As
soon as a sentence is entered, the prisoner is taken to a county jail. The
female prisoners are in a big room. They are ordered to take off their clothes
and stand naked while being inspected. The prisoner is told to lift her hair,
arms, feet, and then bend over and cough twice. If she is wearing a tampon, she
must remove it for inspection. She is then given a white jumpsuit to wear, her
ankles are shackled, and handcuffs secured by a black box. The prisoners are
loaded on a van to be taken to the prison.
The
van pulls into the facility at Coffee Creek and drives to the intake center.
The gates shut and lock before the prisoners get out of the van. They are taken
in through a door and left in a holding cell with a sack lunch. The lunch might
consist of: bread, a bag of chips, a piece of fruit, lunch meat, peanut butter
and jelly packets, and mayonnaise and mustard packets. All of the women are in
this large room together – there is a commode in one corner with a low wall
blocking the toilet, though you can see the person sitting on it. The women
stay in there for hours waiting to be called.
When
she is called out, she is issued her “intake clothes.” These consist of: blue
scrub pants, blue scrub shirts, navy blue t-shirts, underwear, socks, and
sports bras. She is also given a pair of orange flip flops for showering. Then
she is taken to the showers and shown the street clothes she was wearing so she
can verify that her personal belongings are there. These items are sealed,
boxed up, and mailed to the prisoner’s family.
In
the showers, a strip search is performed again, then she is told to take a shower
and put on her scrubs. She then goes into a room for fingerprinting, a DNA
sample is taken, and a picture for her prison ID. She is now taken to a
different holding tank, with the other processed prisoners. A nurse takes her
into a private room and takes down her medical history, notes tattoos, and
scars, and then she returns again to the same holding area.
When
everyone is processed, the prisoners are given manila pocket folders containing
the following items: a small tube of toothpaste, a tiny toothbrush, a
pocket comb, a razor, a small deodorant, a little bar of soap, a small bendy
pen, five envelopes, ten sheets of newsprint paper, and any paperwork she came
in with that she’s allowed to keep, and a yellow lanyard to the K-Unit (this is
the unit where intake prisoners will spend their first few weeks) with her ID
card. She also receives her bedroll containing: two blankets, two sheets, a
pillowcase, and two towels.
Now
she is taken down a “big, scary” hallway where is shown where things are and
taken to her unit. She arrives in the K-Unit. It is an open unit with 108 beds –
bunk-beds. She will be here for about thirty days. While she is here, she will
not be allowed to participate in any activities such as religious services,
salon, visiting, etc. She will have two hours every day to spend in the day
room or out in the yard. The rest of her time she is to sit on her bunk. At the
end of her time here, an intake counselor will meet with her to talk about her
Corrections Plan. This plan will explain her custody level (medium security for
prisoners with more than four years’ time), expectations, etc.
The
inmate I interviewed has been serving for nearly eight years now. She does not
want to remember the time she came in because, like Shannon Hickman, she was accused of causing the death of a child. She told me in vague terms about that
time, but my questions seemed to bother her. She said that the other inmates were not accepting.
They called her a “baby killer” and told her to just kill herself. They wouldn’t
allow her to sit with them for meals. She says she was “shunned” by the women.
I
remember when Shannon was born – just a few months before my niece, Miranda. I can’t
help feeling badly for her. She was powerless to decide how she was raised. She
was powerless in her marriage. She was powerless in saving her child. And, for
the next six years, she will be completely powerless in raising her surviving children.
