The life of a female inmate in prison.
“Once Upon a Time……….I dreamt of a happy marriage, having children, traveling with my mate to far away lands, celebrating my 50th wedding anniversary like my grandparents did, having grandchildren and great-grandchildren surround me with love as I grow old.
Today, I’m spending my life in prison. I’m only 28 years old but I murdered my husband. His sexual, physical and emotional abuse had accelerated to the rate where I was losing my mind and when he tried to rape me one more time I couldn’t take anymore so I found a knife and stuck it in him. I feel as if I’m being punished for finally breaking out and stopping the abuse. The law doesn’t see it that way.
Today I have no life. I have no name. I am only a number. I have cried so many tears I have none left. I have no hope. My last request for a re-trial was turned down. I rarely eat, food tastes like garbage and my weight has dropped to 90 pounds. At five foot six this makes me look like a concentration camp victim. I feel like one. I live in a filthy cell surrounded by bars and fight claustrophobia on a daily basis. I’m afraid to make friends, afraid to do anything. I fear being raped by prison guards or even by my own inmates. So far it hasn’t happened but I know it will. It’s only a matter of time. It is as if I’m dead but my body doesn’t know it. I wake in the morning to a day that is gray even when the sun is shining. I cannot think about a future because I know I have none. I want to commit suicide but can’t find the tools I need to do it. A woman in the cell next to me committed suicide by hanging herself. I wish I knew how she had done it.
My friends have stopped communicating with me. They said they had tried to warn me about him and I’d married him anyway. It was my own fault. I wonder if they’ve ever heard that trying to break an addiction with another person is like coming down from heroin. Would they care?
If only my father had not raped me when I was thirteen, would this have happened?”
One in four women in prison was sexually assaulted. 50% of inmates in prison were sexually assaulted as children. 67% of the women in prison who had been convicted of killing their husbands did it to protect themselves and their children. 93% of the women in prison for murdering their spouses were battered by them. Nearly six in ten women in state prisons have experienced physical or sexual abuse in the past. The amount spent to shelter animals is three times the amount spent to provide emergency shelter to women from domestic violence situations ( WAC Stats) When will we wake up and see what is happening?
