Confession #2: Sarah Connor

They won't let me see my son

I have not been allowed to visit my son in over 6 months. This reality is made harder by the fact that his birthday is this week.

I want to begin this first post with a promise to readers: it is not my intention to throw a pity-party nor focus my energy on our losses.

I can grieve in private.

That said, the first few posts are going to require an inside look at our reality, and it sucks.

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This is the second year that I will not get to hug nor share a meal with my oldest son on the day that he was born. He will not see any family nor friends. He will not get any gifts. There will be no cake.

While prison isn't meant to be a country club, the dog pound would be a better birthday venue.

Let me explain.

Last year, my son spent over one hundred days in ‘Administrative Segregation’ (aka solitary confinement). This largely occurred through the months of December and January.

And why was that?

Because Punishment is a For-Profit Business in this country. While the rest of the world woke up and came out of their Covid dens to resume living, random virus testing was suddenly resumed at his facility in time to reduce D.O.C. staffing burdens during the 2023 holiday season.

I said what I said.

All other mandatory testing had ceased in our society by then (i.e., schools, hospitals, etc.), however, as a matter of business, the D.O.C. started enforcing a procedural mandate that required the systematic isolation of any prisoner who was merely exposed to the virus.

When one of his cellmates tested positive during a random test, he and eight of his fellow block-mates were remanded to solitary confinement, indefinitely. All visits, calls, and messages stopped immediately—requiring less staff to oversee them. Families were not notified and, after days of no contact, we navigated the Everest climb that is the D.O.C. phone system to learn of his fate.

I was then informed that there was no end date to this decision.

My son never tested positive for Covid. In fact, he tested negative at least four times during this 10-week stint in isolation.

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Our D.O.C.'s Mission Statement is...

"We create a safer state by holding offenders accountable while promoting their success."

On his birthday this year, my son will again sit in his cell for 23 hours (like he does every day) in a situation called Loss of Privileges (LOP).¹

Since May 2024, we have only been able to correspond with him through written snail mail. He remains in a cell 23/7 with no visits, no phone, no JPay, no tablet, no TV, no programming, no activities, and no job offerings. He receives all of his meals in his cell. He gets yard time 6 hours per month.

My son only sees the sky for 6 hours every month.

Only during these times in the yard can he stand in line to use the phone. He has been ordered to remain at this level of restriction until July 2025 when reinstatement of visits and ‘privileges’ will be up to the discretion of the facility.

It would be natural to assume that he has been violent or done something egregious to merit this status. Assume nothing where the D.O.C. is involved.

This is a young, first-time, non-violent offender who in three years of incarceration has initiated ZERO fights, had zero weapons, no gang affiliation, no riots, no resisting, and nothing discernible that raises his safety risk level. My son entered the system a Level 1 offender who the prosecutor, the probation agent, and a judge agreed needed drug treatment.

In three years, he has received only 12 weeks of classes and no program placement.

In spite of these facts, he has been raised to a Level 4 by D.O.C. and moved to a max security facility through their arbitrary, archaic, and subjective ticketing system. He was issued a statement by the D.O.C.’s parole board that he has been considered a ‘danger to the community.’

This, friends, is his list of ‘dangerous’ misconduct:

• Didn't wake up for med line, twice (there are no alarm clocks in prison)

• Declined/refused medications after requesting several times through proper channels that they be stopped and weren't (his meds were are voluntary)

• Tested positive for Buprenorphine (a substance the D.O.C. was injecting into him as part of a Medication-Assisted program) *More on this for paid subscribers

• Having an apple juice container in his solitary cell (yes, they brought it to him)

• Picking up food from the wrong serving line

• Having possession of a heating element (I'm told by staff to heat up water for coffee)

• Defending himself when bashed in the head with a chair by his cell-mate (aka, he did not run to the guards; defending yourself is considered "fighting") *More on this for paid subscribers

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He Was Denied Parole

When I accepted the collect call from a county jail several years ago, I believed in the practicality of a few things:

• The justice system

• Human decency

• Mental health care

• Rational thought

I now know that these things post-arrest are not only not practical, they are nearly non-existent in prison.

And we exist in an alternative universe.

Time here is marked by how long it has been since he/we last [insert the memory]. Over the past three years, I have cried harder than I knew a person could. The no-sound-can't-breathe cry of a mother who cannot hold her child. This is the death of innocence. This is the grief of what might have been.

He is alive, but not in the world where I live.

As his peers graduated college, got engaged, and recently started having children, his days have also passed by, albeit with other experiences—Strip-searches, beatings, gnawing hunger, utter exhaustion, and devastating isolation. Yes, he is an adult. Yes, he made choices. And yes, he is still the baby that I carried within me and gave birth to and nurtured and whom I still love beyond my own life.

In spite of my great desire to live as a law-abiding citizen, I have often dreamt myself as Sarah Connor. I'm fighting through cement and brick walls, sliding down hallways and breaching control panels to open locked, metal doors to the amazed looks of the unformed people with stun guns on their belts. I run to him on his bunk in a unit inside a cell that I have never actually seen.

You are not alone, son, no matter what.

Admittedly, I have lived with her angst level as well. Half unhinged, protective mom and half beaten down, weary soul caught up under powers and plans that I, alone, am powerless to change.

The toughest moms on the planet have a son or daughter inside a prison cell. We do every minute of the time that our children are sentenced to while also carrying on for our other children, spouses, employers, families, friends, and communities. We endure the degradation and condescension by corrections staff whose paychecks are written with our tax dollars. We walk in silent pain through our workdays, dodging questions and family updates.

We bear up under the weight of our child's humiliation, isolation, darkness, torture, injustice, pain, and poverty.

Sending them off to kindergarten was hard. This is a living hell.

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But Yes, We Need Accountability

At all levels.

And maybe we should actually know what we're talking about when we say things like:

Where were the parents?

That’s what you get when you have no discipline in the home.

Throw away the key.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Democrat or Republican—I do not care. I have heard “tough on crime” bellows and “we need law and order” quips out of friends and family from all sides of the spectrum. And it's costing us all too much to stay in the dark.

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Your Money

According to 2023 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the US spends an average of $31,286 per year on each inmate ($49k in more recent, local figures). In contrast, K-12 schools spend an average of $12,756 per student annually. This means the US spends more than double on each inmate than on each student.²

Want to know your priorities?

Look at your finances.

I can assure you (hi, Law and Order crowd), that my son has paid for his addictions and for the pair of shoes that he can't remember stealing during a five-day bender over three years ago. Like many moms in my position, I am forced to define ‘justice’ every day of my life, and I submit that this is NOT it. Our prisons are overcrowded with those needing help for addiction. Our correction departments are underpaid, under-trained, and—shocker—under-staffed.

That is a topic for another day (stay tuned).

For now, my hope for my son's birthday is that my letter has cleared the month-long maze of D.O.C. inspection in time for him to have something from home to hold in his hand. Of course, it will not be my actual letter that I touched or wrote on, and no colored pictures are allowed. Everything he gets is a monochrome gray photocopy.

Then, when I lay down to sleep tonight, I will also send up a familiar prayer that goes something like this:

"Hi, God. Me again. Let him know that he is loved and keep him safe, please.”

Up next week: How did we get here?

1. After 6 months of waiting, I finally received the contents of a FOIA request, including official descriptions of his life in prison. Read that post HERE.

2. Read education figures HERE.