Women In Prison (1974) | American TV Report

[Music] ABC News close up women in prison prisons are supposed to correct and protect correct the offender protect the citizen yet when the majority of these women get out of prison they will commit new crimes and go back to prison why although it is known that extended solitary confinement can drive people insane women are still being kept isolated as punishment for rule violations why while tight control and security are constantly being enforced women often have to be armed for their own protection why the federal reformatory for women at Alderson West Virginia the Los Angeles County Jail for women the State Reformatory for women at Marysville Ohio with the cooperation of the authorities ABC News took its cameras into these three institutions although they operate on different levels and are set up for different jobs and although they may look pretty they all have certain routines practices and abuses not apparent on the surface it is this uniformity which we have edited into a composite picture of women in prison women's prisons are often seen as models for prison reform and tonight we will look at some of the best of women's prisons and ask what are they like do they protect do they correct this confinement work you see that the uniform works that's the way it makes me feel [Music] box this is like I said strip you completely and downstairs starts downstairs to get upstairs they're young they're more often black or brown they don't have much money and they have children they must take care of these are the women behind bars around the country every year there are about 80,000 of them when they arrive as newcomers they are cold fish in your mouth why you stuck your shoes after show me the body I don't feel like I don't think they look at us this humans you know we're just fish today that's the way they treat this just like scale of species yeah give inside the shower please face me open your mouth one turn around show me the bottom of your feet one at a time and we'll just spread your legs put your hands on your buttocks and over and pull yourself apart okay that's fine okay take a quick shower okay here's your chair for [Applause] [Music] okay good a new friend even though I'm here I'm still a woman but they try to strip you of everything once you get here it's something that I think a human being shouldn't have to go through okay being 21 first down right here okay wait right up here I'll give you a letter [Music] although many women are in for some kind of violent crime the majority of women are there for crimes such as larceny drug violations forgery fraud and even for prostitution and drunkenness it's like you know I know you know like you society says you have to pay for what you're doing all this but I've accepted that because hey you know I'm living this type of lives that evidence you know eventually I'm gonna get busted so I know I'm gonna come to tell you know so that's bad enough in itself being seen and then handcuffed in on all this jazz coming you know once you get here after you go through the process of them finger planting your hair and Dean any nose and looking in your eyes and ears and you know looking up your hats and everything that takes everything [Music] well-staffed efficient modern this is Los Angeles County Jail for women this is a jail planners dream it is all run from a central control room the officer there can tell at a glance which gate is open and where she can direct prisoner traffic with buttons and loudspeakers 24 hours a day someone is there [Music] the prisoners day begins at 5:30 believe it or not Deborah Bradley if you need a bag for your property step up front Pat Alan you're going to LCM sue this morning at 7:30 [Music] you get up you wash showers aren't allowed in the morning every day someone has to ask the matron for toilet paper [Music] Carroll corner in that whirling Fang great letters from home and children from boyfriend's from families they're welcome but they're reminders of where you are a mother can't help if your child is having trouble at school a woman can't see your man that weekend perhaps the worst part about jail is feeling that distance [Music] the day has begun you've gotten up received your assignments you will now go to breakfast everything has a schedule everything has been decided for you you will have 15 minutes to eat breakfast then you will line up again and begin your job document a study done by the Yale Law Journal found that there are fewer job training programs for women than for men the study found that the average number of job training programs and male prisons is 10.2 while the average number in female prisons is 2.7 [Music] [Music] it's a job it's a j/o beef but they want you to believe it's a position but the institution itself is run by broom mop and dexterity if you don't have the dexterity you must get the broom all the month just training for skill the jobs that rehabilitate and are supposed to help a woman support herself are more often than not low-paying low-skilled service oriented woman's work sewing cleaning doing laundry factory labor Jason I don't know what they call it you know I just got a job you're cutting your sewing you're clipping you're hanging your folding whatever the case may be it's still factory many of us have never worked in a factory many of us will never work in a factory when we go out women do the tedious work but they also do hard work they lift 50 pound sacks of potatoes they cart meat and milk shipments around their work keeps the prison's going in the morning ourselves done that's a lot of clothes much of the work doesn't pay very well one prison phase as much as $4 a day many pay about five cents a day a woman can work five days a week eight hours a day and still not make enough to buy a carton of cigarettes in Los Angeles the women don't make any money except for a few lucky ones they do special jobs the jobs for the officers pants and shirt they paid for the fans who made [Music] all the shirts and pants she can iron add up to $5 a week there is some practical training high school equivalency degrees are offered and sometimes computer keypunch courses but still after two maybe five years of being locked up few women leave prison trained for a good job they don't have anything up here to rehabilitate them except the school or IBM in this new course they have up their business office and they only pick so many out for this I think that one thing when we talk about vocation and education programs they're offered is that people forget to first look at the repertoire of the clients and I think that the repertory the clients is so limited that necessarily the type of vocational training has to be at an entrance level to other areas but despite what everybody says in this society the expectations for winning well I certainly think they're improving yet I think women are still pretty much expected to be you know in the kitchen and at home in the kitchen and at home that's how society thinks so that's what prison does it's writer [Music] is to prevent the inmates talking to the service the line getting to see the doctor is a daily routine some prisons have morning a clinic some jails have sick lines but between the prisoner and the doctor there is always the nurse in Los Angeles warning line serves two purposes ending out medication and setting up doctor's appointments today yes you may see the doctor but more often no you may not you have 30 seconds to argue your case is no examination and you move aside to let the next person try her luck there is often a shortage in a severe shortage of medical staff there is no shortage of pills they have Milton thorn sing and no areal I've been taking medication called cinnamon and I supposed to be a very medication but it's just really to try and control your mind it's more or less keep you walking around like insomnia because it's the way it did me you know like I was so messed up with the mill real I have walked into a pole now got a scar up here to prove it and it didn't even hurt it didn't even hurt that's what the officials want that's what the women want take a pill and your stomach doesn't hurt take a pill prison life itself doesn't hurt morale and elavil and equity six Librium and ever fun mill town just a little bit of everything most of those names that you mentioned or what kind of matera do your nerves they're what doctor let's say orders they are they yeah pills the psychiatrist orders for them I see I've listened to tranquilizers well of a sort yes kind of helps to keep them more relaxed and where you can handle them better [Music] [Music] keeping track of the prisoners tight security traffic control all these things make up the basic business of Correction okay once you're facing the officers station it's time to straighten up your beds is there anything you have something in your hand set it down control that's the name of the game where a number is counted not a person they really have us in here as dogs you know but they're wearing the badges we're not so we got to go along with it you know they're doing their job just the way they say it you know that's why it's same in a Cell you're a dog to them they're your master when they say something you best bark to it you know because you know we can talk that at the table but we're not supposed to talk to people next to us which I wasn't talking to nobody but I was looking and she didn't like that so she put me out of the line which is embarrassing you know you know everybody looking in one over it well you know what are you doing there you know I'm sitting up in the dayroom like something full by myself you know and when she came back so you gave me a little lecture you don't like a little naughty naughty kid don't do that no more you can't congregate for instance for standing down there talking the other day laughing talking they wanted to know what we were congregating about like we were gonna jump somebody that sort of thing just just just little petty things that get on your nerves if you holler back your own to lock up you don't dare holler back feel very immature because something rules they have their do's and don'ts you can't do this can't do that they want you to act like Romo tool women but yet they treat you like children you're never you're never right you can never be right you can't the women can't go to the potty cuz they say you have to be on the potty this bring you must say please someone say may I have my medication in a dining room you're not supposed to sit with another cottage you have to have a pass to go school you have to have a pass to go up in the front no holding hands walking down the line no lollygagging it is they called it no coming another woman's hair physical contact you can't pluck another woman's eyebrows you can't stand in another woman's door you can't accidentally walk in the bathroom on woman so they treat you like children and when you begin to act like children then they want to lock it because first thing they say well that was childish don't you think that was rather childish I've never felt like this before in my life it makes you feel bitter they try to take everything away from you but it only makes you cold inside and builds up a whole lot of hatred it's just like like having a pressure put down on you know that you can't that you can't get up off of you know and sometimes when you lay down and go to sleep you know you wish that you would never wake up the next morning so you wouldn't have to go through the same thing that you went through the day before if people are treated like children I think no question maybe sometimes they are but I think at times they behave like children they don't behave like you know whatever a mature adult is it's possible that you might violate some kind of a minor regulation here and somebody might have to call it to your attention then scold you for it but in general it's not that easy to get into serious trouble we have rules about behavior in the institution and so far as rules are concerned they're in your packets and they describe the kinds of behavior for which our penalties can acted and that they're not very unusual [Music] nature was sitting that to death I had an accident you know I come home I came on my must day I asked her could I go to my room so she insisted cuz I pull down my panties and let her see my soil panties and I wouldn't do it anything that is out of the ordinary you should challenge it's part of your job to challenge why they're going or coming at a different time or why they're requesting and she said it was personal reasons but she refused to show proof she would have been let back immediately if she had showed her proof that she needs to go to her room to me it's a very private thing you know to had to pull down here and the clothes in front of some - so I'll show it to him you know I just I feel like I had to prove it so she'd let me go to my room eventually but told me that I was going to get a ticket and have to go disciplinary for disobeying a direct order I think than any normal person gets embarrassed about their private parts of their body and it would be normal to be embarrassed about it but you insist upon that this is the rule I hear that they're gonna close the door or something my head just wants a bust just hearing that bang you know they slam it so hard where it goes all through your system GZ chills all the ways from your toes all the way up to your head but I think Jeff they're worse punishment because it is the inactivity big about us out in the yard for a few minutes you know they got enough security to take us out in the sunshine we never see what what the lie today is we don't know what the weather is unless we look up there's wind and see right there see you son a lot of girls do it sighs here in here this way you know unless they want to work work to me yeah it's percolating in here because Jesus Christ you monster sit myself lean in this sound hear you you know the only place you could look out is to the bars you know that's it see a window it's right behind the bars you know you see is these bars and I'll tell you what I counted all these bars in this cell here and there's 97 bars here in this town and I just say all I say is oh my god I'm behind him I think you're saving from reality I don't I am you know I don't like people I don't trust people I don't like this world I don't like anything about it all our dealings waiting today you know we got a Larry Jay yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] daddy taught you that but that moment sense of prison song yeah you're gonna get to don't grandma the majority of women in prisons and jails are mothers usually children may visit if they don't live too far away but the visiting hours are awkward and they're short maybe she would be better off as she stay with you know 20 minutes in Los Angeles then it's time to be taken away [Music] [Music] these babies will also be taken away [Music] they were born while their mothers were serving time after a few weeks they will go to relatives two foster homes and sometimes they will go away for good the mother will lose custody the women are being punished but so are the children my child my baby she doesn't even know me yeah and it's really her you know it really hurts to have children to reject you you say well my mother's in a penitentiary I don't think she can tell me anything you know even Julie this will come into their mind you know because it'll be putting me by other kids remember they never been to the penitentiary okay MA so my mother's been to the penitentiary yeah is she gonna come home and say hey you've been in the penitentiary you know different little things might upset her you know I'll boo her childhood news is not good because you can cause a child to really lose what's up here and it makes me feel like I want what's here because I know that I brought it that uh since I'm here it's gonna reflect on them they're gonna really hate me you know I believe that it they're gonna hate me and I hate this you know I really I really feel bad prisons are supposed to solve problems not create them but locks set up an abnormal world a woman's mind her sexuality her needs are locked up and problems of violence and frustration inevitably follow this is solitary the jail within a jail a woman we spoke with would spend 30 days there for what that mean officer what is it all do to your mind sitting here looking at the walls for well sometimes I feel like it's gonna drive me slightly crazy but I'm not gonna let it I hope you know I try to kind of keep myself together but it's very rough being here like this most of time with no one to talk to you know nothing to look out for four walls and book and I've read so many books on money I have books cuz they never change them you know I'd like to be but we see out of a window get the best flesh I had once in a while be treated like a human being now I can add him on a cage they told me I had to be kept back here cuz my behavior couldn't be controlled any other way yet on my naked I have never hit anyone I have never fought anyone I've never attacked anyone I've never tried to hurt myself you know so what's to be controlled I'm a person not a wild animal to be controlled and kept in a cage like this you know I have been an assaultive wreck it if they say my behavior cannot be controlled so I have to be kept back here for a large amount of time I tried very hard to get transfer at its institution you know because of the way they kept me locked down I've been locked down on together for almost five months between administrative segregation back here and back here you getting here cigarette which may not sound like much but you can have but uh huh very hard to be back here no actually you know you can get nothing not even you not even you don't even have your dignity really back here you know simple human dignity and mates and I think every person should have regardless of whether their contact at doing time or what I'm known to go to 42 because I'm known as a homosexual we are human beings and we are doing their own thing in life you know they have accept the fact that yeah yeah everybody's doing their own thing and women are women and there aren't any men in here women without men that's hard to take day after day just as it's hard to be without mothers and fathers and children so women begin pretending in prisons women set up make-believe families with brothers sisters even down to aunts and uncles the families provide friendship warmth sometimes sex but mainly just someone to lean on well the women here have families they are are consisting of brothers sisters maybe husbands you know mother someone you can really talk to because you can't really talk to the officials here the families also consist of children you know you might have a child that you really like that you want to help if you can without being caught and if you have a problem you can go to your mom and say mom I gotta talk to you or you can go to your girlfriend's egg I'm gonna talk to you for a minute you know what's important but um the families here have sex because we don't have anything else you know really to occupy our mind but most of them as soon as they you know get ready to get kind of loose then going back to the demand out down the street then here is something to pass the time and to keep out of trouble you talk to somebody and have somebody that you can really lean on well I think you'll probably find all kinds of people here and some of them may well suggest activities of this kind it'll be a try on from a good many people if it's a kind of activity that doesn't but you don't want any part of just say so the homosexuality here is maybe 80 85% uh half the girls are girls and have to kill their boys you know the stronger ones take the weaker ones and if they become as one together here on the reservation if someone takes the liking to someone and they don't want to go along with with their with her whatever something like this happens that's what happened to me I was trying to explain to the girl throat it's for ten days before this happened that I didn't want to go along with her sexual advances and that I only wanted to be friends with her and when she felt as though there was no nothing more to be said in the conversation and she couldn't entice me any longer she let me have it a few times how how often does that kind of thing happen well it happens more frequently than we'd like to admit but I would say actual attacks maybe on the average of two or three a month anytime you're into a situation where emotions or feelings are involved we're in an environment where those feelings are going to be intensified any feeling is intensified here and when people experience rejection they respond many different ways one response is hostility and they strike out at that which has rejected them not as free here to see but remove themselves from the situation you know it's an intensified it's a closed system I told dr. rings that I didn't go to the wreck except maybe once in a while and he said why don't you go why don't you go I said because there's just too much going on there he said well obviously you must have a psychological problem that you don't want to mix with people it's not that I don't want to mix with people but there's no such thing as a friend in prison what kinds of dangers are you now you know exposed to music or could you be exposed to if you walked around the campus well there a lot of the girls are armed and on the reservation here they as you know we can buy razors and commissary they put them inside toothbrushes so they have something with a handle on and they steal scissors or in surgical shears from the hospital and they carry these things around with them also they take butter knives from the dining room and file them down and work on them until they have an actual sugar blade to carry around which is a very dangerous weapon have you been or no never are you going to be I've been thinking about it hmm these women are they alone or they in groups what were kinds of dangers do they perhaps well now the girl they had did this to me is from a big town in Texas now she has a lot of homies here homey owe him a homie is someone who comes from your home who is from your state and from your hometown these girls usually stick together and then fact they always stick together in fact we had a we had an incident here a while back where New Orleans was against Dallas Texas you know and they beat up a pot of pine girl that had absolutely nothing to do with even the crowd just because they were from this particular state and from what I understand from the talk of the reservation and a roommate back in my cottage who's come to speak to me through the window here she said there is a lot some tought going on on the reservation that Fort Worth is a little bit a aggravated at me and after then they feel as though if I go back on the reservation they want to put me back in the house at all well I think that the environment is is difficult to adjust to because it's abnormal number one a person's freedom is inhibited and in my my thinking and my theory of personality freedom is is a primal thrust and I think when you inhibit it you're going to create problems just to begin with right now many communities are deciding whether to replace their old prisoner jail with a shiny new one or to develop some alternative the National Advisory Commission on criminal justice standards and goals objects to bricks and mortar instead of locking ourselves into a system for the next 50 years that has failed too so in the past the commission calls for a ten year moratorium on construction new construction however still has its proponents I maintain that a ten year moratorium on the construction of prisons will do nothing more than make antiquated prisons which are one of the great problems right now more antiquated than ever so that I think that they should immediately begin construction on new prisons and not try to utilize those antiquated facilities that are causing so much of the trouble well when we're out giving speeches I think we need to a certain extent to make ourselves feel somewhat valuable and successful and important and a lot of times we talk a great deal about our programs and some of the things we're doing and we fail to add at the end of that that despite what we're doing we're not very successful history does show that we have been a failure in in in in the operation of our prisons but then again you must remember the philosophy the proper philosophy of prisons prisons are for the purpose of isolating the criminal and the antisocial person from society to protect society from them I haven't heard of many people committing burglaries while they're in prison I haven't heard of many people committing robberies while they're in prison of course there is some smuggling of narcotics in institutions and of course a murder or so occurs while someone is in prison against another inmate or maybe one of the guards but they are not killing the innocent people as they are when they're loose or free or on probation or on parole I think a lot of of people are afraid of prisoners because they think only of the violent aspect of what they've done because that's what gets publicity somebody forging a check or evading income tax does not make the front page but somebody who commits a murder that makes the front page and people know about it but most people who I have known in prison are not violent and I would not be concerned about living next door to them as a neighbor myself wouldn't it be wonderful if we had no institutions no jails if we didn't have to happen but what would we have in the place of them under the present conditions there's no substitute for what substitute do you have give me one in Des Moines Iowa there is an alternative we spent the day with this woman we shall call her Mary who recently was convicted of manslaughter for killing her husband many women are in prison for this kind of crime he came home at extremely drunk one night and in bad temper and came in the room where I was sleeping with the gun in his hand and it just seems like in within a few seconds that was all over and and it was him that was wounded and I called the authorities and they called the ambulance and everything but it was too late Mary spent less than 12 hours in jail she did not lose custody of her children des moines has an alternative to locking women up a program that will soon go statewide under the program a woman may live in a halfway house under a supervision or like Mary she may immediately return to the job of raising her children it works because women are permitted to be at home in their home communities where they've had their problems which got in trouble in the first place they can continue to work they can go to school if that's what they need they can remain with her children or with her husband's the most important thing is that they're not exposed to the brutalizing and dehumanizing aspects of life in jail and life in prisons no reason why they should be confined the society doesn't need it for their protection and the only thing it does is degrades the women we've demonstrated it here we've shown it here with all kinds of any kinds of offenses it does work document according to the Department of Court Services for the fifth Judicial District of Iowa if Mary had gone to prison for three years it would have cost the taxpayer $24,000 under the new program however three years of community supervision will cost two thousand dollars with Mary continuing to work she'll pay taxes of about three thousand dollars by not sending Mary to prison the taxpayers will save twenty five thousand dollars I would definitely say it worked in my case in favor of society in favor of my children in favor of myself and I in favor of everybody I can't think of anybody that would have gained anything at all by not by my being incarcerated for 200 years we've been hearing the same things about prisons correction rehabilitation but what does it all add up to it adds up to bitterness when grown women are told to take down their underpants to despair when women are locked in solitary confinement for weeks on end to helplessness when all responsibilities are taken away without their families without jobs pressured by rules and discipline cells these women come back to society frightened and angry they commit more crimes they go back to prison prisons do not correct prisons do not protect in the end they do one thing well they punish well but that punishment has a large price tag the destruction of the women themselves the creation of crime and the dollar cost of up to $16,000 per year per woman even if you believe in punishment it's simply not worth it crime among women is going up and communities cities counties and states are now making plans let's try to avoid the mistakes of the past we should confine only the very dangerous the rest should be supervised din their communities kept with their children and helped to find good jobs we should stop building new prisons we have enough now we should and we can get women out of prison right now worried you know I mean I'm worried because I undid this time and I'm got to go I mean but to to what I don't know what to go to I got to go but I don't know to what you know like for instance say like the [ __ ] fixing why I could have some kind of job to go to war go to something bad can give me a lift until I get on my feet you know I mean it's just like this here they feel the people their fishes here they feel well you don't need your tab go you know that's it go but I'm wondering where where to go I was locked up and naked Dayton do nothing for me and I couldn't do nothing for myself I mean it's just like a dog on a string it couldn't you couldn't get nowhere but now then I'm free I take care of myself I'll need them do for me but I tell you the truth has made me better I mean I'm a human being but they have made me feel like some kind of a beast when I Drive out of here my - still be back here I'll be thinking about back here just thinking about some of the monies back here if there was one thing I want to tell them good luck that's all I could tell Oh [Music] [Music] this has been a presentation of ABC News

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Length: 50min 32sec (3032 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2019