The Experience

I went through extreme abuse at Alderson Federal Prison Work Camp. When I came to this camp I did not know my name or where I was. For days I wandered around asking people if they had seen the sun. My name was “the crazy lady on the compound.” I could not hold a conversation, I could not remember anything short-term or long term. I was in shock and traumatized by the whole penal system. I was evaluated and put into the general population housing unit. For months, I tried to make sense of what happened to me. Instead of mental health treatment, I was thrown in solitary confinement for 5 1/2 days because I complained that I needed to see a mental health doctor. I had no idea that in prison the guards do not like people who maintain their innocence or activists. There were also many racists at this facility. So I had 3 strikes against me. At one point I was dragged on the floor by guards and was choked as other guards stood around watching. I was ordered for 30 days to something called the bus stop. On the bus stop, I was ordered to sleep on the top bunk bed under a T5 fluorescent light and I could touch the light with my hand. I told the guards, staff, and warden that the light was too hot and these lights stayed on 24 hours a day. I would have to wrap sheets and towels around my head because of the heat. It felt like being in a microwave. I was walking around with a full suntan in the middle of January. Eventually, these lights burnt my forehead, and I still have the large burn scar on my forehead today. Every day, I look in the mirror and sees these large burn scars on my forehead and I am reminded every day of the abuse I’ve sustained and the injustice of the legal system. I had to file countless complaints under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. This process was set up by President Clinton to block all complaints submitted by inmates. Very seldom you would get a remedy only extreme retaliation by the guards and staff. I continued to complain about the lack of mental health and medical care I was not receiving, nor were the other women at the prison camp. When I filed the lawsuit in West Virginia court, I was able to get letters from other women about the abuse they saw. This was abuse I was subjected to as well. I was ordered to carry heavy wet mop heads up a long hill to another location 5 days a week which caused me damage to my hands, wrist, arms, shoulders, and back. Every day, I am in physical pain and once again I am reminded of that place I was in called Alderson Federal Prison Work Camp for Women.