A decade later - Fundação Luso-Americana

een allowed to bring their own clothes.”
And the thing most prisoners consider
their only legal refuge – cigarettes – is
totally banned both inside and outside the
penitentiary grounds.
The only rule that is not followed strictly
by the book is the ban on physical contact.
However, in the US, in this case, not going
by the book means, “If it’s a short hug, we
look the other way. But if it goes on too
long, they get punished. Because there’s no
touching allowed!”
The same feeling of “off-limits” pervades
visitation. The women can only hug their
kids if they are seated. For two hours they
remain in their chairs and are not allowed
to get up and play with the children who
are often enticed with candy so that they
will stay on their mothers’ laps, prolonging
the rare moment of physical bonding
between mother and child.
To keep the prison drug-free, the women
have to strip when they first arrive and
when they reenter the prison. Sometimes
the examination involves a cavity search.
The act, which is always accompanied by
crying and complaining, has come about
because of the bizarre stratagems the jailed
drug-user will resort to. “The weirdest
thing I’ve ever found, says Miller the guard
who accompanied us on our visit, “was a
crack pipe in somebody’s vagina.”
In practical terms, the war on drugs, which
has escalated since the Reagan administration,
has had no effect on reducing crime
and the brutal effects it has on women. It
is a reality particularly felt within the prison
system. In 2008, there were 2,821 inmates
in New York State prisons and one in three
had been jailed for drug-related crimes.
We’ve already gone down several cell
blocks when I notice that all the cells are
alike. Unlike the women’s prison in Tires,
there are no cut-out hearts or pictures
adorning the partitions. That’s the way it
is, they explain to me – tidy and impersonal
– to prevent fires. The only things
hanging from the cell walls are the surveillance
cameras, which are there to keep
track of the prison population, though they
still do head-counts six times a day.
By the next inmate tally, all the women
have to be back in their quarters, so I have
to use this chance to interview the women
who have agreed to talk to me. They’ve
given us an air-conditioned room which
provokes smiles of relief when we walk in.
The statistics show that 54% of all female
prisoners in the US are black, but I’m sitting
at a table with women who are not only
white – but blond. The number of inmates
has grown by 138% in the last 10 years
because of the war on drugs and – in line
socieTy
children’s clothes on a prison clothesline show that children have also make this their home.
‘ Alleging security reasons, even
underwear from outside the jail
has been banned. As Guard miller,
50, recalls, “one inmate managed
to sneak drugs in the waistband
of her panties. From then on,
they haven’t been allowed to bring
their own clothes.”
’
with the statistics – most of the women
seated around me are in for selling drugs.
But let’s start with the exception. If you
saw Petra on the street your last guess would
be that she committed any crime. It would
have been her last guess too. At 27, Petra
has beautiful blond hair neatly rolled into a
bun, and narrow Ben Franklin glasses adorning
a pair of deep blue eyes. She has the air
of a scholar.
Nothing in her background fits the stereotypes
or jibes with the statistics. The
majority of prison inmates are black. She is
blond and light-eyed. In the democratic
West, prisons are the places that house the
greatest number of illiterates per square foot.
Fifty-eight percent of the female prison
populations on this side of the Atlantic are
high school drop-outs. Petra has a degree
in Marketing. A large portion of the prison
population complains of not having a regular
Job: 74% of female American convicts
were unemployed at the time of their conviction.
Petra had a good job where she was
earning 15 dollars an hour
and had hopes of getting a
promotion. She owned a
house and a car and was, in
short, financially several cuts
above society’s customary
outcasts.
Though Petra’s case may
seem less obvious, her emotional
profile matches up
perfectly with studies on
criminality. A lot of research
has shown that over 50% of
all female prisoners were
victims of physical or sexual abuse before
being incarcerated. The figure is around
15% for men. In other words, before victimizing
someone else, Petra was herself a
victim. Her boyfriend sexually abused her,
took away her self-esteem and bludgeoned
her with insults.
As with the other women, she has a
harder time talking about interrupted
motherhood than she does about discussing
her crimes. When you ask her about
whom she left her 4 and 7 year-old children
with she responds weeping, “When
I was arrested my youngest was three. He
was so upset, all his hair fell out.”
Her other child is on the verge of being
given into to the exclusive custody of the
father. Once the legal battle begins, the
system in the US is relentless. The father
will have no trouble proving that he is a
better guardian than the child’s delinquent
mother. Petra has not seen the child for a
year because the ex-boyfriend has boycotted
every type of visitation.
Parallel no. 6 | FALL | WINTER 2011 61
JOSé CARLOS CARVALhO