We have a young lady here in CCCF that’s has been raped since the age of 8 by her stepfather. He’s also physically abusing her mother and the rest of the family including a younger sister who’s a minor. That might also be sexual abuse. She gets released from here in a month and doesn’t have money to buy envelopes. When she tries to call home to talk to her mother, her stepfather listens in on the conversation. We are trying to get her her stimulus check so she can have funds to help her family when she gets out.
They told one lady she had to wait a year to get dentures, but in the mean time she has no teeth. She is very limited in what she can eat and a year is a long time to go with no teeth. Another lady had her bridge break during Christmas so there were no dentists here and it was very painful. Her mouth swelled up and she had an abscess. She was not seen for close to three weeks and even then they were not able to fix her bridge.
The phone systems are very hard to figure out here. There is a sheet with directions to follow but it still doesn’t work. We have to ask around on what to do and even then we get conflicting stories. We’ve tried the one that requires a kyte, but those sometimes take weeks to get back. This system is hindering ladies trying to take care of important family matters. When we are seen trying to help each other, we get in trouble.
At Washington County Jail, the deputies cut off a girl’s clothes while she was handcuffed. We also had them cut ladies fingernails while they were cuffed. One they cut down tot he quick and was very painful for that lady. They would also place us in handcuffs to search the cells and they didn’t just search, they tore everything apart and threw things away in the process. Personal books and magazines, stamped envelopes and letters waiting to be sent out would be removed from the rooms. We would see them in intake hovering around very thin individuals, so thin it looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Sometimes there were five to ten deputies around one person while they were being fingerprinted.
Intimidation began right from the start. Almost all of the deputies were very large and heavy-set, wearing all kinds of weapons on their belts and bullet-proof vests. For any kind of disruption, even medical emergencies, they would gather five to ten deputies to intimidate and threaten. One lady was exercising her right to remain silent and one of the deputies told her they were all placing bets to see if they could make her talk. This included lots of threats, intimidation, and harassment. She told her lawyers and legal team about this but they didn’t do anything to help. In the intake, isolation, and medical units, they would put a blanket over the person’s window so they couldn’t see out. This is a characteristic of an abusive relationship or situation – isolating the victims. Abusive relationships are also about control. In jail and prison, they tell you when to eat, when to sleep, when to talk, etc. If you do not comply, you are punished.
One lady was given a sentencing hearing where her legal team and a judge from another county all tried to talk her into admitting to crimes she didn’t do. She was charged with all kinds of different robbery charges and two different murder charges and she had no criminal background. They offered her a deal of manslaughter but she said no because she was not responsible for any of the charges. All of the robbery charges and one of the murder charges just magically disappeared from the list.
Several ladies have taken on charges they didn’t do to save their boyfriends that had extensive criminal histories. That’s what I call love! Those ladies deserve a lot more respect than they are given in the system and we want to make it better for them and everyone else. It’s about time that the deputies and officers were labelled for the common thugs, thieves, and abusers they are. We need to stop the cycle of abuse within the system and put an end to the “revolving door” of the same people going in and out of the jails and prisons.
One lady had a large consulting corporation until she found out her dad and step-mom were terminally ill, so she had to close the company to take care of them. She did some independent contracting on the side because she had to move them into a house as they had been living in a trailer with mold on the ceiling. She ended up having to ask for help from friends to keep up her own bills and rent in the process. One person she thought was her friend moved in with her and was “love-bombing” her. If any of you are familiar with the cycle of a narcissist, it starts with love-bombing, which means he tries to convince her he loves her by doing lots of nice things; giving her gifts and generally “wearing a mask” to conceal the fact that he has ulterior motives. Once he had her under his control, he then starts with the abuse phase. When she finally realizes she’s had enough of the abuse, he will then proceed to blackmail, slander, gaslight (blaming her for all her problems) and create a smear campaign against family and friends. This lady had lost her apartment in the process of a smear campaign against family and friends, along with the respect of many of her friends and family. She had also lost the respect of the community as she found herself arrested one day for many crimes she did not commit. She has been incarcerated for over two years now and her parents moved into their house the days she was arrested. She has been relying on the kindness of her friends to keep her parents in their house while she fights the case. She found herself among many women who have been through similar situations and started trying to help them as she realized they were all not only victims of the system, but in many cases also the victims of an abusive man or narcissist.
One lady spent 20 years married to a narcissist and she is now in prison for five years, taking the blame for his crimes. She had her kids taken away from her by the state and while under their custody, her daughter had committed suicide, as she had also been sexually abused by the narcissist. He ended up committing suicide as well rather than face facing jail or prison time as a child molester. This lady makes very small wages for her job at the prison and she can barely afford to buy herself coffee. She is also going to school for her GED so she can get a green card. This is something the the narcissist and the legal system had used to blackmail her into admitting to crimes she didn’t do. This lady has been through extraordinary injustices and deserves more respect than what she has been given by the system and her remaining family members.
These ladies might have been able to identify abusers better had they had more education and understanding of narcissists and the red flags to spot one through the “mask” they wear, but there is often no indication. If the lady is in a vulnerable situation, that is a magnet for a narcissist and he will exploit that. He creates a “fog” through love bombing and trying to rush things and create an illusion that he is the one that can be trusted.
Often ladies are afraid to leave their abuser because they don’t want to lose their possessions, children, and/or pets. It would be so amazing if we had a safe place for the young lady in here’s mother and younger sister to go to so they don’t have to be split up as a family. The young girl has been through enough abuse and being separated from her mother would just add to it. Also, according to the other case we’ve mentioned, the state doesn’t do much to protect the children anyway. This particular young lady gets out of prison in a month and was working three jobs before she was arrested. She really wants to get out to support her mother and younger sister. We are still working to get her tax returns sent in so she has her stimulus check when she is released.
At CCCF, a lady was very sick (not sure if it was Covid) and staff threatened her with punishment if she didn’t get out of bed and go to medical. We are grateful she is better now.