Woman Who Spent 6 Years In Prison Shares 22 Eye-Opening Stories Of Life As An Inmate

"Do inmates get shackled to the bed if they go to hospital while they're in prison? Well, that's a really good question. And they 100% get shackled to the bed. I gave birth while I was in prison and that was the most traumatic experience I've ever gone through in my entire life. And as soon as my daughter was delivered, my legs were shackled to the bed. And I was in prison for drugs, if you guys don't know that. She was born healthy, then she was placed in the foster care. After I got out of prison I worked for over a year to get full custody, I have full custody of her now. But the image of holding my new born baby, with chains and shackles on my leg, is forever seared into my memory and that was the reason why I completely changed my entire life. I looked down and I saw that beautiful baby and those light chains and I just decided, I just knew that I was done. I was never going back to prison, I was never picking up another substance and I now have 9 years sober. It was dehumanizing and terrible and I have PTSD from that." [watch the video here ]

"This is really hard because there's a lot of bad things that happened in different categories, I think. So I will have to make this part 1, part 2, part 3... The worst thing that I saw correctional officers doing was neglecting the medical needs of inmates, including but not limited to, women having their period and bleeding everywhere. Sometimes it would take them hours to bring them clean clothes, sometimes they wouldn't if the stain was not big enough or it wasn't a big enough mess, then they wouldn't give you clean clothes. So, ignoring the inmates' medical needs is a big deal. I saw woman have a seizure and we're pounding and pounding on the doors, this was in a county jail, we're pounding on the doors for 5 hours before they came in to even assess the situation. Paramedics were finally called. And she did not come back. I don't know if she passed away, I don't know what happened, no one ever saw her again after that night, though. And I think that's a major problem. Many correctional officers think inmates are faking everything cause they've been lied to." [watch the video here ]

"So, I was serving time in a prison in Arkansas and that prison did not want to give women tampons. So, they would give each woman 2 or 3 pads per day, if you asked for them. But sometimes a correctional officer said "No, sorry, we're all fresh out. Can't get one." And then, what do you do right? So, because they did not want to provide tampons and they would only provide 2 pads in a 24-hour time period, we had to take it upon ourselves to take the pad and turn it into a tampon, which is unsafe, don't recommend, not a good idea. But we didn't know what else to do. So we had to take the outside of a pad, where it's protective from the cotton, and use that as the outside of the tampon, put a cotton in there, wrap it up and make our own tampons, just so that we had period products so that we were not bleeding all over the place. In New York it was a non-issue, we got as much as we needed because blood creates danger for everyone. So yeah, we need a prison reform and we need it now." [watch the video here ]

"Do officers and inmates get into relationship, from a former inmate, let's go! In a nutshell - yes. People that are there for a long time, they are human beings and they get lonely, and they want that intimacy and that feeling from another person. And that definitely happen to correctional officers. I've seen it, most inmates have. And it starts out very small, with a look or a smile, if you walk by them and touch them, which I would never do. I wouldn't even talk to them for toilet paper. But I have seen it happen. And guards take advantage because inmates are in survival mode. We're just trying to have basic hygiene items and food items and we're hungry and lonely. We are starved for affection and attention, and it's a very tough situation on both sides. It's a crime and correctional officers that do that will be charged when they're caught. Cause they always get caught; all inmates see everything, we know what's going on and you will get caught and go to prison because this is essentially rape." [watch the video here ]

"What's the hierarchy or social ladder in prison? Who has the most respect? Who has the least respect? Let me tell you right now, I did not create this, this is not up for debate. Your feelings and your opinion on this don't really matter. Cause this is going on every single day in prisons across this country. So, who's at the top of this hierarchy? That would be lifers, people who committed murder. And I'll do an entire video on all the different ways that people have committed murder that I have done time with. That's the worst day of their life and they're spending the rest of their life in prison for that. So, if you don't have a release date and you didn't hurt a child (we'll get there), then you have respect. The bottom of the totem pole are child molesters, predators, people that hurt innocent child or a woman. In between, second to murder - drug dealers have a lot of respect in prison because we all know the war on drugs is complete bullsh*t. Robbery charges, you have respect. Top of the totem pole is people who don't have release dates, adult that killed another adult, not an innocent child. And the bottom is chomos." [watch the video here ]

"So, what does your last day in prison look like. You have to pack up all your stuff, give away your stuff. Now, it's a little disrespectful if you take things home, like deodorant or shampoo stuff, hygiene items, makeup, if you have it. Food, especially. It's disrespectful if you try to take that stuff to the free world. So, you would give away your stuff to your people, give them everything that you possibly could that doesn't have your number on it because a lot of prisons don't let you have anyone else's property, that's a whole charge. Then you go up to intake and you change out, and you put your stuff on, you sign a bunch of stuff that says "I'm leaving". Sometimes they give you gate money, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you have to take a bus, sometimes your family or friends will come pick you up. And it's a very nerve wracking time, you don't know if you're gonna get out at 8 A.M. or 2 P.M., you just never know and you're nervous and stressed. I was especially nervous last time because I was homeless and I was an addict and I had nowhere to go. So it was a very challenging thing." [watch the video here ]

"If you find out you were pregnant in jail, can you terminate the pregnancy? Well, in my personal experience, no. That was not an option for me. Not that I would have wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but I'm just letting you guys know the reality of it because I get this question every single day. Women don't get options like that in jail. Especially in the south. I was in a jail that refused to get women period products, you had a pad or two a day, maybe, and there were no tampons. Also, that country jail that I was in, waiting to go to prison, didn't give the women underwear or sports bras. Because they just don't care. So, I can have a pad, but I can't have underwear - where am I supposed to put it? So, back to the abortion question - you cannot terminate pregnancies. It took me three months to even get prenatal vitamins, cause they hope you'll be out of their facility before you have a baby. I was absolutely terrified to have a baby alone in dirty jail cell, which I have seen time and time again on the internet. F*cking scary place to be pregnant in jail. I went to jail for drugs, thank you for asking, I am 9 years sober and I have custody of my kids." [watch the video here ]

"Do you wanna hear a prison story in my office that has terrible lighting and horrible audio? I thought that you might! The last prison I was at would serve us something called "meatwad". Makes me noxious just thinking about it. This was not just what the inmates called it, it was written on a menu as "meatwad". It was a ball of mystery meat, it was hard and weird and smelled bad. Sometimes it would have, I don't even know, like fibers in it or something. And they would serve it with cold beans straight out of can and then some kind of thing they called cornbread. That wasn't cornbread. And I would starve those days." [watch the video here ]