This story was produced in partnership with Empowerment Avenue, a program that supports incarcerated writers.
At 4 p.m. on April 18, 2022, a guard is at my door to inform me that my name was pulled for a random urine analysis. I did not have to pee. I had just gone to the bathroom, and had little to eat or drink over the past 48 hours due to a dental problem. Previously I had two random UAs at the prison, and both times were difficult. I barely peed enough, but could do it. Normally I drink a lot of water.
The random UAs were being conducted because recently pills were found in the Broker unit. With the exception of the core building, each building is named after a prominent woman change-maker in America. The Broker unit is named for Ignatia Broker, the late Ojibwe writer and teacher from Minnesota. There has been an upsurge in random drug tests throughout the institution. Three others are pulled with me, and they all have to pee.
We are escorted to the core building and brought to Holding, where people go to be strip-searched and processed when they first arrive at the facility. Holding is where people are sent before leaving for an off-ground appointment, to be shipped and changed into bright orange scrubs, handcuffed and shackled. It’s where we return after any outside visit to be re-stripped—even though we've been in the presence of at least one officer for the entire outing—and change back into our prison grays. Holding is also where corrections staff take people when they want to calm them down and decide whether to take them to segregation.
There are two holding cells. Inside each is a metal bed frame, metal sink, and toilet attached to the wall, along with a roll of toilet paper. The walls are seven-inch, manila-painted tiles; the floor is cement. Names and initials are etched on the walls and in the bed frame’s paint. The door has a narrow slot with a metal door that can be opened for a meal or anything else.
The four of us stand in front of the holding cells, waiting to be tested. One of the two guards asks who wants to be first, and whether anyone wants a cup of water. These cups are about six ounces. The guard puts on rubber gloves, opens up a sealed bag containing a urine sample cup, and has the first woman walk into a holding cell. The guards conduct a strip search, also referred to by staff as a “detail.”
Details are a humiliating experience that I’ve written about before. This detail follows the same pattern as all the others I’ve experienced. Standing in front of two female guards, we remove our clothes and hand them, piece by piece, to the guards. We watch as they shake them, pat them down, and toss them onto the bed frame. We then take off our underwear bottoms, shake those out ourselves, and toss them onto the pile. The instructions continue: Bend at the waist, run our fingers through our hair, show our palms and behind our ears, open our mouths, lift our tongues. Stretch our lips to show our gums. Remove our tampons and dentures. Turn around. Show the bottoms of our feet, wiggle our toes. Squat and cough three times.
A detail is an all-too-frequent ritual with no thoughtful reason behind it. To defend it as policy is like when an adult tells a child, “Because I said so.” Why would I store contraband behind my ears? Why would I put pills between my toes or in my butt? Recently, I spoke with an older friend about strips. “There is usually a male guard close enough outside the holding cell to hear everything they ask me to do,” she said. “Take out your dentures. Hold up your belly. The whole process is humiliating and degrading.”
One at a time, we go into a holding cell, strip in front of two guards, put our clothes back on, take a clear plastic testing cup, and sit on a cold metal toilet.
There is no running water in this cell; it is turned off. The toilet water is Windex blue. The toilet is to the left of the open door, and when we’re using it, the guards are two feet from our knees. We are given about five minutes to produce a sample. Assuming we can give a sample, we hand the cup to one of the guards, walk out of the cell, and wash our hands in a sink outside of the cell. When the guards get the cup, they swish around the urine and hold up the cup to see if a small patch in the cup changes color. This indicates another chemical is present.
I’m the last to go. I can’t go.
“Do you want to wait a while?” the guard asks.
“Yes. I have no choice, do I?”
Of course I have a choice, but it’s lose-lose: Either I pee in a cup while two guards stand in front of me, or I go to segregation. It is irrelevant that I don’t have a drug problem, or have been discipline-free for over 4,400 days. My name was pulled, so I have to pee in front of people.
Prison is always about being less-than. Segregation is prison inside of prison: where you are less than less-than. The very little you have is stripped from you. Seg is an abyss of cold isolation, and it continues long after you leave. Ninety days on a black-tag status means you're quarantined 22 hours a day in your room with no job, income, or activities. I will not work or socialize with anyone until August, all because I can't pee in front of two guards in April. I am stuck in a nonsensical system, composed of rules made by someone who has never been stripped and forced to pee on command in front of people that they see nearly every day. I understand that the guards don’t make the rules. They are paid to check off boxes. Though I understand their jobs, it doesn’t make me respect their work.
It’s almost 4:30 p.m. Everyone except me is taken back to the Tubman living unit. I am asked for my shoes and identification, and am left in the locked cell. While I sit for a half-hour, I concentrate on wet thoughts: drinking jumbo-sized soft drinks, fingers in dishes of warm water, swimming in pools. One of the guards checks back.
“No, I still don’t have to go.”
“OK,” the guard says. “You have two hours. I’ll check back later.”
I pace. I do leg raises. I try to relax my torso. I send light to my vagina. I try not to panic.
I do not have to go to the bathroom.
My background is in theater. Actors often force themselves to do weird unnatural things in order to assume a role: Pretend you’re 100 years old. Be a bagpipe. Act like an alien who landed in Memphis and has never met another human outside of an Elvis impersonator. All that can be achieved, to varying degrees of success, through impressions and reactions.
To produce a genuine physical function is much more difficult. Could you make yourself fart if you didn’t have to? Could you make yourself sneeze? Not a fake sneeze, but a real, I-need-a-Kleenex sneeze? Our bodies don’t respond to directives; our minds do. Our bodies will not be forced.
The guard checks in again.
“I think I can go,” I say.
She has a new partner and a new cup. I try to relax. I strain to pee. I try again, for another five minutes. There are two drops in the cup. I can’t go. They leave me to sit in my frustration.
The guards return, and there are now minutes left on the clock. You’re wasting cups, Hawes, the newer guard says. I’m not wasting anything. I’m trying to urinate. But after this exchange, any hope of me filling the cup has vanished.
“So now what?”
The reply is matter-of-fact, as if I had asked for the time: “You’re going to segregation.”
The guards shut the door and open up the little metal slot so they can cuff me. They hand me my shoes to wear. The newer guard tells me to hurry up. I tell her to give me 30 seconds; I’m putting on my mask. They are on either side of me as we make our way down two halls and through four doors. I am escorted down a wing hall. There are five wings in the prison, but only four are usable because one of the wings is housing an ex-police officer. She has an entire wing to herself.
The door clicks open. I am asked to strip again and change into different clothes: a bright orange scrub suit, orange sweat socks, and dark brown underwear. The underwear is dyed brown to cover up stains left by the previous wearer’s menstrual cycles. I know this because I used to work in Property and was around when this dye-job idea came to fruition.
I am given a brown paper bag of toiletries and staples: safety toothbrush, half-ounce deodorant, trial size soap, a small tube of rather useless toothpaste, a four-ounce plastic bottle of liquid “shave/shampoo/soap,” a hair tie, an orange rubber mug that smells like old coffee, a flex pen, five sheets of wide-lined paper, and nine sheets of segregation rules and information. I also receive three towels, a dark blue washcloth, two synthetic blankets, two flat sheets, a pillow, and a pillowcase. I am supposed to get orange jelly sandals, but these are not included in my clothes bundle.
I don’t know the exact time, but I know it’s past dinner and I haven’t had any.
The cell is identical to our regular rooms: covered with seven-inch square tiles, 13.5 tiles high by 12.5 tiles wide by 14.5 tiles long. The window faces north and has a thick screen over it, letting in a small amount of light and allowing nothing beyond a shadow of anyone walking by on the courtyard sidewalk. Bolted to the wall is a metal desk with an attached metal stool.
A metal sink, with buttons to push for three seconds of water, is bolted next to the desk. To keep in theme with the rest of the room, the water tastes like metal. I seriously debate if I can survive without drinking water for however long I’m here, but I’m here because I was dehydrated. I will have to drink something.
There are two light switches: One is a room light, and one is an overhead light above the bed. There is a “mirror” made of reflective metal. There is a metal toilet situated so that it can be used without a person seeing from the hallway. The bathroom is connected to the main cell and has no door. There is a roll of toilet paper on the floor, since there are no hooks to hang anything. The door to the hall is the same as the slotted door in Holding. My cell is cold.
I scan the nine pages of segregation rules and look for the few things that matter. I can’t take a shower or make a call until 24 hours from arrival. I get one 15-minute call a week. The staff will print off a JPay kiosk message if someone sends one, but I can’t use the kiosk. (Unless you’re the ex-police officer in your own wing.)
A guard stops by with a sheet for me to sign, indicating that I have given them my clothes and they have given me an orange costume. I tell her I have had no dinner, and she says she will bring me a bag meal. She does. Dinner is two slices of white bread, two packets of peanut butter, a packet of grape jelly, a banana, an individual-sized bag of generic popcorn, and six dried-out celery and carrot sticks.
My dinner comes in a clear plastic bag. Guards come to work carrying clear plastic backpacks and totes. Our folders, cups, and canteen bags are all clear plastic, and so are our electronics. Everything is transparent here, except for how people are treated.
Every half hour, a guard walks by to do a round. We can’t hear any overhead announcements. It is quiet except for people yelling between rooms, creaking carts, and the banging of metal slot doors.
My friend Melissa is the unit maintenance cleaner. She is very helpful in giving me the lay of the land. She explains how a new change of clothes will be left outside my door every day, and that I have to ask the guards to give them to me through the slot. Melissa says not to have any extra clothes in the room, or I can get an escape charge. Escape is not realistic, unless I were segregated with a metal-cutting Tiger Saw.
Melissa says a three-shelf book cart will come by every few days, from which we can choose up to five books. She says someone from the discipline department will probably drop by tomorrow and give me more information. Melissa shares all of this while vacuuming the hall carpet in front of my door, appearing busy so as not to get yelled at for loitering.
The only way I can tell time is by meals and count times. Everyone in the institution is counted six times, every 24 hours. At night we are counted as we sleep at 12:25 a.m., a “random time,” and at 5:05 a.m. During our waking hours, we are counted at 10:35 a.m., 4:35 p.m. (when we have to be sitting up on our beds), and a standing count at 9:25 p.m., when we have to hold our IDs and stand at our doors. Measuring time like this would make my husband Dan absolutely crazy.
By now, I am used to approximate time. Throughout the institution, every clock displays a different time. Movements—when we are able to go to appointments, work, or meals—are often called late or early. Activities and classes are constantly canceled. The approximate time within prison reiterates that our time is not respected. Our lives are not important.
April 19
An officer down the hall yells, “Trays!” Breakfast has arrived. Usually I don’t have breakfast, but today I’ll eat something. I tell a guard that I had filled out a sick-call form to see the dentist, but it was never mailed, since I was taken before I could post it. She says that she will put me on “the medical list.” When medical staff walk by, I tell them I have a headache. My friend in unit maintenance brings me a Torah textbook and a new set of clothes. A guard brings my glasses and a comb from my gray bins that now contain what once was my room. We have to fit everything we own and our provided clothing into two bins. This space is equivalent to two milk crates.
The discipline person stops by in the afternoon and says I have 30 days of segregation. “I know and you know I’m not using drugs inappropriately,” I tell her. “I’ve been here for over 12 years with no discipline problems, I just can’t pee in front of people.” She flips her red folder—where any behavioral report would have landed—upside-down, demonstrating that it is empty. She asks if I have incontinence that can be documented in Medical.
“No,” I say. “It is not natural to urinate in front of people.”
Her eyes say I know, but she doesn’t say anything. I mention my dental problem and tell her that I haven’t had a lot to eat or drink recently.
She says she will “look at some things” and see if she can offer me a waiver for less time in seg. Spoiler alert: This does not happen.
I think back to Holding, the poster outside declaring the values of the Minnesota Department of Corrections: Safety, dignity, honesty, service, equity, fairness, respect. Which ones can I count today?
I now get two Advil from Medical when they make the rounds. I also finally receive some sandals.
Around 6:40 p.m., I’m allowed my weekly phone call. Dan cries, which makes me cry. I inform him that I only get one call a week, and if I am still segregated, I will call again next Tuesday. I tell him I am dehydrated and have severe dental sensitivity. “My trays have meat on them [I have been a vegetarian for 37 years], the water is horrible, my room is cold, and I am annoyed.”
April 20
Late last night, I had mail slid under my door: a card from a friend, and a JPay Kiosk message from a friend who used to live here—she knew I was in seg, so my friends on the outs are being contacted.
Today I get a shower. We bring our towels, sketchy toiletries, and new sets of oranges to the break room, and take turns showering in the communal bathroom. The shower has no curtain, but it looks less dilapidated than the showers in my former living unit. I read a book titled Torah Bible Study, as well as Julie & Julia, about a woman who lives in New York and makes a recipe from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking every day for a year. Many of the recipes featured organ meats and sounded gross.
Late in the evening, a guard has me fill out a dentist sick-call form. She said that if I’m just on the medical list, I’ll never get seen. I’m grateful for her helping me, but why would the other guard say she’d put me on a list if it were useless?
April 21
Last night I got letters from Dan, my friend and co-worker Ashley, and my friend Will. I also receive my Truthout contest essay from the computer lab. This makes me very happy. The first night in seg, I had sent a kite (a written message) to the kind computer lady to please go into my home folder, find my essay, then print and send it to me. I wrote it for Truthout’s Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, and submissions are due by May 1. I need to send it to Dan so he can scan it and send it electronically. (In 2023, I will win this prize, for my essay "As Incarcerated Women, We're Subjected to State Rape.") The mail also brought a contract to be signed for my chapter contribution for a book published by Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
Around 8 a.m., two guards come to take me to the dentist. This involves handcuffing. They each take an elbow and walk with me. I pass a small group of people picking up their canteen at the Property window. I hear a soft “I love you” from a friend of mine in the group.
While waiting for the dentist, I bring up the peeing process to the guards. “Why can’t we just pee in the room without people watching us?” I ask. “We have been stripped, there is no running water, and the toilet is dark blue.”
“It’s complicated,” the male guard says. (It isn’t.)
The dentist and her assistant are very nice. They shoot me with Novocaine. I focus my mind on something cheerful. I think about kittens. The dentist pulls my tooth. I can hear cracking and taste blood, but feel no pain. It’s the third tooth pulled since I came to prison. They don’t cap or crown when teeth break; they just pull. It’s why I tend to avoid the dentist.
My crumbling tooth is a fitting embodiment for the circumstances around me: an old system that needs to be rebuilt, although no one wants to spend the money or time to fix it properly. I will need dental implants upon my release. I don’t know how much those cost. Either way, I can’t worry about it now. I just need to be able to chew food without pain.
I am grateful that the holes in my smile are toward the back, and that the tooth pull doesn’t hurt (yet). I pray I will not have a throbbing face for the next few days. My lunch and dinner come with little packets of salt, which I use for swishing while my mouth heals.
The guards walk me back to my seg cell. I have no envelopes and five pieces of paper. Staff will not give us any paper from our bins, but fortunately I had sent my Truthout essay print request to the computer lab in a manuscript envelope, and my essay was returned to me in that envelope. I can use it to mail my essay to Dan. His address is the only one I have memorized. I had ordered 20 envelopes from the canteen, but because I am in seg, they will return my order to where it was originally packed. I will get nothing.
April 22
Still no mouth pain—a miracle. I have a cut on the roof of my mouth, but that’s fine. I write a kite about my room’s clogged sink. I shower during break, when we get an hour out of our cells. The break room is the room where I made my phone call. There is nothing in it but a metal table with blunted corners, bolted to the floor, and four metal stools bolted to the table. (And the wall phone.) I meet three other people living in the wing:
The first woman couldn’t pee in a cup either.
The second woman doesn’t say why she is here, but is executing her sentence and going home in about two weeks. She says she doesn’t “give a flying shit” about seg. “They can’t hurt me, I’m leaving.”
The third woman says she has a partner who suffers from early onset dementia. He keeps showing up at the prison trying to bail her out, because he does not remember that she’s in prison. He wakes up, doesn't know where she is, and tries to find her. We were told that the prison's $5 million fence is vital to keep him from coming in. There’s no reason why this young woman should be put in seg because staff can't deal with a mentally challenged person in a compassionate way.
My deodorant is still useless.
April 23
I get a card from my friend Beth and letters from Dan that include a copy of a letter he wrote and hand-delivered to the commissioner of corrections office, and a copy to the prison for the warden. It contains a plea on my behalf, because of my dental issue and my non-existent discipline record. Dan’s sort of a ball-buster.
It's around 9:30 a.m. and raining outside. My unit maintenance friend says COVID is back. Three people from the Challenge Incarceration Program are in seg in order to quarantine. The CIP focuses on cognitive thinking and accountability. Typically the cadets live in their own building and are separated from general population. They speak with a lot of “yes sirs” and “yes ma’ams,” and march around in formation while yelling cadences.
There are ants and little black bugs in my room.
April 24
I'm ordering from canteen. In segregation, we have a $10 limit and can only order hygiene and envelopes—and a pad of wide-lined paper. I hate wide-lined paper. I have no price list, so I'm guessing at prices. If we go over the limit, we get nothing. Ten bucks does not go far. I order deodorant, a bar of soap, generic cotton swabs, another piece-of-crap flex pen, a pad of wide-lined paper, and three manuscript envelopes. The order will not come for another 10 days.
April 25
A maintenance worker fixes my clogged sink. I read from the Pentateuch. The woman with the partner who has dementia is released to general population. Yesterday, she told me her partner was now living in a memory-care home until she gets out in August.
The discipline lady saw other people today, but not me. Lunch is a dried-out sandwich with cashew(?) butter and jelly that has been sealed in plastic. It had to have been frozen at some point and is now way past its sell-by date. Really awful. We have no breaks or showers on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Three people left today; two came in. I make a deck of cards out of paper.
Another neighbor now joins the wing. That makes three. To my right is a person here for allegedly making hooch. She said the hooch belonged to a neighbor who had asked her to hold it while the neighbor's room was being searched. My new neighbor refused to tell the staff who gave it to her, and here she sits. She has a very beautiful voice but a limited repertoire. I can't take Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” more than 12 times in one afternoon without developing emotional distress.
The two people across the hall are difficult, though I am familiar with one. She’s often unpredictable. The one I don't know is yelling and swearing, and refuses her orange clothes. She won't turn on her room light for count.
She has the staff's full attention. They are begging her to take her new orange clothes and put them on, to take a tray and eat something, to come out of the bathroom as they try to find an extension cord for her apnea machine. All communication is conducted through the crack of her door.
Everyone seems to know this person and goes out of their way to ask her how she is. She seems to have a lot of health problems, and the guards are trying to prevent them from affecting her. Within two hours, she has a seizure and staff makes an emergency call. More staff enter the hall. It is well past the last count. There are six people outside her door.
April 26
There is just one other woman in the break room. The discipline lady stops by and has me sign a guilty plea. There is nothing to appeal; it is a fact that I couldn't pee.
The charge was "refused to produce." I cross out "refused” and write in "unable to."
The system is set up to give us more time if we appeal anything. The discipline person said that people were leaving seg early; she gave me no waiver. They don't care.
I get two nice cards from people in my living unit, and have my weekly phone call with Dan. He said he sent me a bunch of mail and that the Minnesota Twins are in first place. Dan does not follow baseball, but knows I love the Twins and listen to their games on the radio every night throughout the season. He is giving me a candle in a dark space.
He said he mailed my Truthout essay.
He said our next-door neighbor's new baby is very sick and in the hospital.
April 27
Four letters from Dan and five cards from friends. There’s also a legal letter from the attorney general's office about the pending review of my conviction. The woman across the hall has another seizure. Another emergency call; a nurse and four guards are at her door.
When a guard comes with my lunch tray, I ask her why we are peeing in front of people during UAs. "The water is shut off, and there is a camera in the ceiling,” I say.
"The camera is off,” she says. “Male officers can't watch anyone pee." She never answers my question.
April 28
When I looked at the water in my orange rubber mug this morning, there was a sheen on top. What the hell am I drinking?
Over the speaker in my room, the staff asks if I want a break. "Sure." They pop the door open, and I leave the room and take a shower. Apparently, this is wrong. They meant for me to take a 10-minute break to clean my room. It is called communication.
During our "real" break, I am with three others. The women say there are pills in the Broker housing unit, and the powers that be want to know where the pills are coming from.
April 29
Letters from Dan. I checked off boxes on next week's menu so I can get vegetarian meals. I’m bundled in blankets; it is cold.
I don't know if there is a staffing issue or what, but in the two weeks I've been in segregation, a steady stream of different staff brought us meals and did rounds. Many of them have observed me for years. Most look surprised and roll their eyes, but verbalize nothing. Only one stayed for a minute and chatted. They told me to keep my chin up. Most of the people who work within the system are happy, or at least complicit in the system. The environment encourages a mentality of us versus them. For the most part, staff doesn't care if we get stripped all day, can't call our children, or are forced to pee in front of people who we see every day in the lunchroom.
I care. I've been taking notes every day, though I have to be careful about what I write. I am unable to write about specific guards—what’s said, the tone of what's said, or much of what happens here. I can go to seg for doing so. It is how the fiefdom maintains the fiefdom.
I think about Mordechai Vanunu, the former technician who opposed weapons of mass destruction and leaked details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the press. He served 18 years in an Israeli prison, 11 of those in solitary. He walked out of prison unbroken.
I will walk out of prison unbroken.
April 30
It is raining.
May 1
My neighbor who’s here because she couldn't pee is released. Around 9:00 p.m., a guard opens my door and says I am being released. She is going to grab the little plastic tub that holds my gray bins that were at the core building's front desk. The Property room still holds my TV and typewriter.
It is 9:10 p.m. Last count is in 15 minutes.
I hustle back to the Tubman unit, pulling a large four-wheeled cart with my bins. I get my room keys and ask for a new canteen slip. If I don't get my slip in tonight, I will not get any canteen until May 25. Canteen inventory is next week, and we can't order anything for two more weeks. After I bring my bins to my room, I call Dan to let him know I am released. I fill out a canteen order. Everyone seems happy that I am back. I am given a black tag, identifying me as UI (unassigned idle), meaning I have no job.
It takes me about two hours to unpack. Random things are missing: a jar of jalapeños, a deck of cards, my washcloth, hangers, a plastic pitcher, a cup, a three-ring notebook, egg noodles—but nothing vital. I am happy to be back in my old single room. I am happy I still have 5 percent of battery left on my tablet. I am happy to get a canteen order in, and am happy I could let Dan know I am released from solitary.
Over the years of my incarceration, Dan has repeated a proverb to me that was told to him by his father: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I know I have to pick my arguments carefully. I know Dan means well and is trying to protect me. But sometimes I need to stand for what is right, especially when I am surrounded by many people who, for whatever reason, cannot.
May 6
I’m called to the unit staff desk and told I am being moved to the Bethune living unit. My unit’s sergeant says it is not her decision. People are upset that I'm leaving. Bethune houses many behavioral cases, along with kitchen workers, some education students, and a lot of UIs like me. Everyone I pass on the sidewalk with my cart of bins can't believe that I went to segregation, I’m going to Bethune, and I’m unemployed. I am a trifecta of improbability.
At least my bed frame is made of wood and I have plumbing. My roommate seems nice.
The three drawers in my closet are very shallow. I go through all my paperwork and make a pile to send out. My life feels like it’s becoming more and more compressed.
May 8
Mother's Day. For the first time in my adult life, I am a mother of nothing. Our beloved cat Velo died on April 14.
The courtyard time for UIs is 8:00 a.m. It’s drizzling outside, but I walk anyway. At 8:30 a.m., I am called into the core building to talk to the lieutenant. He wants to talk about Tubman, the living unit I just left. He wants to know if I thought anything unusual or bad was going on. I am one of four people he asks. I remind him that I no longer live there and had just spent two weeks in segregation.
After we addressed his issue, I addressed mine. I tell him it was stupid that I went to segregation. I’ve been discipline-free for over 12 years. Even the guards were surprised when they saw me there.
"I can tell you why you went to segregation,” the lieutenant says. “If we did not send you, we would have been accused of racism. Favoritism. We would hear, Why was she given a pass and I had to go to segregation?”
Fine, but here’s the thing: If he and his staff want to conduct random UAs, they have the technology to test in more civilized, less intrusive ways. There is no reason we cannot have a nasal or mouth swab, or give a blood or hair sample, or at minimum be able to urinate alone in the room and then give our sample to the guards.
The lieutenant tells me that he did not make the policies. I say I realize that, but he has a voice.
"We all have a voice,” he says.
I bite my tongue. Our voices are silenced all the time.
"This is true, but you are wearing a badge and are sitting at the table,” I say. “You know the system is not right, and you have the opportunity to make it better. No one wants to be complicit to a dysfunctional system. This change is doable and makes sense."
A few years ago, I would not have had the balls to say this to a lieutenant, but I was still being punished, weeks later, for not being able to pee in front of people. And at 57 years old, I fear little.
"Another thing is we are continually stripped,” I say. I talk about how on the "outs," perhaps 25 percent of the female population is sexually assaulted during their lives, but here in Shakopee, the prior sexual trauma must be around 80 percent.
"I think it is higher, actually," he says. I was trying to be generous.
If the goal is to give people self-esteem and confidence to leave prison, able to contribute to their communities and families, I say, it is unproductive to continually strip people with high levels of past sexual trauma. For example, why are we stripped after an in-person visit when there are cameras and staff in the visiting room? If drugs are coming in through Visiting, the strips are obviously ineffective. What has staff confiscated in the last 1,000 strips? A Kleenex? Three tampons? A Chapstick?
Why, when unable to "produce" during a random UA, was I stripped in the holding cell and, after never leaving that cell, re-stripped in segregation? Why are people being stripped upon returning from the hospital when they have been under continual staff supervision? A pat-down would suffice. A strip is unnecessary assault and damaging to an already fragile population.
And another thing about segregation: As you know, we are allowed one weekly 15-minute call. This hurts children who normally get a daily phone call. The institution should not be punishing kids for their parents’ segregation.
The lieutenant seems receptive to this last point. "So more phone time, OK," he says. He asks about the prison ombudsperson and whether they are working on any of this. I don't know who that person is, or what they are working on. I say that if he gives me their name and address, I will write to them.
The lieutenant then tells me to write him a kite that summarizes our conversation, and he will look into some things. I write to him that evening. I never heard back.
A week after that conversation, I write to the head of discipline. She writes back two days later to tell me "all policies were followed."
On May 19, I send the ombudsperson’s office a grievance form and a copy of the letter I sent to discipline. She answered me three weeks later, saying she “found that those policies were properly followed, and we will not be investigating your complaint further at this time. ... If you would like to request a policy change, you can contact the Warden's Assistant."
On July 7 of that year, I write to the Warden’s Assistant, attaching all previous correspondence. She wrote back three weeks later, saying, "This information has been sent to the DOC policy chair." And so I wait.
I spend most of the summer as a UI, getting two hours out of the room and a half-hour to walk in the courtyard per day. On Aug. 8, I’m assigned to a job as a mentor for new arrivals. This required me to move to another unit, where I lived in another wing lounge with three other women. From there, I was moved to a double. I switched jobs on Jan. 23, 2024, working in the Transitions Center, where I create résumés and help people find reentry resources. It was the job I had prior to segregation, except now I start again at 25 cents per hour. I left at a dollar per hour.
I waited until June of 2023—nearly 11 months—to hear back from the DOC policy chair. No response. I wrote to the commissioner on June 22 of that year. Again, nothing. I began to interview others about their harmful experiences with random UAs and strips, and wrote several essays on the topic.
In late October of 2023, Minnesota Rep. Sandra Feist came to the prison for a tour. I spoke with her when she walked into the computer lab, then sent her two essays. She did respond. Feist called the DOC, and met with the commissioner and the policy chair. Feist was told they were looking into different testing methods—nothing has changed—and that "strips were trending down." That last part is true. As of writing, my last strip search was January of 2024. We are now body-scanned after visits, and people visiting us are body-scanned when they first arrive. In May of 2024, I was moved to another unit and given a single room—back to where I started before segregation.
This is what I have learned: The system that the DOC provides for grievance is pointless, constructed to keep things as they are. Everyone who did respond told me that policies were followed; they are content with that answer. The only way to change anything is through people on the outside fighting for the rights of the incarcerated. The only thing I can do is inform people outside about what is happening inside.
When I pass the darkened windows of segregation, I find myself searching for people in the shadows, but I see no one.