There are so many sad stories...
...in the jails that I've been in and sooner or later, I'll tell you about the ones that I can remember. It was tough for me to continue to feel sorry for myself because no matter how bad I had it, there were people who had it worse.
I worried something awful about my dog...he had no clue where I went or why I left. He slept outside of my bedroom door and wandered around looking for me the whole time. Of course, there were women there who worried about their children so I couldn't feel too badly, mine are grown and they understood why I wasn't at home.
I worried that I would lose my home...but there were women there who had no homes so I couldn't feel too badly. I certainly I felt as though I had no right to feel too sorry for myself.
I worried about what the incarceration would do to my life and then one day I read in the paper about a 41 year old woman who passed away, leaving a loving family behind. Once again, it could always be worse, at least I was still alive.
When I was in Bartow County jail, there was a young man in the cell next to us that I could speak to through the vent. I could even see him...a bit. His health problems were extremely bad and getting worse. He's the diabetic that I mentioned earlier. He was sent to "medical" because of his extremely high blood sugars. The staff thought that he must be stealing food for his sugars to be so high. His blood sugars remained high while he was in "medical".
He had a lovely life and a family before his marriage fell apart. I can certainly relate to that. He certainly has some anger management issues and the staff was using that against him. Rather than leaving him alone, they harrassed him until he would do something stupid so that the staff could say, "See! He's nuts!" That's something that the staff of both jails knew how to do quite well. They knew who the inmates were who could be manipulated into losing their tempers so that they could justify any punishment that they wanted to dish out.
Like I said before, there was an occasional decent guard but even a few of them could get all schizoid from one minute to the next. I remember three women guards who were consistently decent...Officers Venerable, Brown and Brothers maintained who their professionalism at all times.
There was also one nurse who was always kind. I don't know his name but he's a tall, thin, African American and he consistently treated me and the other inmates with dignity. He even tried to cheer me up one morning that I was particularly down. He Googled my name and read the blog...I don't know if he still does read it at all, but if so, he knows who he is and I want to let him know that I appreciate him and his kind heart.
There were a couple of other decent nurses who realized that the "doctor" was a nut job. That man's name is Dr. Hendricks and he is the one who found sick delight in taunting the inmates. He must have been absent the day they taught, "First...do no harm." He threatened me with, "We have a bunch of large guards who will hold you down." when I tried to refuse the numerous sticks to draw blood and start IV's.
When I was in college, we were taught about patient's rights. As I said before, unless a person has been declared incompetent by a judge, they have the right to refuse treatment. If you (as a medical professional) say something like, "If you don't eat we'll put an IV in your arm.", that's considered assault. If you actually DO it, that's considered battery. Well, Dr. Hendricks either missed that day too or he simply doesn't care about the rules. When I get some really important things taken care of, I'm going to go to the Magistrate and swear out warrants against him. He violated my rights as well as those of a couple of other inmates that I was witness to.
Cobb County jail wouldn't allow me to take any of my medications, not my high blood pressure pills, not my heart pills...nothing. I didn't expect them to give me my pain meds, but I was stunned that they wouldn't allow me to take my other drugs. Bartow County would have let me take them if I had them, but the guards wouldn't allow me to call my son to have him bring them to me. Since I've been home, my heart pills don't seem to work anymore. I'm not sure why, they always have in the past. I need to go to my doctor to find out if the lack of access to effective medical treatment has worsened my heart condition.
While I was locked up, I couldn't sleep much at all. If I was lucky enough to actually fall alseep, I couldn't stay asleep. My bunk was right next to a door that's used to pass notes through from one pod to the next. Also, the inmates could speak to each other through that door so I was constantly woken up by banging on that door or just from other inmates who felt the need to holler through it. If it wasn't THAT waking me up, it would be the call, "Head count!" I don't think that I was able to sleep for more than two hours straight the entire time I was locked up. Last night I slept for a few hours, maybe 5. I only woke up once during that 5 hour time period and that was to heave. My nerves are shattered and I'm still having trouble eating. I can't seem to eat anything.
When I first became sick, I lost 80 pounds. I had put back on about 20 pounds by the holidays but for some reason, I started losing weight again in January. I had lost about 10 pounds during January/early February and I lost another 10 while I was in jail.
It's tough to get sympathy for losing too much weight. When I would tell other women about my weight loss, most of them had that sarcastic, "Oh, you poor thing." attitude. I've been overweight and underweight in my life and I promise, it's tougher for me to gain weight than it is to lose it. I need to gain about 40 pounds and I don't seem to be able to do that. I try to eat but if I'm lucky enough to swallow the food, I can rarely keep it down. If I can find a couple of before and after pictures on my computer, I'll post them after I put this post up.
By the way, I've been meaning to mention something. As I said earlier, there isn't much to do at all in the county lock up except read and sleep. I couldn't sleep and the reading material basically consisted of a bunch of romance novels...not quite my cup of tea. I did find a couple of books worth reading but I'm going to do what I can to get some books together and take them to the jail so that other people can have something to do to help pass the time. I know that inmates are not quite the most pitiable people in the world...but they are people and if there's anyone out there who can muster a bit of sympathy or concern for them, please see what you can do to donate books to your local jail.
I was outraged at the reasons that many of those people were locked up. In a country that doesn't allow for debtor's prison, we certainly lock up a bunch of people who can't afford to pay court ordered fines. You would be absolutely amazed at the number of people who are doing jail time for being what I'm calling "criminally poor". There were a few folks in there who most assuredly needed to be locked up, but I promise you, there are more who don't need to be there. And your tax dollars are going to keep them locked up!
The large number of people there for drugs blew me away. If they had health insurance, they might be in a drug rehab but for the criminally poor, jail is the only place for them. It's my sincere belief that our government makes more money off of drugs than any dealer ever made. If drugs were suddenly taken away, I think that most munincipalities would go broke.
The chick that we called Anna Nicole was convicted (before, not for this go 'round) of armed robbery and aggravated assault upon a police officer. For those charges, she was sentenced to 3 years probation. I'm not sure why she was locked up this time. There were a few women there for crimes that deserved jail time, things like forgery, grand and petit larceny, assault or battery and there were quite a few there for shoplifting. But the vast majority of women that I spoke to were locked up for violation of probation, non payment of fines and drug use. Now, it isn't that I think that drug users should never be locked up, but if drugs are the problem, jail AIN'T the answer. As a society, we would serve ourselves much better by actually treating drug users.
Jail is a place where people are treated so badly that by the time they get out, they still have the same problems that led them to use drugs in the first place but now they've been treated so poorly that they have a bunch of anger on top of everything else...not to mention new friends who know how to find drugs.
OK, I'm going to try to find a bunch of books and see if I can donate them to the jail. Oh, first I'll see if I can find those pictures that I mentioned. I'll be back soon.
See ya,
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
...in the jails that I've been in and sooner or later, I'll tell you about the ones that I can remember. It was tough for me to continue to feel sorry for myself because no matter how bad I had it, there were people who had it worse.
I worried something awful about my dog...he had no clue where I went or why I left. He slept outside of my bedroom door and wandered around looking for me the whole time. Of course, there were women there who worried about their children so I couldn't feel too badly, mine are grown and they understood why I wasn't at home.
I worried that I would lose my home...but there were women there who had no homes so I couldn't feel too badly. I certainly I felt as though I had no right to feel too sorry for myself.
I worried about what the incarceration would do to my life and then one day I read in the paper about a 41 year old woman who passed away, leaving a loving family behind. Once again, it could always be worse, at least I was still alive.
When I was in Bartow County jail, there was a young man in the cell next to us that I could speak to through the vent. I could even see him...a bit. His health problems were extremely bad and getting worse. He's the diabetic that I mentioned earlier. He was sent to "medical" because of his extremely high blood sugars. The staff thought that he must be stealing food for his sugars to be so high. His blood sugars remained high while he was in "medical".
He had a lovely life and a family before his marriage fell apart. I can certainly relate to that. He certainly has some anger management issues and the staff was using that against him. Rather than leaving him alone, they harrassed him until he would do something stupid so that the staff could say, "See! He's nuts!" That's something that the staff of both jails knew how to do quite well. They knew who the inmates were who could be manipulated into losing their tempers so that they could justify any punishment that they wanted to dish out.
Like I said before, there was an occasional decent guard but even a few of them could get all schizoid from one minute to the next. I remember three women guards who were consistently decent...Officers Venerable, Brown and Brothers maintained who their professionalism at all times.
There was also one nurse who was always kind. I don't know his name but he's a tall, thin, African American and he consistently treated me and the other inmates with dignity. He even tried to cheer me up one morning that I was particularly down. He Googled my name and read the blog...I don't know if he still does read it at all, but if so, he knows who he is and I want to let him know that I appreciate him and his kind heart.
There were a couple of other decent nurses who realized that the "doctor" was a nut job. That man's name is Dr. Hendricks and he is the one who found sick delight in taunting the inmates. He must have been absent the day they taught, "First...do no harm." He threatened me with, "We have a bunch of large guards who will hold you down." when I tried to refuse the numerous sticks to draw blood and start IV's.
When I was in college, we were taught about patient's rights. As I said before, unless a person has been declared incompetent by a judge, they have the right to refuse treatment. If you (as a medical professional) say something like, "If you don't eat we'll put an IV in your arm.", that's considered assault. If you actually DO it, that's considered battery. Well, Dr. Hendricks either missed that day too or he simply doesn't care about the rules. When I get some really important things taken care of, I'm going to go to the Magistrate and swear out warrants against him. He violated my rights as well as those of a couple of other inmates that I was witness to.
Cobb County jail wouldn't allow me to take any of my medications, not my high blood pressure pills, not my heart pills...nothing. I didn't expect them to give me my pain meds, but I was stunned that they wouldn't allow me to take my other drugs. Bartow County would have let me take them if I had them, but the guards wouldn't allow me to call my son to have him bring them to me. Since I've been home, my heart pills don't seem to work anymore. I'm not sure why, they always have in the past. I need to go to my doctor to find out if the lack of access to effective medical treatment has worsened my heart condition.
While I was locked up, I couldn't sleep much at all. If I was lucky enough to actually fall alseep, I couldn't stay asleep. My bunk was right next to a door that's used to pass notes through from one pod to the next. Also, the inmates could speak to each other through that door so I was constantly woken up by banging on that door or just from other inmates who felt the need to holler through it. If it wasn't THAT waking me up, it would be the call, "Head count!" I don't think that I was able to sleep for more than two hours straight the entire time I was locked up. Last night I slept for a few hours, maybe 5. I only woke up once during that 5 hour time period and that was to heave. My nerves are shattered and I'm still having trouble eating. I can't seem to eat anything.
When I first became sick, I lost 80 pounds. I had put back on about 20 pounds by the holidays but for some reason, I started losing weight again in January. I had lost about 10 pounds during January/early February and I lost another 10 while I was in jail.
It's tough to get sympathy for losing too much weight. When I would tell other women about my weight loss, most of them had that sarcastic, "Oh, you poor thing." attitude. I've been overweight and underweight in my life and I promise, it's tougher for me to gain weight than it is to lose it. I need to gain about 40 pounds and I don't seem to be able to do that. I try to eat but if I'm lucky enough to swallow the food, I can rarely keep it down. If I can find a couple of before and after pictures on my computer, I'll post them after I put this post up.
By the way, I've been meaning to mention something. As I said earlier, there isn't much to do at all in the county lock up except read and sleep. I couldn't sleep and the reading material basically consisted of a bunch of romance novels...not quite my cup of tea. I did find a couple of books worth reading but I'm going to do what I can to get some books together and take them to the jail so that other people can have something to do to help pass the time. I know that inmates are not quite the most pitiable people in the world...but they are people and if there's anyone out there who can muster a bit of sympathy or concern for them, please see what you can do to donate books to your local jail.
I was outraged at the reasons that many of those people were locked up. In a country that doesn't allow for debtor's prison, we certainly lock up a bunch of people who can't afford to pay court ordered fines. You would be absolutely amazed at the number of people who are doing jail time for being what I'm calling "criminally poor". There were a few folks in there who most assuredly needed to be locked up, but I promise you, there are more who don't need to be there. And your tax dollars are going to keep them locked up!
The large number of people there for drugs blew me away. If they had health insurance, they might be in a drug rehab but for the criminally poor, jail is the only place for them. It's my sincere belief that our government makes more money off of drugs than any dealer ever made. If drugs were suddenly taken away, I think that most munincipalities would go broke.
The chick that we called Anna Nicole was convicted (before, not for this go 'round) of armed robbery and aggravated assault upon a police officer. For those charges, she was sentenced to 3 years probation. I'm not sure why she was locked up this time. There were a few women there for crimes that deserved jail time, things like forgery, grand and petit larceny, assault or battery and there were quite a few there for shoplifting. But the vast majority of women that I spoke to were locked up for violation of probation, non payment of fines and drug use. Now, it isn't that I think that drug users should never be locked up, but if drugs are the problem, jail AIN'T the answer. As a society, we would serve ourselves much better by actually treating drug users.
Jail is a place where people are treated so badly that by the time they get out, they still have the same problems that led them to use drugs in the first place but now they've been treated so poorly that they have a bunch of anger on top of everything else...not to mention new friends who know how to find drugs.
OK, I'm going to try to find a bunch of books and see if I can donate them to the jail. Oh, first I'll see if I can find those pictures that I mentioned. I'll be back soon.
See ya,
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
posted by Meg Kelso | 7:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home