illinois’ chapter is 71percent African American), 80 percent
have experienced abuse usually during childhood, 80 percent have a
history of drug abuse and 80 percent have a child. This is
definitely not Hilgard, but 26th and California in Chicago.

Ironically, this California ex-sorority girl who most of her
college career lived in a Bel-Air mansion, now calls Cook County
Jail, Women’s Division Four, her home. No, I am not
incarcerated (sorry to disappoint some of my Greek
“fans” from earlier in the year), but I moved to
Chicago to work at Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers.
I organize a Saturday law class for the women at the jail and
advise clients with child custody issues. You see, I thought I had
it all figured out. I would get great grades, be Miss Perfect
Sorority girl and work at a ritzy Beverly Hills law firm with the
hope of making a nice package for law school. I would continue to
live my upper-class lifestyle.

Instead of the Powell contraband book detector, I walk through a
metal detector and get patted down. The first rule of this place is
to not piss off the guards. I give them the list of women I am to
see and mentally prepare for breaking bad news or hearing the women
relate to me details of their lives that I, in my worst nightmares,
could not even imagine. Their reality is that their children are
being taken away because there are 24 grounds for terminating a
parent’s rights in Illinois.

Even though a 1985 California study demonstrated that less than
1 percent of mothers in prison were sentenced for child abuse,
their motherhood is being killed.

  Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin I tell
“Persia” that she will not be her children’s
mother because she has two prior convictions and did not meet the
nine-month deadline to get out of jail, quit the drug habit, get a
job, leave her abusive boyfriend and provide a home for her
children ““ all at the age of 18. She lays her head in her lap
and cries. All I can do is let her talk and cry as long as she
wants me to listen. Her children are going to be in a foster home,
just like the one she grew up in and loathed because she was abused
by an older child.

In foster care, the incidence of abuse is 60 percent ““
higher than when children remain with their biological families.
Persia has been in and out of jail for drugs and nonviolent crimes
and she is part of the 80 percent of women prisoners in Illinois
who have a history of drug abuse. She has tried to get help, but
the Illinois Department of Corrections’ drug treatment
programs serves only 12 percent of the female prison
population.

I know that Persia’s children will blame themselves and
not understand why they can never see their mother again. There
once was a case where a 6-year-old wanted to commit suicide by
taking all of his stepmother’s pills. Or, there was the time
during a visit that a baby started screaming when he realized his
mom was behind glass and he couldn’t touch her. It made me
sick to know that I, some legal helper, can go in and sit
face-to-face with the mother and her children cannot even touch
her.

Jail and prison are not supposed to be fun, but who is being
hurt here and what problems are being solved?  I see a whole
generation who are more likely to be incarcerated themselves
because they have a parent in jail. Many say a lesson needs to be
taught and incarceration is not supposed to be too comfortable.

Yet, take one step inside these places and the depression hangs
in the air, settling over you. It drags you down. The rules change;
it is you and the guards. You (even though you’re not a
prisoner) must obey their rules or out the door you go. There needs
to be punishment, but no one deserves to be abused, assaulted and
threatened by those who are supposed to protect the law. Instead of
frat boys here, you get guards at this party.

“Tedra” told me some of the best “Johns”
she has are the “officers” from Cook County Jail. She
whispered to me that certain guards ask for the night shift so they
can threaten and sexually abuse their favorite inmates late at
night when no one is looking.

Every time, I am struck by the visual dichotomy of the guards
and the prisoners. The women are mainly from minority groups, while
the guards (especially in the rural downstate prisons) are white
males. They perform the strip searches, guard the showers and
undress me with their eyes because I am the new “pretty young
lady” that walks through the door. I have felt my own skin
crawl as I was violated visually and prodded to try some cookies
“as sweet as you.” I wasn’t about to not take the
cookie or not let them search every inch of my car. They are the
ones in control. I will not piss them off or else I won’t get
in to see and help the women. I have seen 5-year-olds screamed at
by a guard and get patted down in the shake-down room, where even
the bottom of your feet are checked.

Just when I am beginning to feel hopeless, a woman does get her
life and child back. One of these women is CLAIM’s
Advocacy Project Director, who is in charge of the new sorority of
women leaving jail and trying to adjust to the outside world. She
herself was incarcerated and has a son, but now she heads Visible
Voices and they actively work toward changing laws that affect
female prisoners, especially mothers. Recently CLAIM spearheaded
legislation to change an Illinois law requiring pregnant women be
shackled to the floor and in chains while giving birth.

There are so many times this year, I have cried in the car ride
home because it seems no one in the world gives a damn about these
women or thinks they are human beings. How can I expect anyone to
care what happens behind these walls when what goes on is so unreal
to those on the outside, even to a socially conscious UCLA
grad?

As I trudge through the slush, I hear a guard screaming that a
female prisoner standing around is a “bitch” and a
“whore” and needs to move now; I wonder why in the hell
did I move so far away from my friends, family, 70-degree winters
and abandon my perfect life.

Why did I leave “LA-LA land” and the forever green
and manicured Disneyland lawns of UCLA? As I curse the snow, the
guard and the whole “outside world,” I hear a voice
from across the prison yard coming from amidst a group of women.
“Goooooddbye Kiiiiirrraaaahhhh. Thaaank
yooouuuu!”

Now I cry out of happiness in knowing there is hope inside these
walls and freedom for even this ex-sorority girl.