FORGET ME NOT

We are incarcerated women
We are the forgotten, the marginalized, the dispossessed, the abandoned
The disposable refuse of a throw-away society
But the consequences of our repudiation have been overlooked in society's haste
To hide its social and moral problems behind barbed wire and bars of steel
For we are the mothers of the future generations
The children who were torn from our arms
Will grow up to share the lessons they learned in their youth
As they have received, so shall they give
Those who were beaten, will inflict violence on others
Those who were sexually abused, will prey upon the innocent
The homeless and unwanted will become destroyers
The addicted will spread their sickness through out the land
But those who received love, will give love to others
Those who received help, will one day help others
Compassion will be shared in the measure that it was received
Children who were permitted to bond and heal with their imprisoned mothers
Will grow up to make positive contributions to society
They will not sow the pain and anger of those who could never heal
Women who were helped to rehabilitate themselves
Will teach their children
To recover from their wounds
To be strong
To be kind
And to rise above their circumstances
Bitterness or blessing
The choice is yours
WE ARE YOUR FUTURE

- Gloria Killian


A DIFFERENT TIME AND SPACE
by GLORIA KILLIAN

The concepts of time and space have very different connotations for incarcerated women, then for other people. It is undoubtedly true that every individual who is imprisoned measures time by the length of their sentence, but for women the markers are more personal and painful.Time is measured in the weeks, months, and years by which a woman is separated from her family. It is measured by the hours and days between letters and phone calls.Time is measured by the birthdays, holidays, and personal events that she misses.The first tooth under the pillow, the new trike, and the first day of kindergarten are little pieces of time in her children's lives that she can neither share nor recapture.

Incarcerated women who are lucky enough to have visits with their families can see the passage of time in their children's faces,the sudden growth spurt, or the new hairdo. In the Visiting Room mothers and children try to recapture those missed moments with stories, hugs, laughter,and tears.In that nosiy,crowded room families try desperately to re-establish bonds and create new ones to bridge the gaps in lives that were torn apart by the mass incarceration of mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers.There is never enough time in the Visiting Room.

Women who do not receive visits from their families measure time by the photographs they receive and the letters and pictures that their children send.Each treasured photograph, and scrawled crayon drawing is proudly displayed to everyone the mother knows, even the guards.The scraps of paper and faded photos carefully taped to an inmate's locker bear silent witness to the passage of time in which a mother and her child are kept apart.

For women whose children have been placed in foster care, time is measured by the months between court appearances and her desperate efforts to fulfill the court ordered reunification plan. Often times the woman's sentence runs longer than the period of time that she has been granted to get her life back together so that she can regain custody of her children. Failure to fulfill the court ordered reunification plan results in the termination of parental rights and the adoption of the children.In these cases time cuts both ways as it marches on: too much time in prison, too little time to get the children back.

Time drags in prison as the women wait for the days to pass. They wait to go to meals, to sign up for the phone, to be called to a visit, to be allowed into and out of their cells, to go to Canteen, to go to Clothing, or to go to work. They wait to be assigned to school, a better job, or a self help program that can make a difference in their lives.They wait for good news, good times, and a new life. Time passes on and still they wait.

In prison there is always too much time, but sadly there is never enough space. Women in California prisons live 8 women to one cell, crammed into a tiny space about the size of a bathroom, sharing one toilet and one shower. They exist literally on top of each other; 4 women on top bunks, 4 women on bottom bunks, with their meager possessions stuffed into a drawer beneath the bottom bunk.There is no space to breathe, to think, to grieve or to grow. There is no space to heal wounds, to make amends, to find peace, or to seek a better way. Everywhere a woman goes in prison she is surrounded by crowds of inmates and dozens of guards. Space does not exist in prison.

Yet as time drags on in prison, the women worry about both time and space. Will there be a space for me in my children's lives when I am released? A space in my mom's house? A space in my husband's heart? Is there  space for me anywhere or has it been destroyed by the time that I have lost behind these concrete walls?

Perspectives on the Death Penalty
By Gloria Killian

My views on the death penalty have a dual basis; one philosophical and one experiential. As a child, I was raised to believe that no one has the right to take another human life regardless of the circumstances, provocation, or reasoning. As I grew older, I came to realize that the ultimate premeditated murder was the state sanctioned execution of a convicted felon. The very idea that anyone could calmly, deliberately, and ritualistically take someone’s life repulsed me. The idea that the state kills people to demonstrate that killing is wrong just baffled me. I knew where I stood on this issue, and so I continued living my life, morally opposed to the death penalty, but completely unaware of the real horror that state sanctioned murder entails.

My life as I knew it came to an end on December 16, 1981 when I arrested for murder and accused of planning a home invasion robbery in which someone was killed. It was designated as a capital case and I was charged with the death penalty. I had not committed this crime so I was in a complete state of shock after my arrest, and the fact that I was facing the death penalty did not really penetrate the fog that surrounded me. I
was living a surrealistic nightmare that I couldn’t understand, and the fact that they were going to kill me was just one more factor in the insanity. I rarely thought about the fact that I was facing death but when I did my thoughts about my own execution ricocheted wildly from, “this will never happen, I didn’t do anything wrong” to “they set me up, I know I’ll be convicted, and I’ll just volunteer to be executed.”

After 4 ½ months, the case against me was dismissed for lack of evidence and I was released from jail, but a year later I was rearrested. The District Attorney’s office had resolved their “lack of evidence” problem by helping one of the perpetrator’s phony up a story about my so-called participation in the crime. Once I was convicted, he would be rewarded with a substantial reduction in sentence. Again, I was charged with the death penalty despite the fact that the DA had colluded with his witness to create the false testimony that would convict me. Fortunately, for me the California Supreme Court issued a decision that took my case out from under the death penalty and I was released on bail.

Following my wrongful conviction, I was assigned to work in the Prison Law Library and one day I discovered that the CDC had mistakenly sent us the entire “Death Procedure” to be used in executions. The 73 page procedure set forth in dry, emotionless language the exact manner in which “the condemned” inmate was to be treated commencing 5 days prior to his execution. The complete lack of compassion or minimal human kindness merely emphasized the barbaric horror about to be inflicted by the state on a hapless human being. It truly made me ill in a way that my own brush with the death penalty had never done.

The errors of women spring, almost always from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true.
Balzac

This dedication is to the women who through sad fate or bad luck have spent their last days on this temporal earth in prison. To suffer the inequities of an unreasonable and out of control penal system with self-respect gives these women a distinctive place in history. Living with dignity after being sentenced beyond reasonable fairness or justice and left to be forgotten, these brave women are now remembered.  The system has no more authority over their now free souls.

These women suffered from the narrow rules and hardened hearts of those who govern provincially. In the scheme of life and beyond when does the extreme and unjust punishment meted out by those in control become more offensive than the original offenses committed?  Are the abuses that these women endured any less than those inflicted in past so-called uncivilized times? History may record more flagrant disregard for women in prison, but benign indifference, earnest duplicity, and capricious laws are the invisible whips and chains of our modern penal system.

These women had already faced their judgment day many years before. These women who suffered the same fate, sisters in collective mistreatment and apathy, had nothing more to fear. And, as the proverb states, if the truth will set one free, then these women, bonded as sisters in the same struggle, are now truly free and welcomed and comforted in the bosom of pure love and acceptance.  They are no more at the mercy of forces beyond their control. The limiting powers here on earth hold them no more.

Jesus declares that in the world to come, “The last shall be first and the first last.” If our time on earth is considered the Supreme Being’s schoolroom where lessons of redemption, forgiveness, love, hope, and resilience are learned, then these sisters have graduated at the top of the class with honors. These women are now first in line to receive universal blessings.

Our of sight, out of mind may be the platitude, but never out of the hearts and souls of all who knew and loved these valiant women. Their lives will never be forgotten.  They are no longer pariahs on this planet, but champions in the grander scheme of life in the vastness of a much bigger non judgmental universe. The darkness of their finite days on Earth is over and the lightness of everlasting brilliant nights has begun.

Past and present, these sisters are together in eternity.