Rebuilding Lives. Strengthening Communities.

Theresa W.
Theresa W. is a 25-year-old Caucasian woman.
Real Life
Theresa grew up in Joliet,
Illinois, with her father, who was
abusive and a drug addict, her
mother and four siblings. “My
mother was never around
because of my father,” Theresa
explains. “She stayed away
because my dad would beat
her.”
Theresa reflects back on her
younger days. “I attended
school when I felt like it. And
by the time I was thirteen, I
started partying and drinking,
following in my father’s footsteps.
Then my father introduced
me to cocaine. He
assumed I had already tried it,
but I hadn’t. I got addicted
immediately.” Theresa had a son
when she was 15 years old. Her
parents divorced soon thereafter,
and she began living at a
friend’s house in a nearby town.
At 16 years old,Theresa moved
back in with her mother and
“started hanging around with
the wrong crowd.” She gave up
custody of her son and sent him
to live with his grandmother
when he was two. “I didn’t
want to deal with him anymore,”
she admits. “I just kind
of left him.”
From this point, Theresa got
“deeper and deeper into the
wrong crowd.” She dropped
out of school and as she
remembers, “I was just running
the streets. I was drinking and
doing cocaine. Eventually I was
introduced to crack and then
my life just fell apart.” She was
living in alleys, crack houses and
abandoned buildings. “Basically,”
she recalls,“anywhere I could lay
my head down.”
At 17 years old, she began living
with a man in his van.
According to Theresa, “his hustle
was burglary.” One evening,
Theresa knew a specific homeowner
was out of town, so
together they broke into his
house and robbed him. After
Theresa was arrested for residential
burglary, she was taken
to Will County Jail and was
brought before a judge in Will
County’s newly opened “drug
court.” “I was given the opportunity
to be one of the first ones
participating in the drug court
program,” she explains. She was
put on probation and sent to a
community-based treatment
program. Although she went
through community-based treatment
twice, her addiction
remained. “I didn’t want to quit.
I was doing it for everyone else.
I wasn’t dealing with some of
the underlying issues from when
I was younger.” After a stint in a
halfway house and a “threequarters”
house, her situation
hadn’t improved. “I couldn’t find
a job. I got frustrated with it,
and I messed up.” She relapsed.
Because she violated her probation,
she was incarcerated at
Decatur Correctional Center
for four years.
Once in prison, she resolved to
do something productive with
her time. Because she had
completed her GED while she
was detained at the Will County
Jail, she decided to get involved
with school, to “keep her mind
focused on something else.” She
received her Business Management
certificate, and as her
release date approached, she
was transferred to the Fox
Valley Adult Transition Center
(Fox Valley). Theresa spent two
years at Fox Valley, and was
employed at a fast food restaurant
during this time. “I just
went with the flow and did my
work. I had it in my mind that
drugs were not going to be a
part of me when I got out,” she
recalls. After her release, she
found an apartment in Aurora,
which she describes as a “new
environment for me.”
Not even two months later,“the
bills started to come in. I never
had to pay bills before. I had no
social life. I just gave up. I went
looking for the wrong crowd.”
She was 23 years old. She
quickly started doing crack
again. “I lost everything—my
job, my car, my apartment. I was
living in the streets with the
same addiction that I just left.”
However, in Aurora, miles away
from her friends and family, “no
one knew anything about me, so
no one could help me,” she
explains. “My mom was there
for me—‘she had my back.’ But
none of my family or friends
[back in Joliet] knew how deep I
was into my addiction.”
She started moving from crack
house to crack house, and met a
man whose “hustle” was writing
stolen checks and using stolen
credit cards. “He hooked me up
on how to do it, and taught me
everything I knew,” Theresa
describes. “He would steal the
checks and credit cards. I would
buy the merchandise and sell it,
or get cash back.” This financed
their intense drug habit. But as
Theresa tells it, this man was
extremely controlling, and without
drugs, was also very violent.
“He would keep me hostage
MAYORAL POLICY CAUCUS ON PRISONER REENTRY
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