If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for women in Sheriff
Joe Arpaio’s jail, here’s an account from Gigi, who served some time there this
year:
In April 2016, I left San Diego and returned to Tucson to
hang out with my family, renew my Canadian passport, plan to teach English in
Colombia and attend nursing school in Latin America. On April 19, I woke up
after staying with a friend in Tempe and went to Starbucks as she left for work
at 7:30. I was groggy and exhausted from working for 4 days and had just taken
my first sips of coffee and pulled out my laptop, but couldn’t find my phone. I
pulled up “Find my iPhone” on my computer, and texted my friend that I thought I’d
lost my phone.
She called Tempe police to come help
me find my phone. They showed up about 10 minutes later and the phone was in my
car. Fine, I planned to finish my coffee and hopefully not be such a moron
afterwards. Thanks, officer!
Ten minutes after I sat down and
finished my coffee, the officer came back inside and asked me to step outside. Now,
I was unfamiliar with how that worked, so I shrugged and said “OK”. He turned me
around, handcuffed me, put all my stuff in the trunk of my car and locked it. I
was so completely confused and starting to get hysterical. He put me in the
back of the cop car and told me there was a failure-to-appear warrant from November
2007, out of Mesa and extraditable only in Maricopa County. “For what?” I said.
“DUI,” he said.
Nearly 10 years ago, I made the
mistake of getting in my car under the influence of alcohol. In my pyjamas and
high-heeled boots, I was driving over to my boyfriend’s house in Mesa. I rear-ended
a car, leaving no damage to theirs and very little to mine. My car was
impounded for 30 days (during which everything was stolen from it). I hired a
lawyer, went to court, paid the fines and received an 11-day jail sentence.
I showed up to self-surrender on June 12, 2007
at Lower Buckeye jail in Phoenix and was denied entry because at the time I took
SSRI medication, which you cannot abruptly stop. I was told it takes weeks to
get meds cleared to bring to jail. I asked, “What on earth do I do? I’m moving
to Santa Clara on June 26!” They shrugged. I called the courts and they advised
me to do my time in California and that would be sufficient.
So in April 2016, I told the
arresting officer, “But I did everything! I had a lawyer, I went to court, I
paid the fines, all of it”. He transferred me over to a Mesa officer at some
medical facility they use for handoffs. By this time, I was crying hysterically,
and so confused by what was happening to me.
I asked the Mesa officer, “Why?
How? I’ve been through so many background checks for work. How is this even
possible that it never showed up?”
“Maricopa County doesn’t share
information with other states or counties.”
“What?” Why?”
No answer.
She asked, “Do you have any
paperwork from your court date?”
“January 6, 2007 paperwork on me?
Nearly 10 years later? I don’t even live here! Why would I have that on me?”
“Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem
if you don’t have that.”
We reached the Mesa City jail and
I was placed in a cell with a phone. I made a collect call to my mother finally
at 6 pm, 8 hours after I was locked up. I had a $5,000 bond. I told her what had
happened and asked to please find a way to get me out. Her response was typical
of my mother: she thought I’d done something seriously wrong and now needed
punishing.
I was to see the judge at 8:30
the next morning. My mother refused to help me that night and wouldn’t answer
phone calls, so my chances of obtaining paperwork were nil. I could only make
collect phone calls from the cell. I couldn’t remember my lawyer’s name, much
less his number. I couldn’t call my husband in Santa Cruz on his cell phone.
I panicked all night on the floor
in my grimy clothes. I stunk. I looked like a nightmare. I suffer from
alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes your hair to fall out from stress
and the Mesa jail took away my clip-ins that made me look not like the half-bald
woman I am. My face was puffy from crying and I was so alone, and so unable to
think about what to do or say because there was nothing.
Thankfully a few other women were
hauled in for probation violations and I got my first taste of the unbelievable
bullshit perpetrated on citizens in Maricopa County. They were placed in the
cell with me and I enjoyed hearing people’s life stories and asking questions.
It became apparent to me
immediately that once you are in the system, you are trapped, particularly in
Mesa. One girl violated probation merely by being on Country Club Rd near
Dobson. She had been asked every day for a week for her ID while followed by officers
as she walked to Circle K, and that day they decided to bring her in, $50 bond.
Another girl was violated for missing one restitution payment and was heading
to Estrella jail for 30 days and being stepped up to intensive supervised
probation. A homeless woman was brought in for loitering, $50 bond. She was
still in Estrella jail run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, when I left on April 30th.
I saw the judge at 8:30 am and
she asked me for proof. I replied that it was with my husband in Santa Cruz. She
said, “Too bad! 11 days”. And that was it. I got called up to the clerk’s
window and told to sign my paper saying I was to do 11 days starting 8:30 on
April 20 and I was taken back to the cell to wait. I called my mother who had
come to her senses and found a bondsman and had the bond ready to go.
“Too late. I’m about to do 11
days in Estrella. That’s why I asked you to do this last night when something
could have been done. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call you again, I don’t
know where they’ll take me, or if there will be a phone. I don’t know anything.
I’ve never been in jail. All I know is TV jail. Please look into this and see
if this is even legal. Isn’t there a statute of limitations on misdemeanor
warrants?”
An African-American girl brought
over from Estrella to Mesa for court was in my cell with me after court. She said,
“Eleven days. That’s easy. I’m doing 30.”
“Really. Easy. How so?”
“You get into the routine. You’ll
see.”
Freezing cold, I said that I was envious
of her socks. She took them off underneath her leg chains and gave them to me. The
sight of her bare brown skin with chains around her ankles hurt my heart. She
had three dermal piercings on her cheek. I was amazed she was allowed to keep
face jewellery. She got immensely excited by the baloney and cheese sandwich puke
given out in Mesa jail. I had refused to eat it and then I was told that it was
the best food I would see in days.
Some dude in the holding cell
across the way completely lost his shit when he wasn’t given the opportunity to
have his sandwich because he was being moved. He completely freaked out.
Night fell at 9 or so. The “Train”
arrived, what they called the paddy wagon that delivers you to central booking
at 4th Ave jail run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, affectionately known as
“The Matrix” because it’s a maze of hell.
I spent the next 16 hours
slumping from cell to cell, seeing a nurse, peeing in a cup, being
fingerprinted on the weirdest system I have ever seen, which included printing the
sides of my hands and my palms. AFIS the machine said on it. Then regular
prints with ink and paper. When you work with anthrax and plague? US Dept Of
Justice and DHS clears you to do so. My prints were on file with those
agencies. Ink and paper. This felt like a horrible violation, scanning my palms
and sides of my hands digitally. On and on it went, more shuffling to one cell
and another. People took toilet paper and made nests with it to curl up on the
floor with. This displeased the DO’s (detention officers) who refused to
provide more TP for actual wiping purposes.
At one station, I was asked,
“Have you been here before?”
Out of 30 people before me I am
the only one to say no.
Index finger scanned. Birthdate
entered incorrectly.
“That’s not my birthdate.”
“Well that’s what it is in the
system and once it’s in the system it can’t be changed.”
“But that’s inaccurate!”
Shrug.
My birthdate remained wrong
throughout my entire stay.
Finally, we reached the last cell
in the 4th Ave jail. Women had mats and blankets. Because I am with two
toilet-paper nesters, the DO refused to issue us mats and blankets. And they kept
that jail freezing cold – I presume to inhibit microbial growth like hospitals
do.
Before I reached this area, I was
strip-searched – spread em, squat and cough – and issued my “stripes” along
with a sports bra, giant underpants and men’s size 16 plastic slippers. I was immensely
glad to be out of the grimy street clothes I’d been huddling in on the floor of
a metal and concrete cell for 2 days.
We were rounded up, placed in
some type of vehicle and taken to another place. You couldn’t see anything in
these vehicles because they were covered in mesh and bulletproof thick plastic.
I had no clue where I was being driven, but we could communicate through the
mesh. A guy said we were on our way to Lower Buckeye jail, run by Sheriff Joe
Arpaio.
More processing. An assessment to
determine where I am to be housed. Am I violent? Racist? History of assault?
No. None of the above. Have I ever been convicted of harming a correctional
officer? No. An inmate? No. Am I nuts? Sometimes. Do I want to harm myself?
Right now? Yes, but no, not actually. Have I ever been diagnosed with a mood
disorder? Odd wording. A mood disorder is not what schizophrenia is. But no,
general anxiety disorder only.
I qualified for the mellowest
environment. Low-grade non-confrontational non-aggressive types. Based on the
amount of hollering and threats of beat downs I witnessed, I cannot imagine
what the higher security more aggressive female dorms were like. I was assigned
to I dorm. As in A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,.....J,K,L,M,N…. There were 100 beds. 100
women. In just that dorm alone. There was a metal table, 5 pay phones (3 of
which worked), 3 video-conference machines.
They didn’t allow actual visits
in Estrella. The conditions were so deplorable that it would have been an
embarrassment to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office. Visits were on a machine being
broadcast from 4th Ave jail, where your mom sits in a little cell and waits to
talk to you for 20 mins. An American Flag adorned one wall. There was a day
room with a few chairs and a tube TV encased in plexiglass, which had no volume
and when turned on was always on the food network. I was certain that was done
out of cruelty by the jail because the food was inedible for the most part.
I was issued a rolled-up bundle
of sheets, blanket, washcloth and towel. That was it. No toothpaste, no
toothbrush, nothing. I had only a card from booking with my charge on it and
the words FULLY SENTENCED. M1 Extreme
DUI BAC 1.5 or over. January 6, 2007. I had to continually show it to
people because they were flabbergasted that the sheriff’s office would be so
petty.
And then I started to meet a lot
of women with the same story, and what I learned in the next 11 days infuriated
me as such obvious railroading of humans to generate revenue for this bloated
beast of a city. That is all Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office is: a revolving door
of revenue that lines the pockets of the officials at the helm. I actually had
to pay to go to Estrella jail. It was built into my fines 10 years ago. And
then you pay some more when you get there.
The first greeting as I head to
the restroom was a little doughy faced Mesa gang member wannabe who wanted to
know if I smuggled in drugs?
“No.”
She was visibly pissed and stomped
off to ask the other two I came in with.
When we came through the last
transfer point, the DO said to us, “I’m supposed to search you guys, but I’m
not gonna. But I’m supposed to, but I won’t.”
At the time, I was thinking “Oh
just shut up and let’s get on with it.” Now I realized how the drugs get in.
Through her and many like her. I cannot imagine anything more tedious than
getting loaded in jail simply because you are essentially in your bed for 23.5
hours a day. You eat in your bed, sleep, and just ponder things. You can also
pace furiously around the room but it’s only maybe 2000 square feet and there
are 100 women in it. Panic attacks forced me to breathe, pray, and walk in
circles. I’ve had them my whole life, usually a few years apart from the last
but in there? 8 out of 11 days I had a panic attack. And there is nothing you
can do. You can’t smoke a cigarette, go outside, have a drink, nothing. So you
sit, with your heart about to burst out of your chest, and you shake and you
wait for it to pass.
I began to talk to all the women
around me and ask questions. I have always found that when you treat people
with respect they tend to give it back. This holds true in jail as well. The
woman in the bunk in front of me was in jail awaiting transfer to DOC (prison)
for driving on a suspended license with drug metabolites in her system. She was
about to do 2½ years in prison for a DUI (drunk driving). I asked her when she
did the drugs.
“Two or 3 days before.”
I told her, “You know there are
reference ranges right? They can show how long ago you ingested/took something.
If it had been 2 days prior, you were not impaired. Did your lawyer look into
that?”
“No. I couldn’t afford a private
attorney because they want $8000 up front. I had a public defender.”
“My god, I would demand to see
the serum levels and the reference criteria! Before I’d agree to 2½ years in
prison!” But if you aren’t aware of such things? And no one tells you? You take
what you think is an OK deal. This woman had children, one of whom was starting
at Arizona State University. She had a disability and also had a fiance dying
of esophageal cancer. She was 41. Her life was over. After prison, probation,
until she’s 50. She had a career, a life, a home. And she hadn’t seen daylight
in 90 days and wouldn’t for a long time more.
Another woman I met was in for
her second DUI. She would also serve a tremendously long sentence and her son
had been taken by CPS. He was being given Ritalin by the state. She disagreed with
this, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was fine, never diagnosed
with ADD/ADHD before. She’d taken care of him alone for 11 years and now he was
a ward of the state, in the foster care system, and on psych meds and she had no
say in the matter.
Part 2 of this story will be
posted next week.
