Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. Right now I’m in the car driving from Holy Cross to Stonehill College with my mom. I will post my review of Holy Cross and maybe Stonehill (if I haven’t finished writing this by the time we have our tour).
I wanted to tell you guys about my field trip to the jail on Wednesday and I just haven’t had time to write about it and I feel like we haven’t all been together long enough to have a detailed conversation about anything lately. So here goes:
When we first got there, we walked in the building into this little sitting area. They made us take off our belts and jewelry and leave any cell phones there before we could actually start the tour. Once everyone had gone through (Mrs. Gingras set it off and had to go back and take off her rings and bracelets) we got a long shpeel about how we still need to treat the inmates with respect and that they are people too. He (the officer giving us the tour) told us that there were people in tan uniforms who were the people who had not been to trial yet and were therefore not proven guilty yet. The ones in the green uniforms had been convicted and were there serving their time.
When the tour began, the first stop was the place where the majority of the inmates were housed. It was a giant (actually probably pretty small seeing as it could hold up to 162 people) room about the size of half the school gym. It was a half-circle shape and the officer’s desk was at one end of the room strategically placed so that they could see everything that went on in the room. There were showers and bathrooms that only had a curtain (that didn’t even go all the way to the ground) and that was all there was for a “door” to the bathroom. This “bathroom” was right off of the main room so that the officer in charge could monitor everything that happened. There was a little room with see-trough doors off this larger room that had one basket ball hoop and that was all they were given for recreation. And the only other thing that was available to them was the phones through the glass windows where they can talk to their family members. The officer told us that they have 5 head counts every day and during those times they need to stay in their rooms while they are being counted. Once that was over and at all other times they could watch TV etc. in that half-circle room.
After that stop we walked past maximum security (which we stopped by and I will talk about later). One thing that struck me as strange is when we were walking down the hallway and an inmte walked past us going in the other direction. No guards, no one watching him, all by himself, just walking down the hallway. Part of me was scared, but then I thought he must be one of the more responsible ones that was given privileges and was able to move around on his own. Mrs. Gingras started chatting with one of the security guards that she apparently knew.
The tour guy took us to the place where the people come when they are first being admitted into the jail. There is this little lobby where they can sit, watch TV, make as many phone calls as they want to, and can even take a nap while their files are being processed. He said that they are pretty much free to do whatever they wanted, but if an officer told them to sit up and they didn’t, right away they would be put into a room with no windows and only a hole in the ground (that flushes) for a bathroom, which is required by law. If they were better after that they would be moved to a room with windows and an actual toilet, however the windows took up the whole wall so they could watch their every move and that included using the new toilet. While he was explaining all this, there were about 5-10 guys that were watching us from the windows of one of the rooms on the side of the hallway and it kinda creeped me out, but they couldn’t get to us.
After that we went to see the rooms where they had rehab for people who were there for addictions to alcohol and drugs. They (approx. 15 women) were confined to a room probably close to the size of Clarisse bedroom and they were there for 3 months. They were not allowed to leave that room except for an hour a day, 3 days a week. They HAD to wake up at 530 and got to bed at 900. Other than that they weren’t allowed to even sit on their bunks. They had quiet time for 2 hours each day and intense classes and homework for their rehab stuff. The men had a different room, that was slightly bigger, but there were also about twice as many of them. For the first month of this treatment they were not allowed to leave the room, call their family, of do anything basically. The lady who was in charge of this program talked to us and told us that none of these people were here because they were forced to be; all of them had volunteered to take the program, or were there to shorten their sentence, but it was because they wanted to. I thought that was very impressive and have a lot of respect for people who wanted to do that and have that amount of self-control to go through a program that intense.
Then we went back to maximum security and saw that all the guys looked pretty violent or at least capable of being very violent. [tour at stonehill] They were nothing like the guy who was just walking down the hallway from before. There were about 4 guys watching the rooms and they were talking to the inmates through a P.A. system.
After this was my favorite part. We got to hear the stories of 3 guys who were in the jail. The first guy, Marcus told us about how he has been in and out of jail for the past 19 years. He started selling marijuana and cocaine when he was 14. He had a girlfriend and two children that he hardly ever gets to see. HE started tearing up when he was talking about how his mother was an alcoholic and died because of it, and he wasn’t able to be there for her when she needed him. He said that she wasn’t always there for him, which is part of why he went down the wrong road, but when she was there for him, she was there for him. His dad was never in the picture and he went in and out of foster homes and eventually got kicked out of the system because he was so rebellious. His main point was that there are only a few choices separating us from them and that we had to make sure we chose correctly. He said how, when he was our age, he would always make fun of the “dumbass dorks” that would be in his class, yet today, that dork was probably taking care of his family and holding down a well-paying job, all the things he wanted to do for his family, but can’t because he’s in jail.
The next guy, Michael, was also there because of distributing drugs. He was only raised by his mother and apparently he and Marcus had been friends on the streets and knew each other before being in jail. Michael had a wife and kids too and will be moving to a different, federal, jail in 2 weeks. He hasn’t been told where he will be going, but he won’t be able to see his family as much as he does now, although when he does, he will be able to touch them (at Strafford County Jail they can only speak to each other through the glass windows, and can’t touch each other). Mr. Lloyd asked Marcus and Michael if they thought their sentences were justified and both immediately said “absolutely not.” They explained that depending on the amount of drugs you are distributing, you get more years. Michael was caught with 30g of marijuana and will have to do 25 years. They feel like that is unfair, I kind of agree.
The last guy, Chris told us that he used t hate his mother for being an alcoholic, and didn’t even kiss her goodbye on her deathbed; in fact, he couldn’t even stand to be next to her. Now, he said, he feels guilty and hypocritical because he is in the intensive rehab program at the jail. He didn’t do much talking, but he basically agreed with the other two on everything they said. He mentioned that any guys, on his first day in jail, will try to act all tough and macho, but will end up crying that first night and both of the other guys started nodding their heads quietly.
(This is before the conversation actually started) When we got to the room where we were going to be talking with the three guys, the first asked us what we had thought of the jail. Paul Goodspeed raises his hand and says he thinks it looks very humane. Then, through the whole discussion, they kept referring to “Mr. Humane”’s comment and how it didn’t feel so humane when they were strip searched upon entering the facility and how the officers sometimes treated you.
It was deffinately an eye-opening experience that I won’t forget anytime soon and I feel bad for them that they have chosen such a hard path, but I’m glad that they have seen where they went wrong and have people who love them and want them to do better,and that they want to do better themselves. Chris said something during his turn to talk that I thought was mildly profound: “You find out the people who love you in three places, the hospital, jail, and at your funeral.”
HOLY CROSS
§ On a hill
§ Tour guides: Alice (senior), Tara (Junior), Julie (Sophomore)
§ Brand new science buildings
§ Study abroad are full year
§ Are required classes (ex. 1 English class, 1 math class, etc.)
§ Main library (4 total) has 5 stories
§ Wireless campus (even for non-HC people as we found out in the car) and a thing with Dell to buy computers through the school, also Mac friendly
§ Large pipe organ in the main church
§ No climbing trees
§ Athletic fields at the top of the hill and bottom of the hill
§ Rarely forced triple dorms
§ Cinder block dorm “kinda dark”
§ Only 4 classes per semester
§ “Montserrat” classes with people from your dorms
§ Sports teams and club teams and intramural teams
§ Different gym for athletes and other students
§ Free gym access and yoga classes etc. to HC students
§ Pre-med, pre-law, and pre-business are all separate “concentrations”
§ Free printing in the libraries, 10cent “professional” copies
§ Cleaning service with trash removal and vacuuming
§ This is the place where they couldn’t find the dorm room to look at, asked the other kid, he said he would clean his room, and then we found one at the other end of the hall. There was also the kid without a shirt on that we scared back into his room.
§ Kelsey Smith goes here
§ Freshmen and sophomores can’t have cars
STONEHILL
§ Rachel Ness is here
§ Tour guides: ______, Senior the short girl who couldn’t walk backwards in her black flats. And Dan, from Gloucester (friends with everybody), junior computer science major
§ Long walk, long tour
§ Nice bathroom, electronic paper towel dispensers
§ Free laundry, copying
§ No microwaves allowed
§ Most of campus is wireless, but the suggest Ethernet cable
§ New science center
§ Only one major cafeteria
§ “The Hill” beneath the cafeteria for coffeehouses and movie screenings
§ Honors program for top 10% of freshman
§ Looks like summer camp in some parts
§ Post office beneath cafeteria
§ One freshman dorm that is SOOOOO FAR from EVERYTHING
§ Freshman can’t have cars
§ One all-girls dorm
§ Other dorms are boys in one wing/floor, girls separate
§ Cannot bunk beds unless you have a triple
§ MUST have a meal plan and flex points, other money is optional
§ Towns of Easton and Brockton use chapel for service
P.S. Thanks for actually reading all of that, I know it was long, but I know you guys actually sat there and read the whole thing. It took me about an hour to write.
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