Living on the Inside

I am an incarcerated woman something I never thought was possible for me, something that I never even vaguely conceived. In fact, during what little consideration I did give to the subject of prisons or locking people away, I am ashamed to now admit that I dismissed it as irrelevant to me. I held an underlying and unevaluated belief that people who were behind bars probably deserved to be there,the idea of a prison work crew chopping up rocks was not too harsh for prisoners. After all, these were people who had thwarted society's norms, people who had violated other persons or property. How blind I was. I have been incarcerated now for over six years. It was a nightmare that brought me here, but the greater nightmare is the existence I wake up to every morning. I am wrongfully convicted but that is a different story about the failures of the so-called justice system. I have learned a lot about prisons since I've been here, locked away first at Central California Women's Facility and now at the California Institute for Women (CIW). The larger picture of this prison industrial complex and how it has become a driving force in society is best told by statistics. These statistics were published by the Department of Justice (1999) and the Little Hoover Commission (2004). They will give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem here in our " Golden State." • Sixty-six percent of incarcerated women are single parents locked away for nonviolent offenses. Most were victims of abuse before they became offenders.