I-WISH
(Incarcerated Women Inside Seeking to Help)
I-WISH is a group of women with life sentences at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women in Jessup, Maryland, who have embarked on a journey to improve themselves and help others. This web page is devoted to their learning and good works.
As one of their exercises, the I-WISH group developed power messages for Covenant House to be included in sandwiches delivered by their outreach vans to homeless children.
NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP.
REMEMBER, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, THE THINGS THAT SEEM SO DIFFICULT NOW WILL BE A MEMORY.
WE CREATE OUR OWN CONDITIONS... CREATE LIFE!
YOU ARE PART OF A RAINBOW AND YOU ADD SUNSHINE TO MANY PEOPLE IN LIFE.
Covenant House
www.covenanthouse.org/
OTHER LINKS:
AFFILIATE LINKS:
amazon.com
BROUGHT TO YOU BY www.kittyco.net
I-WISH POWER MESSAGES
THE ROAD MAY BE LONG BUT KNOW THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END. CONTINUE TO HOLD ON.
FREEDOM IS PRICELESS. PROTECT YOUR FREEDOM.
FORGIVENESS IS GIVING UP REVENGE AND YOUR RIGHT TO RETALIATE.
LIFE IS WORTH LIVING. EMBRACE LIFE, NOT DYING.
WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE SLIDING ON THE ROPE, TIE A KNOT AT THE END. IT WILL HOLD YOU UP.
EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON!
YOU CANNOT TELL A BOOK BY ITS COVER. GET TO KNOW SOMEONE BEFORE YOU JUDGE!
EVERYONE DOES NOT HAVE TO KNOW YOUR HEART.
OPTIMISM IS THE FORMULA FOR HOPE.
TIME IS NOT A BARRIER. IT IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY.
NEVER ALLOW SOMEONE TO MAKE YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN’T DO SOMETHING. ONLY YOU CAN STOP YOU!
BE KIND...ALWAYS!
YOU’RE WORTH GETTING TO KNOW...
YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL BLANK PAGE TO WRITE YOUR FUTURE UPON!
YOUR OWN PERCEPTION IS YOUR OWN REALITY.
MISTAKES ARE WONDERFUL LEARNING MOMENTS. DON’T BE AFRAID TO MAKE THEM!
STAY FOCUSED. NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR GOALS.
WHEN AN ISSUE SEEMS BAD ENOUGH TO FIGHT OVER, ASK YOURSELF, “HOW IMPORTANT WILL THIS BE IN FIVE YEARS?”
YOU’RE SPECIAL TO SOMEONE... ESPECIALLY GOD!
A HUG HEALS A SAD HEART!
IN HARD TIMES, REMEMBER: THIS TOO SHALL PASS!
CRYING HELPS THE HEART TO HEAL!
YOUR CHARACTER CONTROLS YOUR ATTITUDE. YOUR ATTITUDE CONTROLS YOUR DESTINY. STAY POSITIVE.
ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE IN LIFE: TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE WHERE YOU ARE NEEDED.
YOU MUST LOOK PAST THE BAD TO SEE THE GOOD!
Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants (C.U.R.E.)
www.curenational.org/
Prisoner Forum
www.prisonerlife.com/
LETTERS
A Piece of My Life
Written by Joyce White
April, 2008
A Defining Moment in My Life
Sentenced to Life on November 13, 1983
“Will the Defendant please rise – I sentence you to “LIFE” at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.” (MCI-W).
There were a thousand things echoing in my mind. I was still standing and yet everything around me appeared to be at a distance. I felt as though I was two feet tall and everything around me was huge, swirling about, like “Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz”. I was benumbed. Dazed by my unclear surroundings. I appeared to be in the background of my own life, watching it pass me by.
I felt like I had been in the courtroom for hours. However, when I blinked and realized where I was, my ears instantly felt as thought cotton balls had been removed. I could finally hear what was going on. I focused and realized only a few seconds had passed after the jury’s and the judges’ announcement.
After returning to the cell in handcuffs, I thought I would die. I believed at that very moment that my life was over. I had taken someone’s life. The consequences would be spending the rest of my life in a cold cell. Such a bizarre twist! A life for a Life! What am I going to do? A thousand things ran through my mind. The loudest thought was “die”. I wanted to die, to kill myself, just as I had killed my victim, “Clyde”. Something had triggered me as I walked in and observed Clyde performing fellatio on my son. This triggered “something” inside of me.
At that moment, I killed everything negative in my life. I killed my mother who didn’t want me – pushing me to the side like some beat up rag doll, the father who beat the crap out of my mother in front of me, exposing me to violence, the boyfriend who beat and battered me because I was alone and had no one to turn to. I killed the guy who raped me at knifepoint and put his hands around my throat causing me to think I was dead, each time I came to, realizing I was not dead.
I killed Clyde – my victim – in a rage, not premeditatedly, but in a rage. I was so enraged! I had stuffed and stuffed for as long as I can remember, until one day I killed another human being. My cup runneth over.
While at the detention center, after being sentenced, I contemplated suicide. I didn’t believe I had the right to live. In slow motion I broke a razor, climbing in the bunk with razor in my left hand, legs crossed, I began a delaying cut. When I looked up, staring back at me in the cell was another female. I signaled her with my finger to “not say a word”. I began by cutting a small incision on my right wrist with the razor. As the razor penetrated the skin it stung a little. I flinched and then the flesh opened up with white meat against brown skin and the red blood began to run down my arm. Why wasn’t I dead? I tried it again. Another slice, a second cut of the razor, blood trickling down again; nothing happened. At that moment I knew that it wasn’t meant for me to die – die like I killed Clyde. Something inside of me wanted to live, even if it meant living a “life” for the rest of my life in prison.
Once I entered the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, I knew that my life had to change. So I took the necessary steps to better understand my behavior, as well as the circumstances leading up to my crime. I needed to know why one day I took someone’s life. Why not my mother, who was beat by my father for years, with the black eyes, bruises and teeth knocked out on a regular basis?
The first thing I did to change my life, once I came to MCI-W was to go back to school. I was twenty-one years old without a high school diploma. I dropped out in the tenth grade. Since I was determined to change my life, I believed this was a good place to start. I got a job in this institution. I worked days and went to school in the evenings. I was given a take home assignment every day. About a month later I took the General Education Diploma (G.E.D.) test and I passed. I needed a score of 225 and I passed with a score of 227. This, I must say, was a great accomplishment. I was on my way to change. I accomplished my first goal in prison. It felt good…real good, and this was something no one could take from me. All my life I’ve been surrounded by negative stuff…someone taking something from me. The abuse, being battered, raped, molested and fighting. There were no hugs, no storybooks read, no tuck me in and say goodnight…no I love you and how was your day. This definitely had a negative impact on my life.
I know I needed help at this point in my life, so the next thing I did was to volunteer into a program at Patuxent Institution. This program is considered to be a very intense treatment program, so for five days a week, 2 hours a day, and eleven years, I sat in a group with other females and males and discussed my crime and the horrid details of the events of my live that led up to my killing my victim.
At Patuxent, given the intense therapy, this enabled me to talk and talk and cry and cry, and enabled me to realize how the dysfunction in my household affected the outcome of my life and the crime I committed. I stuffed and stuffed until one day I killed everything negative in my life. I killed all my years of pent-up baggage in one person – my victim. I had become enraged. Therapy helped me realize just how enraged I had become.
Finally, my life began to unfold, unraveling, like a tulip, piece-by-piece, layers began to peel off. I realized that there was still something missing. The puzzle of my life was not complete as of “yet”. I had fed my mind, by going back to school; I had fed my body with the knowledge of learning, and now it was essential to feed that something bigger than me. Its “something” that when you get into trouble, or drink too much, or have a loved one die and don’t know what to do, you cry out asking for help, hoping that “something” is listening and has an answer. It’s “something”. A part that seems to have no face or mouth or eyes but you know it does exist. “Something”, bigger than me, had to surface. As the tears streamed down my cheeks and face, and as this tremendous warmth overwhelmed me, my hands went up towards the clouds above, the sky. Then I fell on my knees not knowing why. However, there I was, trembling, head bowed, submitting to what I believe to be that “missing piece”. I was engulfed with solace. Quietness. An overwhelming sensation of completeness. “Now” I understand the missing piece. I found that “something” bigger than me.
I found the Good in me and I loved her, I loved her fiercely.
While at Patuxent, I was afforded the opportunity to earn levels in which I progressed slowly. For years I worked to the point I was able to work, purchase a car, save monies, open up a checking and savings account and work into society, working with juvenile delinquents. I even received a recommendation for parole-pending Governor’s Glendening’s decision to not parole a liver even if that lifer had a life sentence with the possibility of parole. This decision pulled me back in from work release and changed my whole life.
One day I’m getting up to go to work, the next thing I’m back here at MCI-W receiving rehears from the Commissioners because Governor Glendening is not paroling a lifer.
I could no longer work and be a productive citizen in society. I had not committed another crime. I had not gone back into society and taken another human being’s life.
The Governor stood in front of the Maryland House of Correction for Men and decided to pull all lifers back in and not look at the cases on an individual level.
Governor Schafer releases quite a few females in 1995 who had LIFE and who committed murders. All these females are successful and have not returned to prison. Just as myself, who was out in society doing the right things, being productive, and, at no fault of my own, I was pulled back into someone else’s choice to murder another human being. The person, a male inmate out on work release, decided to commit another crime and take the advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity. He decided to yet commit another crime.
In time I have forgiven myself for the rage that I felt towards another human being. And I hope that you will forgive me too.
Below is a letter from one of the women incarcerated for life at MCI-W. And a link to the I-WISH blog where you can post your own letters and thoughts.
I-WISHblog
i-wishblog.blogspot.com/
How to Get Along in Prison
Below are links to two manuals written by prisoners about how to navigate life in prison. The first manual is from Oregon CURE. The second is a compilation from the I-WISH group at MCIW, Jessup, MD.
GETTING ALONG IN PRISON by I-WISH, MCIW, Jessup, MD
Ubasti, Inc. (an organization devoted to ending domestic violence)
www.ubasti.bbnow.org/
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |