Back to Coffee Creek: Visiting Mommy in Prison

Have you thought about Shannon Hickman lately? I wonder how she is adjusting to prison life. I wonder how her children have dealt with life without their parents.

On several occasions I have brought my own kids to the visiting rooms at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. We have visited in both medium and minimum security buildings.

I’m going to stop here, and state for any who are curious or concerned that I have no intention of divulging the name and details of the prisoner we visit. This woman deserves privacy and the details of her case are not for me to rehash. I will simply state that I knew well her before she was in prison and I believe wholeheartedly that she is innocent of the charges that have landed her there.

The process of bringing a minor to a prison visiting room is not simple. First the prisoner must add an adult – in this case me – to her visiting list. Then I had to pass a background check (not difficult, but took some time), then the prisoner submitted the names, birth dates, and social security numbers of my children. I then received a notice from the prison stating the crime which the prisoner was serving time for and I had to have a notary public witness me signing off that I was aware of the prisoner’s record and gave permission for my children to visit said prisoner.

Visiting in the medium security prison (where Shannon is) is a nicer experience in my opinion – if for no other reason than the fact that you do not have to stand in line outside (regardless of the weather) for at least twenty and often more than fifty minutes when visiting the minimum security prison.

I pull into Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and stop next to a speaker system, press the button, and wait for an officer to ask how they can help me. I am to state, “I’m here for a visit,” they then invite me in. I park and walk to the medium facility gate, press the button, and wait for the “click” to let me know the gate is unlocked and I can enter. After securing that gate behind me, I walk up to the door and wait for an officer to click the door unlocked so I can enter the lobby.

Once inside, I walk up to the counter and write my name, city, the prisoner’s name, and how I’m related to her (friend). I then hand the officer behind the counter my driver’s license and each of my children’s social security cards and tell them who I am visiting. The officer checks the system to ensure I and my children are cleared to visit said prisoner, hands me back my IDs, and calls the K-Unit of the prisoner to send them to the visiting room.

I then purchase ten dollars in quarters and secure my purse in a locker. I am allowed to bring in only quarters and our IDs (though when my children were in diapers, I could bring in a diaper, wipes, and an empty Sippy cup). I sit on a grey plastic chair while my children play with an activity bus or sit next to me, then an officer calls out, “Visitors for X.” That’s us, so we approach and I place our IDs and quarters into a bowl and send my kids through the security scanner, then I walk through and the officer hands me back my money and ID.

Visitors are not allowed to wear blue denim since that is how the prisoners are dressed. This doesn’t apply to children under ten.  Women are not to wear underwire bras, but the consequences for making this common mistake are not predictable. The first time I did, I was turned away, so I drove the few miles to Target, bought a sports bra, then drove back for my visit (this wasn’t cool, because visiting hours are set and I lost about 40 minutes to that mistake). Another time, an officer instructed me on removing the underwire (I regret ruining one of my favorite undergarments!), and still other times they have let it go, done a pat down, or put a note in my visitor file that I’ve been warned.  OK, so if you’re going to visit, you’ve been warned: no jeans or underwire.

When we make it through the security scan, we go into a small room, wait for it to lock, and then we are allowed into the prisoner visiting area. It’s a large open space with rows of chairs facing each other (the prisoners sit on the grey chairs), and several round tables where people visiting with children can sit. We approach a desk where yet another officer (or two) sits, tell him who we’re visiting, and he assigns us a seating area – we usually get a table thanks to the kids. There are also rows of the type of visiting stalls you see in movies with the glass partition and telephones – those are for prisoners who have gotten into trouble and are wearing an orange or green shirt as part of their discipline.

There is a play room, but only prisoners and children can be in there, so my children only go in (with my friend) and grab a toy or two and come back out.  There is also an outside playground that is a nice place to visit, and only prisoners and their visitors with children under twelve are allowed in this area, so it’s fairly private.

We sit at the table and wait for our prisoner to come. It can take a while for her to get there, but usually only a few minutes. Some of the things we do while we visit include playing board games or cards, spending our quarters on soda, candy, and chips, playing outside when the weather is nice enough, getting our picture taken together in front of one of the backdrops around the room - both seasonal and permanent, and talking while the kids color or play on the playground.

My friend, the prisoner I visit, has children too. They visit her about once a month. She has been locked up since they were toddlers. When they are confronted with a typical question about what they like doing with their mom (or what is their favorite food that their mom makes), they don’t have too much to choose from (though prisoner’s kids do get to come to the facility for family activities other than the visiting room I have described here).

Inside Coffee Creek

I am a taking a small detour from life inside the Followers of Christ church, to life inside Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. CCCF is Oregon’s only women’s prison, and is also the intake location for all male prisoners. Shannon and Dale Hickman arrived for intake last week. For this entry, I travelled up to Wilsonville and interviewed a prisoner from Coffee Creek.

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.