Ex Convicts Discuss Women's Prison - Jessica Kent and Ex Jewel Thief Larry Lawton Podcast | 140 |

[Music] which i'm going to be interviewing jessica kent she's a former ex-felon herself so this is going to be a real interesting interview before i get started check out our membership programs on patreon youtube and please join the action crew because this is the stuff we're going to try to help with we're going to try to change lives now let's get right to the interview everybody let me introduce jessica hey jessica hi thank you so much for having me i know you rarely do this so i'm very honored to be here yeah you know i like to interview people who are interesting stories not only interesting stories that align with what i do prison reform and and helping people who are behind bars or have a story and your story is amazing why don't you give a quick uh little little recap of what you're doing and where you came from and a little bit about yourself sure so i can talk about myself forever but i am from upstate new york i grew up in a really poor area in upstate new york and i was a really troubled kid i was constantly getting in trouble and from the age of 14 to 28 i was on some form of supervision whether that was probation or parole and it started young i am a recovering drug addict so for me i partied i partied really hard and that over time led to a heroin addiction and then a meth addiction so for almost a decade i was a really really bad active user i was also a drug dealer so there's a lot of twists and turns in my story and at that point in my life i thought only the good die young it's fine if you die at 25 as long as you live it up you know i had this very weird sense of i'm gonna burn this down you know um and i thought there was something wrong with that i was really arrogant selfish uh violent kid and you know i i had a lot of growing up to do which um it's funny i ended up going to prison again and this time it's different when you say again you mean you went twice or yeah i mean besides getting many arrested a lot of drugs usually we call it doing life on the installment program you know going back and forth so right so i caught my first case i was almost 17. it was criminal sales of controlled substance a kid over a kid overdose and almost died luckily he did not die and that should have been a wake-up call you know like this is dangerous what you're doing you're putting your own life at risk other people's lives at risk but it wasn't you know i i was very mean to him he ended up getting a restraining order on me because i threatened his life um and i i had no respect for anything the law other people myself and at 22 i got arrested in arkansas which i couldn't even point that out on a map when i went there i was i was in prison in arkansas forest city arkansas are you really yeah different world down there oh yeah sure is so i get arrested for uh delivery of meth and uh simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm and possession with intent now i'm going back you know and i didn't go alone i was actually pregnant when i got arrested and i had no idea that i was pregnant so i remember this jail nurse telling me like that's why you don't feel good sweetheart you pregnant you can go back and i'm like uh you got me confused with somebody else i'm not pregnant i was in complete denial of that but over time you know i didn't just gain a little bit of commissary weight i was definitely pregnant um and that was a whole different ball game for me i was for the first time in my life afraid you know afraid for my sentence what i was gonna go through what my unborn child was gonna have to go through um and i was for nine months in danger you know because you never know what other people are gonna do and i had enemies but i also had friends so i was very fortunate that i had people that had my back during that time but she was born while i was in prison i ended up getting a five year sentence and arkansas makes you serve 50 of your time or a third it doesn't make sense i can't even i mean the fed the feds are 85. right i was very i was very grateful for that but at the time i was bitter you know because i have to have to raise this child what do i do you know and growing up in new york i knew of a program in bedford hills where you you can keep your baby unfortunately that's not the case all across the country you know there are very few programs for mothers and babies so when i had my daughter um i was chained to a bed i had her for 24 hours and then the doctor came in and said i'm gonna give you another 24 hours that was a gift that was a precious gift and i think the doctor kind of smiled at me when i'm like i can't take percocet because they were offering me percocet i'm like i just had a baby i'm a drug addict give me ibuprofen and some really strong coffee if y'all got espresso i'm gonna need that espresso you know because i have to stay awake for 24 hours i have to hold this baby and stare at her and enjoy the 24 hours that i have so when they said i'm gonna give you another 24 hours i mean i was so grateful and just i wanted it to last forever um she was the cutest little thing i had ever seen and it was that moment that i decided you're done you need to hang up your hat you need to retire no more selling drugs no more doing drugs no more running around the country acting like a fool you're done you have just retired and how old are you at this time i was 22 3 when she was born so that's young you know so so a couple of questions obviously amazing story first of all i want to congratulate you i mean a lot of people i often talk about drug addiction i've done every drug in the book you name it i've done it never become an addict i have that personality that's not addictive personally like that uh i controlled it i didn't i didn't let it control me obviously you know most addicts do but i often talk about a life-changing event let me give you what i mean everybody's different uh i teach about about this on the road when i do speak in engagements every person is different meaning this i'll put one person could be driving down the street and almost hit somebody while they're high get home be shaken and say i'll never do drugs again they hit a bottom another person gets arrested spends a night in jail says man [ __ ] this i'm never doing drugs again he hit a bottle then you get a person like larry lawton who went to prison was facing life i ended up getting four 12-year sentences but i ended up facing life i still didn't hit my bottom until i was in the hole and a friend of mine hung himself and killed himself and told me he was going to do it so i hit my bottom there everybody hits their bottom somewhere jessica obviously you hit your bottom realizing wow this is my daughter this is my daughter my flesh and blood and i know i have two children now i have two grandchildren and my grandson is four or before and my granddaughter just turned two so it's like you know you live for those and now obviously you're doing very well uh i want to just say before yes i'm all cause i'm proud of you i think it's really really uh admirable that everybody goes to ups and down listen i deal with people all over the world and when you hear one person i said listen everybody could have went to prison everybody makes mistakes i don't kill you all i was at a function and someone says oh you know big crowd about 300 people someone raises their hand says oh i would never go to prison i said let me ask you a question if you ever drove 20 miles out over the speed limit you go well maybe passing someone i said if you hit somebody and kill them that's vehicular homicide over 20 miles an hour you're going to jail you're going to be my selly now are you a bad person no you made mistakes you you got caught up with drugs or whatever you did in our lives and i don't ever and i don't see you doing it i don't ever make excuses for who i was but i try to help people realize listen there's a better way now i know this is a tough question i don't like to ask to women how old are you now i'm 31. wow and everybody healthy everybody uh in good shape uh are you in a relationship did the dad stay with the baby yeah that's a that's a really good question he has struggled with addiction and he also went to prison that same day uh and well jail and then prison you all know how it goes but his addiction is a big difference huge massive um side note county jail is a million times worse in prison in my personal experience well it depends on where you're at true if you're rikers prisons yeah yeah and maximum security me too but his addiction never stopped um you can find drugs in prison in every prison in america so his addiction unfortunately he never got better and he's now facing about five more felonies today so he's still struggling um but i found a man y'all i found a really good man and i've been with him for seven years and that is my daughter's father you know he's stepped up and he's so good he's so great and we've been blessed with a second daughter she is four and that second kid gives zero f's about anything the second one will try you you could curse on this on my channel you could curse it don't worry about that it's not like we're we're dropping f-bombs but you know you understand but i gotta respect you for what you did coming out now having two great children and i often tell this i said people who went through adversity like you have become a lot stronger and a lot better person a lot better mom and a lot better educator because really i consider you an educator when i looked you up jessica my son found you i guess or you found me i didn't know how it worked and he says lad daddy goes you'd really like this girl she's really changed her life and and she has a youtube channel and and i think you could help her and you know tell her story and make and do good and try to help other people making those choices somebody sitting home right now who's listening to this podcast or video like on yours or mine and they change their life you know they say i get a lot of emails of people said larry you've helped me through depression or you've helped me i haven't did a drug since talking to you and and it's very hard on me i get the [ __ ] too jessica i mean you know the people that you know you're you're an ex-con you [ __ ] people should be jeff forever i get those but you know what they got to live their own life we have to forgive ourselves so now let's get back to your little story here uh you got a great story number one i'm really happy for you and your husband obvious and the two children i got great parents i'm sure what are you doing now obviously you're doing youtube are you working are you just to back up a little bit you mentioned my strengths and the truth of it is you don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you have you know um it took a lot to get to where i am today just mentally not the physical stuff outside but mentally you know it took years in my sobriety to even get comfortable in my own skin and i think when people are pulling themselves out of that they get frustrated at times because it's like i feel i don't feel good mentally i'm not i'm not okay so for me i was using drugs for a long time i didn't know how to handle my emotions i didn't know that i have depression and anxiety because i self-medicated that from 13 to 23. you know and that was tough depression ptsd yeah yeah when my daughter was born in prison that was the first time i realized like this i am something's wrong i had extreme postpartum depression and ptsd from being ripped out of that hospital room i spent a couple of weeks in the infirmary and i have like fleeting moments of the correctional officers trying to talk to me when i was coming back through intake i don't really remember what they said i don't remember here we're gonna get into that one second because we're gonna get into the whole prison experience here i mean i'm just trying to get where you're at now do you have do you have urges do you have uh i mean obviously addiction is a lifelong thing and i i was telling you you know before we did the interview here i i was off camera telling you about how i was lucky about not having that addictive personality per se do you find the urges do you ever like you know does things rip at you and you know you have to fight it because you know now you got two lives that you're really responsible for that it's just amazing to see i mean people out there and young people watch out podcasts are going to realize wow is it like yeah it's a feeling like you can't even explain i tell people yeah for me i i am triggered by certain things what is weird about my triggers is one of them is cash so i don't like having cash in my hand because i was a drug dealer i had a lot of cash you know so i don't like cash which is odd but my depression is my biggest trigger so i have to keep my mental health in check because if i don't everything else falls apart you know so it's been eight years now my daughter's eight i'm eight years older it's easier the first few years it was so hard because life was just throwing me tons of obstacles and i had to respond to them in the correct way that was the hardest for me now i wouldn't say that i have urges but i definitely get overwhelmed with stress and depression and anxiety and that is typically where my brain is just like the drug addict mentality tries to creep in and i have a good support system which is what i would recommend to anyone that's struggling with addiction i voice that i'm struggling i let my boyfriend know like y'all you need to take the kids i'm going crazy i just need a minute to myself i need to you know take care of my mental health take care of my physical health and then you know i can do better and obviously you're getting that support because you and i both know it's easy you know when i first got out it would have been easy for me to dip back into crime oh yeah because i was a very successful criminal i mean made 15 18 million i mean my whole life was a big big success in the crime world but you're always looking over your shoulder i don't have to tell you about the drug business or the crime business because you were in it you know a lot of people ask me they go laugh you know you weren't into drugs but what are drug people have relating with you and i said they were criminals and and they don't understand what i mean by that they don't know they were addicted no no trust me if you're a drug into drugs you're a criminal because you're doing something to get that money you're doing something to get the you know support that habit because you just can't do it i don't care how much money you have if you're you will go through it i've seen people blow businesses million dollar businesses because of drugs uh did you go through any like uh before we get into the prison part of it when you had your kids you got offered was there any help group whether it's uh you know and uh you know narcotics anonymous na or any of them that helped you or was it just your inner fortitude so that decision was made in prison um i knew that i i was done i was gonna quit no matter like by any and all means necessary i don't attribute my sobriety to na um i was court mandated to go to n a n a and i just kind of have that personality where if you're forcing me into something i'm not gonna be too happy about it i'm the same way i'm not a big believer in those i really am not not that they don't work for some people i always say that i do but i'm not a supporter in those right but per se yeah i think you got to do it personally i had to make that change on my own um and i felt a lot of shame surrounding those meetings and i didn't feel good going there you know i am not anonymous i am jessica kent and i got sober and i beat that you know but for you when your baby was born was your baby born in an addict no so thankfully i was only three weeks pregnant when i was arrested so i was barely pregnant five minutes pregnant um she was born very very healthy and she has no symptoms of any of that thank god so right when you knew you were pregnant you stopped drugs literally stop drugs right wow that shows the power of of a baby or of a human life you literally yes you were in jail but and you you and i both well know has drugs in prison any way you want or jail anything you want i i did my best drugs in prison i did a lot of acid in prison and obviously you know drugs are everywhere in prison and you didn't do it so that says something now we're going to get a little bit if you don't mind into your incarceration and your actual have a birth because i know my audience is probably saying wow what is it like what do they do once you like you come into intake and they say hey listen you're pregnant what do they do they just throw you still into population give us a little bit of how that works yeah so um because of my charges i was supposed to be in a max um but and your charges were uh deal uh dealing what were your exact charges possessions were they distribution yeah possession with intent to distribute delivery of meth which is uh controlled controlled bias because people suck um and then simultaneous possession of drugs i love you already firearm i try to even tell people don't get away from a gun that's just an enhancement that you don't want right we were able to get it null processed because you know it was nowhere near me when we were arrested it's a whole story i can get into that and you know later in the interview if you if you'd like but yeah i was supposed to be placed at a max well when i went into intake they they do the medical stuff when you're going into prison it's this whole long drawn-out day and this is in what state illinois arkansas arkansas okay and now you weren't living there at the time were you i was living in arkansas for about seven months and at that point i was heavily addicted so you were the residence was there okay exactly and you were dealing out of like you're dealing in your crimes or out of arkansas everything on arkansas i mean arkansas where's arkansas it's a flyover state that's what we used to call it um yeah i i ran from some felonies in new york that i was innocent of and i'm like i know i can fight this but i can't fight it out of the county jail with a public defender i have to fight it away from here um so i ran i knew a friend in arkansas again i couldn't even pick it out on a map i had no freaking idea where it was like our kansas what the hell is that um so i get there and i meet a bunch of people that were selling and using meth and i'm like oh i'm a hustler i can do this it was all coming from mexico it was strong it was addictive and at that point i lost all control of my addiction i became very very sick i wasn't eating i wasn't drinking water i was covered in tracks and i weighed 90 pounds when i was arrested i looked and was disgusting i mean i was so sick so fast forward i take my plea at six months six months pregnant little six months and change um now you know you're pregnant right when i told you in intake you said they told you it didn't take you were pregnant they told me in the county jail that i was pregnant and i was incomplete and did you just happen to get a test i mean nobody just gets a pregnancy test did you feel right not have a period i understand right um so a friend of mine put in a kite a friend of mine put in a kite for me to go to medical because i was sick i didn't even request to go and i remember one day they called me out and they were doing a bunch of stuff but i'm detoxing i'm in and out of it all i want to do is sleep you know um so the the only thing i remember is i'm calling me out and then the nurse telling me i was pregnant because i'm just not even in my right mind right i remember even standing in the hallway like what the [ __ ] are we doing today you know i had no clue what was going on um so six months later i i take my plea it was the third plea i really had to fight the state of arkansas to get the plea that i got they offered me 20 i told them to go [ __ ] themselves they offered me 10. i said absolutely not and i thought i'm going to trial i'm going to trial in a state where they won't give me legal material i have no access to the law library no books whatsoever and that's so against the law you know i did the law for 10 years i'm like this is yeah this is illegal so i'm fighting the correctional officers i'm like i need a [ __ ] feeling there's a law book like this is not okay so everyone around me in this in this uh jail was like are you lost like this is arkansas you're not getting any legal material so that was probably the first uh moment where i'm like i need to fight for prison reform but i didn't know how right so i get my plea of five years happily signed so you ended up after a long thing they don't want to go to trial they said there's an addict let's give her five years and you're in the county jail how long at this time six six months and are you showing are you like kind of re i mean i had javelins like i was so fat i had jowls well you know after being an addict and you know this jessica you probably the weight felt good in its own way oh yeah you know you were you know you once you're sober you you realize i look like [ __ ] you don't think you do when you're you're an addict and you've got other addicts want you and all the [ __ ] that goes on out there but now you're feeling it i mean are you feeling the baby yeah um you know i was in denial for a few months probably three but after a while i'm like i didn't know that i'm sure yeah this stuff that goes on did you worry about losing the baby all the time every day every day because unlike the free world you can't just go to the doctor if you think something's wrong you know and i didn't have an ultrasound and i would beg the nurse please just check the heartbeat please like something's wrong that's anxiety so all the time i thought that i wasn't okay there was even a situation where another girl tripped me because she didn't like me she was actually sleeping with my baby daddy so there's some tea there she trips me and now i'm convinced i get up to swing and my old biker chick friend that i that i met in kind of jail she's like are you insane what are you doing and i remember like oh [ __ ] i'm pregnant i can't fight her i'm pregnant um but i'm like she hurt she hurt my baby she hurt my baby so for a week i begged the nurse please listen to the heartbeat like this this chick tripped me something's wrong and then i went into the nurse's like medical office and she checked the heartbeat and when micah's heartbeat came up i just started bawling my eyes out because for a week i thought something was wrong and that was at three months or maybe four so i didn't really feel her movement moving at all um and i was i kind of went through a lot of situations like that a lot um i try to tell people in prison there is no medical care i love that oh you're gonna get medical oh [ __ ] you break your arm they'll give you a [ __ ] aspirin uh you're lucky or you'll see anybody period uh i mean the medical care even in the federal system when i was in arkansas uh the doctors don't even have to be licensed in that state because we were on a federal institution which is the work i used to love to hear people compare i'd rather be in a state than the feds not when you're in maximum security prisons i was in a prison we had uh 2 000 inmates 800 at life and never getting out and it was murders and zoo was the worst prison in the country at the time that was usp atlanta but get back to your story so here you are at six months pregnant nine to go still worried every day you gotta worry about who's gonna like you dislike you you know fight you're you're not heading to the state jail yet right you're not going to the jail you're still in jail you're not going to prison yet right so usp atlanta just to back up a little bit that's still a really messed up prison i got a homie there right now oh i know i know i hear from people i got a lot of contacts in there it's a i was in there for years two years and hold over i've been on con air 16 times but that's another story it is let's keep going to you you see you're you're here hun uh you're uh six months pregnant you're just got sentenced so you're not shipped off to the state jail yet are you so i i was i was shipped off pretty quickly after i signed my plea uh thank god and i get up there and the nurses in intake they didn't see that i was pregnant because i gave i got this big old thing on you know they they put us in different clothing and none of it fit and i'm sitting there of course she's asking me these questions you know and finally i just had to tell her like do you know i'm pregnant and she looked me dead in my face and said well how do you know you're pregnant and i stood up because i was sitting in this little church she was checking my blood pressure and i showed her my stomach and i'm like are you serious um gained 60 pounds in my uterus lady like i'm pregnant yeah the intelligent level of people are sometimes just off the charts so ridiculous um but she's like oh well you're not staying here you're going to write spell that's a medium and i'm like i'm going to a medium word like i was i was excited about it right so i stayed in max is it a medical unit 50 50. so they have a work release program out of there and they also have like some cancer patients there and the pregnant chicks get sent there so there's a lot of different stuff going on there um but i stayed in max for a few weeks and then they shipped me to medium and i had my baby um and i actually got kicked out of the medium and sent back to the max shortly after i gave sounds like me you sound like me a lot because that's what happened to me after fighting certain things but the uh so now you're at the prison and you have your baby at the prison no um so after she was born i was actually in labor well you're in the medium you're in the medical unit or if you want to call it half of the medical unit i assume are the pregnant ladies there yes there are um and this was my first experience with it i had had experience with seeing girls you know test positive for pregnancy and they're pregnant in jail but i never paid attention to it before because it didn't affect me you know and now i'm like i'm the pregnant chick like this sucks right so at the time i think in my dorm we had five or six other pregnant women so um and interestingly enough i had seen women have their baby and come back in 24 hours and then get visitation with them you can't keep the baby there um and i thought she did it i could do it it's not going to affect me that bad if she's strong enough to handle it i can certainly handle this and you get i mean by their policy or whatever it is you get 24 hours with the baby 24 hours with the baby here you are you're in prison you're locked you've just had the baby you're shackled to the bed the doctor gives you another 24 hours that person has to be god no yeah i wish i remembered her name i wish i could get a hold of her and just thank her for that because what was so small to anyone else was a huge deal to me you know i was that was the first time in that whole experience that i was actually treated like a human being my my visits my doctor visits in the county jail i was brought out to a free world free clinic and people were taking pictures of me in the free world pregnant shackled up going to the doctor so if you have that picture of me [ __ ] you i'm just kidding um i i was so embarrassed and i was mortified that people were taking my picture you know but but after my daughter was born i something was missing i had her for nine months with me and now she's gone and i didn't know how to react to that so i got to hold her for 48 hours i wouldn't even let them take her to give her a little bath like you're supposed to do you can't say no new mama so did you did did you fight them uh when you when they came to take the baby away obviously you can't have the baby you're going back to prison now they tell you okay you get discharged is it only 48 hours in the hospital it's supposed to only be 24 unless you have a c-section but i had a normal birth or not i want to see normal they're both normal i had a you know no no a regular vaginal birth or a regular the uh they take you and they they kind of rip the baby out of your arms i mean do you have it up to the last minute up to the last minute i was holding her and i knew that they were coming in the morning to get me and i want to say it was about 10 a.m and i placed micah that's my daughter's name in this little bassinet next to the bed and i'm holding on to it because i don't want to let go and this is this is the only person in the world i have ever loved ever besides a toxic boyfriend from my past we don't got to mention him but this is mine this is i made this this is my baby and i had never felt such an overwhelming sense of protecting my daughter protecting anybody you know so i'm holding on to this bassinet and i whispered to her i will be back for you and i just wanted i knew she couldn't understand me she's a newborn but i had to say it out loud i will be back for you i will be back for you and now who's in the room is there guards nurses who's in that there's one correctional officer and she was very mean wouldn't even talk to me or let me get up to go to the bathroom because if she has to get up so i can go to the bathroom she has to unchain my leg and that's just too much for her that's how she acted so i was not allowed to use a bedpan no i held it for a while and then i'm like i gotta go now i i tried to bother her the least amount possible because she was disgusted that i had to that she had to be at the hospital for her shift you know she was really shitty they hate their own jobs and then they project that on justifiably so there's very little humanity in prison yeah and i understand hating that job justifiably so it's not the greatest job in the world absolutely but i'm a human so they take your baby so what happens they take you they put you in a wheelchair and wheel you back to the prison or they just i mean you mustn't want to go right you don't want to i don't want to go i'll fight you because this is my baby but i'm holding onto the bassinet and i hear the keys i hear the correction officers come to the door because they are loud as hell you've never been to prison you don't know but the key is like you just hear the keys jangling the radio and like they're just so loud so i hear them at the door and then they say to me ken it's time to go you better come in here and get me because i'm not trying to go so i just i think i remember telling them no i'm not even turned around i'm not even going to look at you i'm going to spend the last seconds that i have staring at this baby she was so beautiful she's still so beautiful but i just couldn't even take my eyes off of her and eventually they got sick of asking me we're not asking anymore so they came in and they grabbed me by my shoulders and slammed me down in this wheelchair i just gave birth that was painful and as quickly as they could they put my leg in chains and they shackle me or handcuff my hands and they wheel me out of the hospital as fast as they could now i just left my newborn baby in this hospital room i have no idea where she's going who's going to get her what's gonna happen they don't tell me anything and they throw me into the prison transport van and i know i made their job harder because i told them no but at the end of the day like i was willing to do whatever it takes to stay there for any like for a second longer so now you're clean for you're clean for nine months clean for nine months just just about nine months i mean you're three weeks in or whatever it was my daughter's healthy um and the doctor reassured me of that which i'm so grateful that she did but i was healthy so the doctors kind of gave you the ass the last end of the thing said you know you had a good doctor give you an extra 24 hours obviously you didn't have to do that but you get that you head back to prison you're in a van obviously heading back to your prison do they talk to you do they say anything or they just typical ass off uh they didn't even turn on the radio they just talk to themselves um but i didn't ask i usually ask like can you at least turn on the radio but i didn't talk to them i didn't care they were talking about their lunch breaker their their kid i don't even know some other [ __ ] not talking your mind is on your daughter yeah they're talking about some others your mind's on your daughter i mean just like thinking i gotta get back to my daughter i gotta get back to my daughter i gotta break my because i remember when i went away i had a 15 month old baby and a six-year-old son and i and i i lost them for well over a decade it's gut wrenching i got out of prison my son was 18. oh my daughter was 13. so you uh headed back to the prison you go into intake in the prison and what happens do you go to medical do you where do you go from there yeah um i know where you go but i was in there enough but uh tell the audience yeah i i came back in through sally port which is where they bring inmates and there's this little change out room they gotta strip search you and you gotta do some really awkward and uncomfortable things to make sure you don't have contraband hidden or we say it i say it spend and spread them yeah so we gotta do squat and cough and i don't remember going through that i don't remember them asking me that but i barely remember them talking to me i just remember not being able to talk i couldn't really hear what they were saying um i was traumatized i had just looked like i was shell-shocked i looked like i had been to war um and they took me to the infirmary and i stayed in the infirmary for two weeks psychologists came in did you have postpartum depression i postpartum depression and ptsd and i i saw other women do this so why couldn't i do it i didn't understand you know i had nine months to prepare what is wrong with me you know no one ever told me about postpartum depression or ptsd i didn't understand i just knew i couldn't get out of that bed and are you wondering what's going on with your kid every day every second oh where is mika where is mika all i could think of is like i just left that newborn two-day-old baby in a hospital and that was the last time i saw her for six months i didn't know where she was how big was the baby went she was almost okay give me the size dimension dimensions um so she was six pounds nine ounces 15 inches or 16 inches long she's asian so she's short ah my my uh my son was uh six pounds seven uh six pounds eleven ounces i think he's gonna get mad at me and uh he was 20 inches it was long that's funny because we all know that so here you got a healthy healthy baby girl obviously you'd go you're in prison now you're in poke you're in the infirmary in the prison ptsd and postpartum depression is a real thing everybody it's real and now you get out of the infirmary you go back to the unit you start work what's your plan so i just snapped out of it one day and i told myself get up get whatever it takes get out of this bed go back to your dorm sign up for classes you have to get your daughter you can't lay in bed get the hell out of this bed and i don't know what came over me that day but i'm so grateful that i had that realization and i'm so grateful that i was able to get up because for two weeks i didn't think i could for two weeks i thought i'm broken this person that was with me for nine months is gone i don't even know where she is and i was so damaged from that i was so not mentally okay so i get back to my dorm and i immediately go up to the cork board that they have where there's like different classes or schedules and i'm just like i need to sign up for everything so i get kites and i sign up for thinking errors and i want to go to ged class and i want to i want to do parenting and i want to go to n a when is n a and i'm asking people and they're like yo new york where's your where's the baby are you okay like you've been gone for two freaking weeks i'm like get on my face man unless you know the n a schedule i'm not trying to talk to you and they they before like all the other women would come in and show the pictures of their baby and they'd have visits they'd be talking about it everyone's in my face trying to ask me if i'm okay or where the baby is and i'm like does anyone know the ged schedule like i was just i'm not trying to talk to you about that right now i'm trying to you know get my stuff together so i do i signed up for you you you actually didn't want it to do anything with anybody else except think about your future and your baby and everything kept you going that's what kept you going i mean you can get trapped into that world where we were trapped in and it's we know the kind of world it is it's it's just a crazy world but you started taking it said i gotta get out i gotta get my baby i gotta do whatever i can do all right so you do your time you're in a medium security prison what happens does anything happen you well get in trouble i was supposed to eventually meet with the parole board in this medium and parole out right supposed to be a very simple transition um that didn't happen so shortly after i returned to my dorm i had a sex offender come up to me trying to help with paperwork you know i i was studying the law before i gave birth because that was the first time that i was actually granted access to legal material so i'm trying to figure out you know arkansas state law and she took notice of that she knew that i was studying and i'm not trying to watch tv or go to the record i'm just trying to study and learn arkansas state law because they gave me 40 years exposure and i had no idea what that meant so i was just trying to understand my own [ __ ] and she came up to me and everyone around her was like oh she's got a bad charge but listen man i don't got time for your bad charge i gotta get my daughter i gotta focus on my own stuff but she was very pushy with showing me her paperwork which was the weirdest thing ever old young was she old she's young probably a few years older than me so she was probably late 20s she was young younger yeah it's geez i'm getting old but yes yes young and um i told her i saw the charges and i read over it probably in a minute or two and i slid across the paperwork on this metal table they have in the day room i slid it across the table and i said you need to get away from me and she's like what i'm like you need to get away from me you know because it was a true chomo true i mean i can't even ever repeat what i read in that paperwork it's i see some sick [ __ ] but they we used to [ __ ] them up but that's a long story yeah and because i know the law so well i used to get the codes and see and some of the shits it's horrifying i i yeah yeah yeah so she took offense so you have a fight yeah she was really pissed off that i told her to get away from me and she's bigger than me she was towering over me i'm sitting down i'm not trying to even stand up she's towering over me and she's like ah like a chihuahua and i just ignored her and she eventually gave up but then a couple hours later she's trying to follow me all around she's trying to you know she's really just in my head just yelling at me acting crazy and what's crazy is you're the [ __ ] jomo what are you talking about she's talking about my case like i'm a drug dealer dude get the [ __ ] out so i went to the bathroom and she pushed me and i thought oh end of it just you two in the bathroom so i hit her hit her a few times and i end up on top of her i'm punching her you go crazy and crazy crazy i even [ __ ] crazy on people yeah um so there's no such thing as a fair fight in prison no no anyway but no one around me says 5.0 or gives me any indication that the cops are in the dorm and i feel someone trying to pull at me and i went like that and i hit the co in the chest plate and i as soon as i did it i was like no hello darkness my old friend you know what's so funny how you just said cops all convicts say oh cops are coming and it's guards in prison you know we call guards cops you know appear i i did a video on that and people go what do you mean cops are guards in prison you say hey the cops are coming or whatever it is right yeah i'm fine well you know they're coming but okay so now you go back after that you know you're in trouble you go to the shoe they put you in admit then you go to a dho you have a hearing and they say you're guilty they don't give a [ __ ] who started it it's a joe mo they don't think anything like that so you go back to the max okay now you go to a max and when you're in the max do you still have your parole hearing up for that date i mean is there is anything pushed back so because i still had plenty of time to the door i didn't have my hearing yet so it wasn't even scheduled yet so oh okay oh i thought you had one schedule i was just supposed to like i was playing it on my head i was supposed to go to the parole hearing and get released here i'm it's gonna skate by with the medium like no not me not jessica so go to the max do my time in the hall and then um i actually got released um and went back to the general population unit and that is where they put me on chain gang so i could talk to you guys forever about my experience there um you mean to tell me you they they put you on a chain will you go outside the prison ain't [ __ ] ain't happening where we were at man they would never let those dudes in atlanta or all of us out of prison are you [ __ ] no i mean you're outside of the gate you're outside of the fence like right outside the prison and you're lined up with a hoe and you're just hoe in the ground for hours my hands were all cut up and bleeding and they played break the yankee with me i don't even know how many times at this time jess what how much time did you have left and you know you calculate your inmates are like you know convicts i'd say okay at the beginning it was like i saw my 12 years to the door are you [ __ ] kidding me but you know when you get closer and closer you're thinking oh another year [ __ ] that's not yeah how much time at this point did you have after my seg time and all of that i had like a year so it was a year and a half when i left the medium and then a year left i got to get my class back because they demote you and i had to you know earn my class so they put me out of class four chain gang and the bad bad guy at this time are you at all talking to your daughter or how are you getting updates or anything about your daughter or are you it's a good question um for four months i didn't even see a picture of her but at four months i got a picture and the from the foster family okay really good people i actually still talk to them and i thought oh my god that's a completely different baby i left a two day old baby and now this baby is huge she's four months and so cute um and then at six months i finally had they're great people um at six months i had a court hearing for her and the judge granted me a 15-minute visit in chambers it is as short as you're in prison and you had a court here in prison i had a court hearing at six months to determine like where are you what's the plan um obviously i'm in orange because they had to transport me back to the county jail i had to sit in county jail for a few days and then go to court it's a whole process um so obviously i'm still in jail why do i know it i know it's so rough but they extended it they're like we'll come back um a month after your release date and i didn't know what to expect but i held my daughter for the first time when she was six months old and it just it now it is that at the courthouse i mean is that the courthouse in chambers yep at the courthouse and i was so grateful for that and that literally like set in stone my mission you know because time and space away from the situation you start to maybe forget what your mission is my mission is get this baby ironically the foster father it was a police officer i didn't know that he was not in a uniform when i met him in court but the way he was standing you guys convicts know a cop when they see one um i can tell so he had his arms crossed he wasn't anywhere near me wasn't going to talk to me by his body language alone i'm like that's a police officer um and he was so i'm like it's this weird vibe this converse cop vibe in chambers and it's a little awkward but i told the foster mom i'm not like anyone else you've ever met i'm different i'm gonna get my daughter back please just take care of her and love her with everything you have until i get back i'll be back um her husband didn't believe me at first of course why would you i never gave you a reason to believe anything i'm saying um but after i got out they became my biggest advocates you know they saw that the determination alone that i have that is in every fiber of my being it's in everything i do i wake up early i work my ass off i i make sure that at the end of the day i've given that day a hundred percent because i have to get my daughter that's all i care about in the world because that's the kind of cops that we need and that's the kind of people we need to be cops uh caring believe in second chances uh are cautious but they're so good uh so now you take you're out you get to the door you're excited you go into a halfway house obviously so you get to a halfway house you start work what do you do i um yeah at the halfway house they were actually charging me rent that's a whole different situation but oh that's all nothing yeah i didn't have sneakers when i left prison i didn't have clothes that enough sneakers on a driver's license new york will give you an id at least arkansas is like get out we don't care um so i had 25 here you go i had prison shower shoes and a hoodie that i borrowed from somebody and i got a telemarketing job that day so i told you i got it i thought of my marketing job when i first got out and a half a house in tampa funny man seven verizon contracts check that out comics unbelievable what they do but go ahead it's awesome so uh you get out you're working i'm working i am working at a telemarketing job from sun up to sundown and then in between i'm court mandated to go to n a meetings i felt like it was a waste of my time personally because i got money i have to make you're taking me out of work to go here and i just i needed to work um i also had to go to bed it's good for some people it's it's not for others i often say that uh every one of them different in my opinion it's the person uh but whatever it takes to help somebody that's good too so now you're out your time to do you get to see your baby right away nope um i actually didn't know if i was oh that's gotta rip you apart i mean you're out you're free of yeah yeah you know you're getting free air but you can't go see your baby so it was not made easy for me at all so i um i contacted dhs department of human services the day i got out and asked and they said well your court date is on this date come there and we'll talk about your case plan that was like a month maybe two months away so i was frustrated already um but they did make sure that i got hair follicle drug tested so that was a hoot um and they placed my daughter four hours from where i paroled out to and you have to go for visitation after they grant you that so i went to my court hearing they granted me two hour visitation so i can go to cersei arkansas from spring so you have to travel four hours to go for two and then back for four yes every week for how do you do that how do you do that by bus or by uh you have a vehicle i have nothing i had to hustle and ask for rides i'm a new yorker i'll get it done it's all right um so i asked different people i worked with friends family friends of people at the halfway house i need a ride you know i'll pay you when i pay you i didn't i barely had gas money you know and people you know it's funny saying it's funny saying with new yorkers uh i could drop you off naked in alaska and you'll show up a week later in boston with a with a three-piece suit and thousand dollars i mean that's just certain people are like that they find a way is what that means yeah you know go ahead now you got the money i'll find a way you hustle it you figure it out you figure it out yeah my first paycheck from the uh telemarketing job was like 60 um so i was struggling but i'm gonna ask someone if you tell me no you're busy you can't do it i'll ask somebody else and i just found a way i never missed one visit and i figured it out every step of the way i mean that's not like around the corner jess that's four hours each way i mean some of the guys in halfway houses you know this they don't have a car that can go four hours i mean you know just the way they are nobody had money you know we all struggled i mean i remember taking the buses and every time i got my dad's old car an old blue skylock 1994 skyrocket this is in 2007 but anyway go ahead and uh so now here you are you're going back and forth you're seeing your child and you and is the is the force the family seeing how you're connecting with this baby um they do and over time i originally had two hour visits that got increased to four hours and then six hours but now i have two jobs i'm trying to dance around these schedules and didn't have a car yet so i had to ask a friend to either loan me the car or drive with me and i was very fortunate to find some decent people that that really helped me during that time and um you know what the judge granted me overnight visits and this was amazing but complicated because i have two jobs um so i had to drive four hours drive home four hours that that girl is tired she's a toddler you know she just wants to play she doesn't want to be in the car um but a road trip warrior was born that day because she is just so well behaved and so awesome and we made it as fun as we could for her and you know i i would take her you say we wait you say we oh me oh no i didn't know if you had uh because now you're out you get up you you get all out of the halfway house you're starting to get when you meet your husband i met rhys um we're not married but i met him when do you meet your love of your life i say that yeah yeah um uh okay sure when do you meet the man that you're with now that that is the father you saw uh october uh the i got out in like april of 2013 and i met him in october of 2013. so it was before i had custody so they were getting to know each other but i had to keep that on the dl because you're not supposed to date while you have a dhs case and you're in recovery no one wants you to date then and like i just and i wasn't trying to put all this [ __ ] over i wasn't sure i wasn't sure that this is the guy and i was really nervous to even introduce my daughter to him because what if you're great now when you leave so i was very very nervous um we actually dated an entire year before i even let him move in he was living with his grandmother and he was in drug court how did you get a place i mean did you just save up enough money to get an apartment and do everything on you yeah uh loan from working 20 hours i bet you were working sometimes 16 hour shifts i know how yep i'd go to the telemarketing you want to work you want to get out of the hair perhaps yep yeah i stopped paying rent at the halfway house because i couldn't afford it and i'm like if they kick me out i'll figure it out simultaneously i'm putting in applications for apartments and getting denied because i'm a felon um and i had a court date and this is kind of all over the place but i had a court date and the judge was like you have until this date to get an apartment and time was running out i found a guy and i was very honest and i'm like listen if you don't rent me this apartment i'm not gonna get my daughter i'm in this kitchen of this crappy duplex crying to the sky i'm like i need this place you don't understand bro and i just freak out i'm like i have the money just please take money i was so frustrated um because i'm a felon i was denied in arkansas time and time again and um they're like you're gonna have a meth lab here i don't think so i'm like i swear to god i'm not so so he took pity on me he believes in you yep he he heard a little bit about my story and he took pity on me and i signed the lease that day and i moved in the next day really crappy place and the day i was moving in i looked around and i'm like there's no refrigerator i thought there would be one like how is there no refrigerator oh my god no washer dryer so here you are a place with no furniture no so you start like everybody else to get a bed just to sleep in to get a a table to eat on to get a couch i mean literally piece by piece correct i had a couple pieces donated to me um an old mattress that was just on the floor i had that for a while that didn't matter and then my daughter's pieces of her furniture and some clothes that was also donated to me by friends that i worked with they're like oh my daughter's outgrown all this stuff you can have all this all these clothes her toddler bed i'm not even you know you thought it was christmas when you got that i was well you got stuff from people you know i i tell people now you know i look at people and i live a crazy life from multi-millions to zero eating ramen noodle soups so staying hungry and you know eating them raw and then drinking water to fill your stomach up but i i tell people i can live i have a 30 foot rv i love going out i could get it was better than my prison cell i i might do stuff out of my garage people don't get it they don't get what an ex-felon can do because we lived in a [ __ ] cell that was the shittiest [ __ ] a [ __ ] toilet and a frisy together and a smelly ass [ __ ] roommate sometimes or whatever it is and here you are you know you got your own place and you don't give a [ __ ] and people think oh this [ __ ] i used to think it's a [ __ ] castle you know and it's going from a millionaire to nothing back to struggling and you don't give a [ __ ] but so now you're out you're doing good the judge awards you the baby so after a year day after year of doing the visits doing the stuff the family's really nice he said and i think you should interview him if you don't want to i will and uh they the judge says to you one day okay you could have your daughter back yeah i mean i'm just trying to i'm getting look i got [ __ ] goosebumps i'm gonna make a tough guy like you crying oh [ __ ] i don't give a [ __ ] i like we used to tell people we did some [ __ ] man i [ __ ] some people up but we were all a bunch of murderers in a room one time [ __ ] god been crying over something nobody said a word [ __ ] kidding me so anyway here you are jess you get the baby the judge orders you got it back what was that like did you go grab the baby did you run did the people help you did they give you stuff yeah i mean they still i'm sure that i hope they still hear from you and and they look at the baby um so yeah so she was just to back up a little bit the judge granted me um temporary custody so for a few weeks she was living with me and i was working and they gave me vouchers for daycare for her and that was amazing but i had no clue what i was doing so it was amazing but i'm like what's up kid you want some spaghetti like i don't know how to cook anything i don't know how to take care of of a kid so i kind of learned you learn as you go you know and i was very tired i mean i was working full time and she's in daycare and i'm running back and forth from everything but um i was grateful because i have her like she's in my possession like you said before um so i had my final court hearing and you have no idea what the judge is going to say you know i don't have the nicest stuff but i got some stuff and i have a scion xb box car now this isn't like new york there's no public transit really there's a local bus but it's not really it's not great um it comes every hour two hours the car had no air conditioning in the south like it was not pleasant but um i go to court with her and i remember walking her in just holding her little hand she's walking super slow because she got little tiny legs and i'm just like let's just get there come on girl so i scooped her up and i carried her in just so we could get in front of the judge faster because i can't even wait anymore like i just need to know the decision because i didn't sleep the night before i was so scared i can't come this far to only go this far i have to have full custody this has to be over and i finally walk in i set micah down by me and i'm just standing there i'm shaking i've never i've gone to prison i'm not ever afraid i am terrified of this judge you know i've never been afraid of a judge before in my life and you know i'm standing in front of her and she is looking over all the stuff my lease the bill of sale for my car my n a sign sheet because i still have to go to those and she's looking over all this paperwork it takes and you're scared of this judge right now i mean like this judge has your life in her hands i mean your child's life in her hands yeah this is what the word goes this is what's going to determine everything you know i would not be okay if i lost her a second time i wouldn't be sitting here without you back to being an addict i i really believe that i would have died i wouldn't be here with you right now um but the judge finally after an eternity looks up at me and says miss kent um i'm really impressed you've done a lot in a year i've never seen somebody work like this i've never seen somebody work so hard and i am very proud to say that unless there's any objections from caseworkers i'm willing to grant you sole legal custody of micah and i thought are you serious like i can leave can i have her can i just leave and um you know she smiles at me for the first time i had never seen this judge smile before she was very serious and you know the the caseworker says no objections and the judge looks up at me and she goes good luck to you and i grab my daughter and i run out and i don't even care who's watching herself did you squeeze her like you know when i get i want to squeeze i'm so big sometimes i worry about crushing something but it's like i right outside of the courthouse i'm on my knees hugging my daughter crying so happy and i said we did it girl we did it and she has no idea what that means but we did it and how old is she at this time three a little over two little over two wow so she she will never remember the other times i mean happy we all don't but just to add i share that she knows she knows our story she knows she was born in prison i have a very open dialogue about addiction in jail and the mistakes that i made and how i took responsibility for my mistakes you know i think that's important absolutely good for you so now here you are let's bring it to today uh micah and we're gonna show a picture here is eight she's eight and she's eight going on 28 that child is so grown yeah wait wait wait wait i got 31 year old kid with my son who you know he's your age actually uh my son talked to you to set this up he's 31 he'll be 31 in november 189. me too and yeah and uh my daughter's born in 95. but anyway so now here you are today obviously you're working hard you're giving your story out you're on youtube uh and you're you're living in illinois i live in chicago in the chicago suburbs um i have graduated with my bachelor's degree i have a youtube channel i'm writing an autobiography for you congratulations kid yes i'm going to send you my book as well uh yeah it's a redemption i will send you a copy a signed copy just send me your address uh and it does very well it's a crazy story my whole life and you'll get that drift but you know write the book jess please write the book uh people will want to read about it you got a story of toughness you know listen you're a bad person and you admit it but you made bad choices you were never a bad person it's in you goodness is in you it just we we we cloud it with bad choices all right i was a shitty human being there's i'll buy that you were a person who did shitty things a person that didn't give a [ __ ] about others you didn't it was all about getting high we all know about addictions but you were never you know obviously showed it the minute you were off drugs or the minute you even had a kid or knew you had a kid you got off them on your own it's not like they [ __ ] strapped you down in a room and [ __ ] you know gave you [ __ ] and they put you these [ __ ] you read about no you did it because in here you knew i got a [ __ ] baby that baby's in me i can't [ __ ] that baby your baby wasn't born addicted and i feel trust me even if there are i still think people change they didn't know it addictions crazy [ __ ] but i wanted to just you know say that your story is amazing obviously we did this the longest interview i actually didn't want paulie uh we're doing more uh but he did 28 years a very close friend of mine and uh anyway your story is amazing i i want to just say even before ending up how i'm proud of you i hate that i don't like ever to say that and sound condescending because i never will because i i treat whether it's a 13 year old kid or a 80 year old person that you can respect because i want respect back that's how i live my life period and all the [ __ ] i did in my life but i gotta say this i'm so proud of you i'm so i have such respect for you one sticking to you who you are you didn't rat you didn't do anything like that even though forget all about that it's you did something for another person which is a human being and it's going to go well beyond what you've done for your daughter because other people can hear this story and have maybe a mom who was an addict or a dad or a or maybe they're in that that realm where you're in right now and people can hear it you know and they're going to say wow i can do it too and your your story is a story of [ __ ] great hope redemption uh success it is success and you went the rough route and you're not in you're not making excuses for that rough route i had a bad lie but i don't have to do that either never i just want to say that any any last words you want to say to the audience just thank you so much for watching this long ass interview so if you made it to the end and larry thank you for having me and um you know at the end of the day you are stronger than you know and if i did all that stuff if i overcame that there's no reason why you can't just push forward and do everything you can to try to right some wrongs you know i was a crappy person back in the day i would never say that i wasn't or try to make excuses but it's what i'm doing today that kind of um helps me with all the junk i did in the past i'm trying to balance out those karmic scales a little bit but again um thank you so much for having me and i can't wait to interview for my channel it's going to be an awesome one all right thank you very much again jessica good luck keep us posted uh anything coming out please we'll love to help you or try to help you point your book whatever you're going to do because your stories need needs to be told thank you all right everybody this has been a great great interview one of the best uh please if you want to check her out she has our own youtube channel just go to jessica kent uh you know how to get it it'll be a link in our description as well so we're right to get where it is and uh we're gonna have a great time uh uh staying in touch with her check her out have a great day everybody remember make good choices today is the day you can make one good choice and make one good choice every day and you're gonna help somebody along the way have a great day everybody see you soon you

Channel: Larry Lawton

Views: 341,525

Keywords: orange is the new black, prison, interview, convict, inmates, prison cell, convicts, prison life, jessica kent, female prisoners, female prison, women's prison, prison stories, Jessica Kent Story, Jessica Kent Interview, it's Jessica Kent, women's prison story, women's prison tales, women's prison rant, women's prison pregnant, in women's prison, a women's prison, jail, podcast, prison podcast, convict podcast, Jewel Thief Podcast, jail podcast, crime podcast, Larry Lawton

Id: Hz6VbVIVPWA

Length: 62min 34sec (3754 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020