Coming Home: A Narrative Poem of Community Voices

Community Spring · Coming Home: A Narrative Poem of Community Voices

By Nadine (Hope) Johnson

The following poem is a collection of community stories gathered in order to end the stigma around incarceration and re-entry. Our hope is that by highlighting the personal experiences of these individuals we may open hearts, minds and eyes to see people who have been incarcerated for what they are…people!

“I felt a sense of motivation since the hardest part was that I had been away from my kids for so long.”
“Coming home was so hard because I knew I had to face my mom’s disappointment.”
“I was ready to be free but I didn’t feel like I was free because I still had probation, a reminder that I could go back at any time.”
“For so long I was unable to make decisions for myself and now it seemed like a test. My husband was there waiting for me and I was afraid to go to him [thinking] I would be in trouble.”

“How was I gonna manage the next few hours? I had so many things to do to get my probation started in such a short period of time.”
“How to prove myself. I didn’t know how much things were going to change after I got arrested.
“Staying out of jail and taking care of my family [was the first thing on my mind].”
“I wasn't sure it was real. I was afraid, [with] only so much time to check in or they would send me back. I just kept thinking, I can’t go back, I can't go back!”

“I had to show proof that I was looking for a full-time job while managing 80 hours of community service, 4 drug tests, counseling twice a week, which included additional drug tests and over $600 in fees on top of everything.”
“I was [paying to] bounce around from couch to couch depending on how people felt that month. Even though I had a job it was so hard with nowhere to lay my head at night.”
“I lost my job behind a charge. It was twice as hard to find another job because I couldn't use [the old job] as a reference.”
“I have a business. I am talented at the work I do but as a small business owner with a felony it is so hard getting funding and building trust with clients and other community [members].”

“I had a little support from a friend who would make sure I got to probation check-in on time but after that I would be stuck.” 
“[It was] Me myself and I. The probation officer acted like I didn't have a care in the world because on paper I didn't have bills. He didn't want to hear that I had to pay to live. I could barely afford [getting] to and from work let alone eating. I still had to pay them fees though!”
“[I had] no support really. My partner had her kids to take care of and she needed me to support her so it was all on me to support everybody.”
“Most of my family and friends turned their backs on me. I met my husband when I was going through trial and he and his family were there for me through my sentence. They teach me to accept myself and remember that I am not just a mistake!”

“I received counseling services that did not help but added pressure on me. I was arrested on a drug charge and admitted my struggle with addiction. When I failed a drug test with them instead of offering me assistance they got me violated.”
“When you have a record on paper you are a criminal no matter what or who you are in real life. You get treated like less than nothing by everyone who knows you got arrested, including your own family. I don't know if there is therapy out there for that but I couldn't find it.”
“I reached out to a program that promised counseling and resources. When I would ask for more help I could tell the lady was annoyed with me. She would never get back to me with the information I needed. It seemed like she didn't want to waste her time with me. Probably would have done her a favor by going back to jail, less paperwork. That is how a lot of these social services leave people feeling.”
“Probation required me to have counseling but honestly the counselors did not help, the pastors did with their nurturing care and guidance.”

“I knew the road ahead would require me to work hard but I still never gave up and just coped the best way I could.”  
“Everything I got I had to work hard and pay for.”
“I’m still tryna cope with everything. It’s impossible but that's what they expect people to do. I am still affected by my charges everyday.”
“My determination to help people like me who made a mistake and are asking for a hand up, that is what gets me through a stressful day.”

Mask On, Mask Off: The True Face of Incarceration

By Kevin Scott

I have a cyst on my brain and suffer debilitating migraines at times. When I was in prison it took months and months of leaping hurdles and red tape just to simply get some over-the-counter Excedrin. That was the best they would offer, and I had to fight like hell for just that. 

Others weren’t even that lucky. There was a man, Ted, in the bed next to mine who was incontinent, unable to eat or drink, unable to speak, who desperately needed medical attention. We fellow prisoners did our best to help him. People who society had written off as irredeemable were there for him at his bedside trying to ease his suffering. We pleaded with the prison staff to do something for him, anything. They could barely bring themselves to come out of their air-conditioned bubble. Nobody did anything until it was far too late and Ted died a miserable death in the indifferent jaws of a prison.

As officials discuss measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 in prison, it’s worth considering whether anyone can honestly expect an institution that operates like this to take care of prisoners during a pandemic.

This crisis has exposed what has always been a completely broken system. Florida’s prisons are ill-equipped mentally, emotionally, and materially to care for prisoners on their very best day, and everything has totally buckled under the weight of what’s happening now. COVID-19 has simply highlighted and magnified the cruelty that has been hidden from public view for so long. Guards staging fistfights among prisoners for the “privilege” of toilet paper. Serving prisoners rotten, spoiled food. Prisoners living with black mold and tainted water. Price gouging for basic necessities, food, and communication with loved ones. Incessantly berating and dehumanizing prisoners. Guards beating prisoners where the cameras can’t see them. Stomping on photographs of loved ones. I witnessed and experienced all of these things firsthand.

The prison system is utterly incapable of providing anything like genuine care. The basic kernel of humanity from which springs essential things like compassion and decency isn’t built into the mechanism of incarceration. It has no place there. The levels of apathy and malice are chilling. Capture, cage, harm, release, repeat - this leaves no room for humanity. 

This is reflected in the COVID-19 statistics. As of September 23, there were 16,197 positive cases of COVID-19 in Florida prisons. That’s 1,881 per 10,000 people. To put that in perspective, that’s 487% higher than Florida overall. Even for a state with an appalling record of addressing this public health crisis, this is horrifying. (Update: As of January 20th, 2021, Florida now has the dubious distinction of the highest amount of prisoner deaths in the country because of COVID-19. Florida has the same amount of deaths as the entire Federal Prison System.)

Despite numerous calls for compassionate release for at-risk prisoners, 127 people have senselessly died behind a Florida prison wall due to COVID-19. That makes for a 133% higher death rate compared to the rest of the state. Fifty of those deaths came in August alone.  Groups like Florida Prisoner Solidarity have denounced state officials for their failure to act. On August 22, body bags for each prisoner who had died were delivered to the front steps of the Department of Corrections headquarters. These deaths do lay at their doorstep. At this point, the state has executed fewer prisoners in the last four decades than they have let die of COVID-19. 

Locally, cases in the Alachua County Jail continue to rise despite calls for the release of prisoners. On July 10 there were 13 positive cases at the jail; that number had more than tripled just one month later. The jail maintains a higher percentage of positive cases than the county overall, with the county positivity rate at about 4.74% and the jail around 6%. In other words, if you go to the jail you’re more likely to be exposed, which increases the spread inside and outside. As noted by Tyler Winkelman of the Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab, “Jail and prison health care is public health. It’s community health.” 

So what can be done? I have zero faith that the institution that allows daily atrocities in normal times will suddenly ensure that prisoners are safe during this pandemic. That suggests that the only way to protect those human beings is to get them out. I, therefore, echo the previous full-throated calls for the immediate release of all prisoners who are ill, immunocompromised, HIV positive, pregnant, as well as prisoners in an at-risk age bracket and people being solely held because of inability to pay cash bail. In addition, free communication, soap, cleaning supplies, and personal protective equipment should be made available to all prisoners. Staff’s use of PPE and routine testing should be mandatory. Prisoners should have continued access to the commissary, package rooms, libraries, and outdoor recreation spaces. The grossly inhumane practice of solitary confinement should end, especially as it’s being employed as a quarantine for sick or presumptively sick prisoners. 

The Florida Department of Corrections’ tagline is “Inspiring Success by Transforming One Life at a Time.” I see nothing “inspiring” about my cellmate Ted’s agonizing death. I see nothing “successful” about the terrifying numbers of COVID-19 cases. I hope the pandemic has once and for all unmasked the true, brutal nature of our incarceration system. 

My only right is the right to remain silent

By Nadine (Hope) Johnson

Americans like to point to the Declaration of Independence as providing the basic promise of our country: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But when I look around my community, these words ring hollow. I can’t see the meaningful promises of life, liberty and a chance at happiness for myself or my neighbors. Instead I see a disconnect between our country’s values and its actions, between these unalienable rights and my reality. 

A lot of this gap comes from the racial history of our country. When Jefferson wrote those idealistic words, he owned human beings who not only looked like me but may have shared my same heritage. They cleaned his house and prepared his meals, worked his land and bore his children. All without the use of their so-called “unalienable” rights. Throughout his life he owned upwards of 600 human souls with dark skin and curly hair like mine. The slaves may have been endowed by the creator with these rights but it was a man who took them away. 

Jefferson didn’t include black people in his vision for a free world, and that exclusion has carried over to this very day. As a result, being black in America means doing a specific dance when it comes to your rights. You must be careful not to make too much noise or ruffle feathers or you risk losing the very right you are acting on and much more. Keep your head down, take what is given, don't make a ripple. These are our earliest understandings of rights.

Maybe that’s why people in my community think less about their human rights and more about their right to remain silent, and not just while being Mirandized. When reaching out too many times for food or financial assistance could end up getting the authorities involved in your life, you tend to stay silent even if it means going without the support or protection that you desperately need. I often feel the need to stay safe beneath the radar of authority because a call for protection could cause me to lose my housing or even my children. Others may fear losing their loved ones to incarceration, sending them further into debt and possibly causing them to be evicted. When I think about my basic human rights and look around my neighborhood there is a disconnect that occurs in my mind. When all we see is poverty, violence, incarceration, and a generalized apathy to change any of it, rights don’t mean much. 

Take the right to life. You have a right to some healthcare, and yet black and brown people have less health coverage and have lost their lives at far higher rates from COVID. This topic is barely discussed in my neighborhood, however, because black men, women, and children are more concerned with losing their lives from police brutality. Or consider the right to liberty. You have a right to a fair trial before your liberty is stripped from you, and yet the wealthy hire fancy lawyers to avoid punishment and low-income black and brown people fill the prisons. Or let’s consider a right that is critical to the pursuit of happiness: education. You have a right to a basic education, and yet per student spending is vastly uneven, largely along racial lines, and only 28% of black 3rd graders are reading at grade level in Alachua County. 

There are other ways we could be doing things. Imagine if we all agreed that everyone, no matter the color of their skin, really had the right to the basic things that you need in order to have a real chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What if there was universal healthcare to ensure that we all had the same chance to keep our lives during a deadly pandemic? What if there was meaningful accountability when the police shoot someone? What if everyone had the right to an attorney in all criminal cases (and not one with a caseload of 300 people)? What if instead of talking about ways to limit assistance to low-income families we talked about having a universal basic income? What if community leaders and community members came together and had regular round table discussions that resulted in real life solutions to the issues that plague oppressed communities?

These things are possible if we’re willing to pursue them. The responsibility to change things lies with the people. We have the power to decide how our community should run and put systems in place to make things better. Don’t forget that the Declaration of Independence also says that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” There is a long road ahead before our rights match reality, and I'm just one person standing up and saying that a change is needed. But imagine if I inspire others in my community to do the same. We could change the world.