A story by Anonymous (Maine Correction Center)
I would like to talk to you about something very important to me, something I have been living with for a few years now. I have never been in trouble before, and I did not know anything about how jails or prisons worked. So, when I was placed in one, I was mortified by the operations of the facility. We have a long way to go with how we view incarceration, but I can tell you from someone that’s living it: This Does Not Work. Locking someone up and throwing away the key is not the answer. This is more damaging for everyone. It’s the most traumatic experience I’ve ever been through.
The first time I was arrested and brought to county jail was the worst experience I’ve ever had. They strip you down to nothing and then want to check every crevice on your body, which is horrifying. Then they take your clothes and undergarments and replace them with their supply of undergarments that other people have worn. After all that, they put you in jail clothing that is made for men with a sweatshirt, roll up a blanket with sheets and send you down to the pod that houses women. When you walk in, everyone already knows why you are there and depending on what the charge is, the women are super mean. To be stuck in there and not know what’s going to happen with a court-appointed lawyer who doesn’t care about what happens to you is disturbing. Being handcuffed and shackled every time you must go out to the courthouse is awful. It’s the worst feeling to walk into the courtroom and have cameras going off in every direction, treating you like a disgusting monster they just captured. They have you all over the news and in every paper, front page news. They say whatever they can think of to make you sound like the worst of the worst. The courts jump in, the AG’s people make up horrible lies, and say what they think happened, and they call this justice?
While all this is going on, where is there an outlet for you? There is one person in county jail for both men and women for what they call “mental health.” It is insulting when you find out this person gives the same line to everyone, no matter what the charges are. Why would anyone want to talk to this person, with the awful experiences we have had with interpersonal relationships? Plus, you must be careful what you say because you may end up naked in a turtle suit, locked in solitary confinement. There is usually a bubble in the pod where you are housed, and everyone can see you from every angle and there is a camera in the room watching. This does not feel good.
How does any of this sound normal or even okay? Could any of you imagine what that may feel like? Being ripped away from your family and thrown into hell when you have no one to talk to is horrific.
Nothing is private: phone calls, text messages, showers, and the worst, using the bathroom. Everyone can see you when they walk by, or if they are sitting in the sitting room. Some can look right in and watch you use the bathroom that’s placed in your tiny concrete cell. You sleep on a steal bunk with a thin mat to lay on with no pillow. It is so uncomfortable. Then you hear every noise which seems so loud, the doors slamming every 15 mins or more. The guards yelling at you to do something. Even if you wanted to sleep you can forget about it; other inmates are just as ignorant all the while no one listens to you. It’s a scary world and it feels like you have no one. You can’t even see your family and hug them. You are put in a room and have a thick piece of glass in between you, or you get to see them on a screen only. Some people are stuck in this transition for a year or more. It feels inhumane when all you want to do is hug your mom, dad, sister, brother, children, friends, etc. That’s whom I needed the most but never allowed to touch them. It is so lonely. There is no outside – ever. They have a room that has a ceiling with windows that have no glass that lets the air in which is neither heated nor airconditioned. If you’re lucky, you may get to see the tops of trees. You can hear the birds singing but can’t see them, just a concrete floor to sit on, no grass, no nothing. If it snows or rains hard enough. it may blow in on the floor. That is as close as you get to even seeing outside.
When you go to a program, you get strip-searched. If you have a jail job, you get stripped out before going back to the unit. Sometimes if you have a meeting with your lawyer, you get stripped out before returning. And of course, if you have a visit, you get stripped out before going back, and the sad part is there was no contact at all. All the things that I’m talking about are traumatic events and stay with you. I have never been so humiliated and made to feel like crap, the lowest of the low. I don’t know if mental health would be of any use because it messes with your head. I remember the first time I asked a question and the guard screamed in my face. I felt the spit coming out of his mouth to “go to your room and lock in!” I was not disrespectful in any way, and I did obey the order, but I cried in my cell thinking “how dare you, to talk to me like that”? They don’t want to hear what you have to say, even if you were just trying to tell them what happened, SILENCE! They can swear at you and say the most upsetting things to you, and you are to just take it. Each time this happens you lose another piece of yourself or your self-worth. We are all humans with feelings. I know if they had to go through something like that, it would break them. No one should be treated like they are nothing – like this world would be better without them in it, because that’s how it feels to us. The angrier we get, the worse they get. What happened to talking nicely to people and listening to what they have to say also? Being rude and yelling, and mistreating people is not working either. We need to make this a better world for everyone to live in peace. One day these inmates will be back out on the streets living next door. They haven’t had any help with mental health or worked on anything to become a better version of themselves.
To me, every aspect of this system is broken. I never knew I would be punished further for fighting for my innocence. I don’t understand WHY to this day. If you don’t have money in this world, you are bumming, and won’t get a fair trial. That’s absurd. It is so hard to even get out on bail conditions being poor. I thought the law is innocent till proven guilty.
Things are supposed to be changing with the carceral environment with the new Maine Model of Corrections. I pray that there is some middle ground and things are changing for the better.
