Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Yesterday, I was officially raised in custody to CMI (DC status). Yes, I’m sitting in my new iso-cube with all the “big guns.” No, what I mean is each of us is in our own cell & Death Row is upstairs…The room looks exactly like T-3109 except this cell has no mirror.

One of the female sergeants who moved me (Baker) said they’d have to go back and get my mattress and pillow. So they locked me in the cell all chained up and very uncomfortable (due to the deformity in my left arm and the old rotor cuff injury to my right shoulder). So she comes back and tells me I can’t have my pillow because I’m DC status (yeah, ok?!? I love how they make rules up as they go along) and right now I can only get my mattress and blanket—all other property must be inspected and approved 9which means if she does, my property, anything I truly want, I won’t get—psychological punishment). She said, “No chessboard.” I said Ok. She undoes my chains. Now I quietly wait for the officer (O’Brian) to catch up her “log” and I ask her to please do my property. She hesitates, then agrees, saying “I should let Sgt do it, so don’t say nothing while I’m doing it or you won’t get anything.” Well, at this point, I’ve only got my blanket—no tissue, no nothing. So I comply. O’Brian gives me all my property quickly before Sgt comes back. Now, I ask O’Brian if the DCs over here (CM I women) have pillows. She says yes. I ask her to get me a pillow. She said she couldn’t go over Sgt’s orders.

So when Sgt comes back, I’m writing a letter. I hear Sgt so I say, “Hey, ‘Chelle (the woman in the cell nearby). Where is Sgt?” She says, “Sitting in front of your door.” So I get up and lo and behold, there she is with a chair pulled up about 5 feet from my cell door.

I ask her, “Is this common practice for you to ‘cop’ a squat in front of a new CMI’s door (cell)?” She said, “I do what I want. Welcome to my world…” I said, “I feel as if you are trying to intimidate me or make it look like I’m causing a problem due to what the Quad Camera will see and the Lt who monitors the images.”

She said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

I then go back to the PILLOW issue…

“So, I can’t have a pillow now considering I had a pillow the entire time I’ve been in CM, right?”

“Right.”

“So is this due to CMI custody?”

“No, it’s due to you being DC.”

“So you’re telling me NO CM DC can have a pillow?”

“No DC can have a pillow.”

“Okay, well, while you were gone, I asked the Quad if they have pillows and they replied Yes, except for 2 women.”

“I’ve worked here a long time and I know what DC can and can’t have. The DCs—nobody in Quad 4 (general population, DC confinement) has a pillow.”

“EXACTLY. NOBODY in Quad 4 has a pillow, but if you failed to notice, I am in QUAD 2, not GPDC confinement and in all my years of being in prison or CM, I never saw or heard of that rule. Could you tell me or show me in Chapter 33 where it states DC CM can’t have a pillow?”

“It’s an institutional rule, not state.”

“Okay, so can you show me where in the Lowell Institution rulebook/handbook for inmates where it states I cannot have a pillow. No, better yet, you can speak to (and I pull out your new letter and go to the page that has the name of the lawyer you contacted) Randall C. Berg, Jr, Esq, head of Florida Justice Institute about it. (And I show her his name. She’s up at my door now) OR just get the Lt. I want to speak to the Lt. Seriously.”

“So you’ll go that far over a pillow?”

“Yes, because you are harassing me and withholding an allowable comfort item because you stated as you chained me up in Quad 3 to move me that you were VERY disappointed in me. Well, your feelings are not of my concern and feelings against an action or me and myself doesn’t constitute a valid reason for you to try to get a rise out of me, to try to make me go off or withhold an item.”

“You know, you have become quite a problem, but you always were trouble.” (She’s talking about my 2003 CM stay)

“And you, my dear sgt, spout from your mouth any ridiculous whim of rule change you want, just to get an inmate to flip out on you.”

Then MM ( a woman from a nearby cell) chimes in. “Savage, she’s trying you. Don’t’ let her win. I’ll tell Lt on her too.”

Sgt says, “See, Moreland’s right. Don’t’ try to win. You can’t.”

I said, “look, just go get the Lt or I’ll yell his name until he comes. I can’t get no further in the Hole than I am, so I got nothing to lose. What do you have to lose?”

She said, “I’m not listening to anymore of this” and she walks out of the Quad. Before she exits, I say, “You’re leaving because you know I’m right. Now don’t come back until you have my pillow!”

A few of the womyn are like, “Oh! That’s right Savage. Stick it to her ass” and a couple whistles and cheers and a couple banging on doors, stating approval of my action.

So I got back to my book and my letter and I hear, “Oh hell no! Haha! Savage did it! Look, here she comes! With pillows!”

I get up and “greet” her at my door and her face is all twisted up vikki, like she sucked some sour lemons. She’s holding 2 pillows and says, “Okay, Savage, which one do you want? The plastic covered one or the cloth one?”

I study them both , have her turn them over so I can inspect them Then I say, “The cloth one will match my sheets better. Thank you so much for your time and attention.”

As she shuts my “flap,” she says, “you should suffocate yourself with it!”

I looked at her and smiled. “No, not in this lifetime. I’ve got prisoners to advocate for and protect…Thank you for the sentiment though and welcome to my world…”

Baker throws the other pillow on the floor between my door and her chair and then asks a couple of women if they need pillows. One said no (she was afraid, I think) and the other said she had one.

MM calls Sgt to her door and reads her, calls her on her bullshit, telling her that she just wanted to get me upset cuz now I can get sprayed with CA (chemical agents—all CMI have spray sheets. I didn’t in Quad 3). She says, “You haven’t acted like that to any inmate in the time I’ve been here in CM1. You’re wrong.”

Sgt says, “She’s wrong.”

MM says, “No, she’s just getting what she’s allowed and she wouldn’t have had to say anything if you would have just brought her her pillow from 3.”

Later, Officer O’Brian comes back and says to me, “Boy, Baker is pissed that the Lt told her to give you a pillow. Once this gets around…Oh man.” The other pillow is on the floor outside my door and I hear the girl ask for the pillow and O’Brian says, “I’m not taking it. Talk to Sgt.”

Well, after O’Brian left, it was just us CMs in our cells, no officers, I said, “THIS is why I’m a CM1, cuz I stick up for me and ‘mine in blue’ even if I don’t know you. Right is right, wrong is wrong and if something needs to be addressed, just tell me, okay? And call me LEE, not SAVAGE.” I spoke a little bit about resistance and education but I didn’t want to overwhelm the badasses and turn them off to who I am or what the struggle is before they even get to learn about it…

So, as I’m sitting here writing you this conversation at 1:40 pm Sunday, I hear Sgt Kerney saying to each CM, “You got a pillow? What type of mattress? You got a pillow?” and she gets to Michelle’s door and Michelle says, “Why you want to know?” (thinking they’re going to take them away)

Kerney says, “Lt Bain ordered me to get all CMs pillows.” She comes to my door and says, “I KNOW you already got your pillow. How’s your mattress?”

Lisa Savage
959277
Lowell Correctional Institution
T-2111/Annex CM, Level I
11120 NW Gainesville Rd
Ocala, FL 34482