Female Ex-Convicts Call For Prison Reform

A captivated audience packed Ticknor Lounge last night to listen to pleas for prison reform from three women who had themselves spent time behind bars.

Barbara Jaehn, Tracy Williams and Angela L. Davis, all former inmates at a correctional facility in Framingham, talked frankly about the realities of incarceration.

"Around 644 women, I never felt so alone as I did those five-and-a-half years," Williams said.

Besides discussing their own experiences, the women said that now is a good time to fight for prison reform.

"Every now and then, a society comes to a turning point," Jaehn said. "Right now, we are at a turning point."

The women said the Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC) is given too much freedom in its operations.

Davis called for better control of an organization that "puts out nothing, gives nothing, does nothing."

"They are the biggest Mafia around here. They get away with murder. They get away with rape. They get away with beatings," she said.

Davis told the crowd about the newest correctional facility built in Shirley for $2 billion.

She said the state should not spend so much money on prisons when crime rates are dropping and when other social problems need attention.

"Two billion dollars! And you have people sleeping on the sidewalks outside your famed institution [Harvard]," Davis said.

The women also said there is a lack of job training and opportunities for education in facilities like Framingham.

Jaehn said the DOC has 16 job training programs, but that only three--building trades, manicuring, and typing--are for women.

Davis, a Boston University graduate, said she had difficulty enrolling in any job training and education programs while in prison because she already had a college degree.

Williams said she faced the same situation.

"If you come in, like me, with an associate degree," she said, "for the rest of your time you have nothing to do except go out in the yard."

The most effective way to change the DOC is through lobbying, Davis said, telling the audience to question their legislators about prison reform.

"Be informed," she said. "Hell, you're Harvard students. You can question anybody."

Williams, a 36-year-old mother of two, also stressed the importance of showing ex-prisoners how to make changes in their lives.

With three more years of parole to serve, she said she devotes her time to keeping ex-prisoners from ending up back behind bars.

"I try my best to teach women how to turn their lives around," she said.

Williams said low self-esteem often helps drive women to crime, and that the prison environment does not make women feel better about themselves.

"[The guards tell you] 'Now sit down. Now get up. No, you can't see your children. No, you can't have a pen,' "Williams said. "How are you going to fix your self-esteem when that's all you hear?"

The discussion was a part of Education for Action's "Annual Action Week." Nilufar Hossain '00, a member of the organization, said this year's theme of prison reform is a timely topic.

"It's a very salient issue right now," Hossain said.