Inmate Profile #2
When I worked in the Women's Prison, I worked with the only women in Idaho on death row. ( and since the guilty will remain anonymous, you will have to figure out who it is
here)
This one really makes you wonder about people. She is on death row for setting fire her own house while her husband and two kids were asleep. If that wasn't bad enough, it was strongly suggested that she was behind the death of her first child. The official cause of death was SIDS, the child was 18 months old. She is also suspect in the death of her second child, who was caught in a burning house with this inmate. The inmate managed to get out of the house, and sadly the child did not. She had 4 children, and not one survived.
Knowing all this just makes me mad. But in the course of my duties, I can't let it get to me or influence the way I interact and treat her. It was hard, especially when she was the most pleasant and nicest inmates we had. As a lieutenant once said "Death Row inmates are among the nicest people we have locked up, they just aren't fit to live in society".
She has been on Death Row since 1993 and the end is no where near sight. With the countless appeals, it will be a long time before she ever sees the inside of the death chamber.
Right now she lives in a 10 x 8 foot cell. It is a wet cell, so it has a toilet and running water. She can only come out to take a shower for 15 minutes a day and to use the recreation cage outside, which she rarely does. Her meals are served to her in her cell and the only real time she spends outside of it is when she makes a phone call 4 times a month. The only people she sees are officers and mental health people.
To many people the world over, she is an innocent victim. She has websites about her that list the terrible conditions she has to endure. So people take pity on her and write and send money. Last year alone she received over $4000. She can spend in on commissary items, such as snack foods, soda, hygiene products and some basic electronic items such as a radio, reading lamp and a TV. And still her websites say that she is poor and the state only provides her with a tiny bar of soap and one envelop a week.
Makes you wonder.
here)
This one really makes you wonder about people. She is on death row for setting fire her own house while her husband and two kids were asleep. If that wasn't bad enough, it was strongly suggested that she was behind the death of her first child. The official cause of death was SIDS, the child was 18 months old. She is also suspect in the death of her second child, who was caught in a burning house with this inmate. The inmate managed to get out of the house, and sadly the child did not. She had 4 children, and not one survived.
Knowing all this just makes me mad. But in the course of my duties, I can't let it get to me or influence the way I interact and treat her. It was hard, especially when she was the most pleasant and nicest inmates we had. As a lieutenant once said "Death Row inmates are among the nicest people we have locked up, they just aren't fit to live in society".
She has been on Death Row since 1993 and the end is no where near sight. With the countless appeals, it will be a long time before she ever sees the inside of the death chamber.
Right now she lives in a 10 x 8 foot cell. It is a wet cell, so it has a toilet and running water. She can only come out to take a shower for 15 minutes a day and to use the recreation cage outside, which she rarely does. Her meals are served to her in her cell and the only real time she spends outside of it is when she makes a phone call 4 times a month. The only people she sees are officers and mental health people.
To many people the world over, she is an innocent victim. She has websites about her that list the terrible conditions she has to endure. So people take pity on her and write and send money. Last year alone she received over $4000. She can spend in on commissary items, such as snack foods, soda, hygiene products and some basic electronic items such as a radio, reading lamp and a TV. And still her websites say that she is poor and the state only provides her with a tiny bar of soap and one envelop a week.
Makes you wonder.
posted by Jeremy at 11:31 AM
5 Comments:
It is sad....
Sad for the 4 little chidlren.
Sad for her, in the sense of "What is going on in that mind"
But sad that she is behind bars? That she gets soap? Sad that her needs are now met without posh extras?
No. That is providing safety to others... and possibly herself until "her time comes".
Does that make me cold hearted?
Not to me, it doesn't
I hope her time comes soon. It makes me very upset when women who kill their children are seen as victims. What about those lovely children?
When I was in college, there were so many people who tried to stop deaths on death row, saying that their blood is on our hands. I do not agree. My opinion is once a person kills and finds it easy to kill.. that they are the equivalent of a rabid dog.
My only hope is that she is trying to make her peace with her God.
Maybe I am the cold-hearted one.
You're only voicing your opinion, not flipping the switch or killing your offspring... That is not cold-hearted in my books
I may be cold hearted, but that's a discussion for a different day. I too live in horrid conditiions. I'm forced to spend my day at work, where I perform menial tasks so that I may bring home money which is used to pay for my life. I live in a small house and drive only a simple car. No mansion, no SUV, no big-screen TV, I ask you......is this any way to live. For only 2.00 a day you can help improve my life greatly.
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