RISE, A Modern Guide for the Purpose Driven Woman Spring 2014 | Page 45

TICE

y knows a nation
s jails. A nation
w it treats its
lowest ones.”

-― Nelson Mandela

pain now were. Had they gotten
out? Were those hands still in
shackles like mine? All the coverage, stress, tears, agony, kisses
goodbye to my kids...all silent
now. Quietly left to play out in
my head, like a torturous movie
of my own failures and grief...
grief and failure I had cast on
my children, family, friends and
my future self. Who would she
be after this? The things I liked
about myself, would I be able to
hold onto them in this greyed
out world?
I was still dressed in my “street
clothes”; a navy blue cotton
maxi dress with a small yellow
cardigan and sandals. A note
to anyone who may be going to
jail, wear 6 pairs of white granny
panties, 6 pairs of white crew
socks and 6 short sleeve all white
crew neck t-shirts because they
will let you keep those...a blue
sundress, not so much. Those
items will prove invaluable when
you are wearing the same underwear and uniform for a week and
when you hit your pod and are
still two weeks away from having
your own commissary (provided
someone in your family is “holding it down” - putting money on

your books), a t-shirt or a pair of
socks can be traded with someone who has commissary for
snacks, coffee, even a pencil and
paper, which despite common
belief are not things which a jail
just gives you - you purchase
those too.
I sat on the metal bench with my
hands cuffed and waited. For
what I had no idea. Jail is zero
communication. It is sensory
cut off and deprivation. You are
going the speed of light when
you walk in and it is like hitting
a wall...a very cold grey cinderblock wall. The rare opportunity
to interact with a guard generally
affords you no useful information if you are lucky and if you
are unlucky your attempt to talk
to them will garnish you will the
joy of nasty insults, sarcasm and
a seeming joy in providing misinformation.
No clocks, no windows, no one
tells you what time it is. Time
deprivation is another jailhouse
torture. So about 5 hours, which
felt like 100 hours, the door opposite the one I entered into suddenly opened. I was so excited
to finally see someone, I jumped

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)
Program, collects crime and arrest data from more than 18,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies. According to Crime in the United States, 2011 (released in November 2012), during
2011: Nationwide, law enforcement made an estimated 12,408,899 arrests (does not include citations
for traffic violations).
25.9% of arrests were of females.
13.7% of arrests of females were of persons under the age of 18.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s) Juvenile Court
Statistics 2009 (released in May 2012):
Courts with juvenile jurisdiction handled an estimated 1,504,100 delinquency cases in 2009.
Females accounted for 28% of the delinquency caseload in 2009 - up from 19% in 1985.
Overall, the female delinquency caseload grew at an average rate of 3% per year between 1985 and
2009, while the average rate increase was 1% per year for males.

National Criminal Justice Reference Center